Giving Your Bathroom A Modern Feel | Easy Home Improvement Blog

Posted: April 9, 2013 | Author: admin | Filed under: Bathroom |

The bathroom is one of the most important rooms in any home, allowing you to get ready for the day ahead or to relax and unwind from the stresses you have faced. With this in mind, it is essential that you have a modern and stylish bathroom in which you feel comfortable and relaxed.

If you are looking to completely replace your bathroom suite, one potential option is to purchase a complete bathroom package. These are put together by bathroom design experts, with quality and style in mind. From simplistic bath suites to the multiple bathing options provided by shower bath suites, there are many different types of bathroom suites available to add a touch of class to your home. While these suites are designed to the highest standards, all elements within a suite can usually be modified, allowing you to make changes to bring the overall style in line with your own personal preferences.

If you would like to upgrade your bathroom but a complete refurbishment is not required or you do not have the budget for this change, there are still plenty of ways you can make your bathroom feel more modern. A new shower enclosure is one of the best ways to bring a bathroom up to date, offering a refreshing and comfortable bathing experience. Modern showers provide complete control over the temperature and the power of the water, meaning you will never again have to worry about the water suddenly going cold, causing a shocking and uncomfortable end to your bathing.

As well as the shower itself, an enclosure is also an essential part of your bathroom. There are many different styles of shower enclosure, depending on your own personal preferences and the style of your bathroom. One of the most popular choices in modern bathroom design is a quadrant shower enclosure . These are ideal for smaller or ensuite bathrooms, ensuring that plenty of space is available for the rest of your bathroom, offering up a number of possibilities for further development.

The bathroom suite of the future

A shower enclosure is just one way you can move the style and design of your bathroom into the modern era. Your bathtub is another element which can give your suite a visually pleasing and attractive appearance, with freestanding baths offering a traditional style that can be customised to have a modern twist. The feet that are added to these bathtubs can ensure they match the overall theme of your bathroom, as well as fitting in with any colour scheme that you may have in mind for your modern and stylish bathroom.

To put the finishing touches to your bathroom, having pictures to the walls or adding new and vibrant colours are an ideal way to improve the overall feel of your space. This is a superb way to modernise your bathroom without having to make any further costly and time consuming additions.

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Source: http://easyhomeimprovement.co.uk/2013/04/09/giving-your-bathroom-a-modern-feel/

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Apps help U.S. consumers rent from each other

By Natasha Baker

TORONTO (Reuters) - Whether it is houses, cars, luxury clothing or sports equipment, more consumers are opting to rent, borrow or lease than buy, and a range of new apps are helping them do it online.

In the last two years, more than half of Americans surveyed said they had rented items they would have purchased in the past, according to a poll about buying habits commissioned by solar panel rental company Sunrun.

The trend toward renting was highest in people 55 years and older, the poll of 2,252 Americans found.

"There's a return to simplicity, a return to cutting down on waste and being a little bit smarter about how you spend your money and what you buy," Sunrun co-founder Lynn Jurich said.

Getaround, which is available for iPhone users and on the web, is a free car-sharing app that allows users to rent vehicles from other people. Users can find nearby cars, reserve them and unlock them with the app. Another free app called RelayRides provides a similar service.

For consumers interested in ride-sharing, SideCar and Lyft, both available for iPhone and Android, help people hitch rides for a fee. The service can be less expensive than taxis and gives riders an opportunity to meet new people.

The apps use social networks, such as Facebook, to show the identity of the user and provider, and any mutual associations, to make people feel more comfortable doing business with strangers online, said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and an expert on digital economics.

"Relationships and ties that exist in the real world are now available to marketplaces to take advantage of. They don't have to build trust from scratch to get people to participate," he said.

On DogVacay, an iPhone and web app that helps vacationing pet owners find temporary care for their dog, identities are verified via Facebook and telephone interviews.

Car-sharing apps such as Getaround provide insurance coverage for both the car owner and driver for liability, collision and theft. Airbnb, an app for private rental accommodations, offers property owners up to a $1 million insurance guarantee.

While a downturn in the economy and a return to simplicity may be fueling the trend and the apps that support it, Sundararajan believes demand will continue, even if the economy bounces back strongly.

"In many ways, it's just as much about getting access to greater variety and quality," he said.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apps-help-u-consumers-rent-other-185746417.html

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US expected to increase aid to Syrian rebels

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, right, greets US Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of a meeting in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in central London, Wednesday April 10, 2013. Kerry is meeting in London with Syrian opposition leaders and Russia's top diplomat, a day after saying the U.S. could soon step up aid to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. Kerry is in London for a G8 foreign ministers' meeting today and Thursday. (AP Photo/Paul J. Richards, pool)

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, right, greets US Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of a meeting in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in central London, Wednesday April 10, 2013. Kerry is meeting in London with Syrian opposition leaders and Russia's top diplomat, a day after saying the U.S. could soon step up aid to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. Kerry is in London for a G8 foreign ministers' meeting today and Thursday. (AP Photo/Paul J. Richards, pool)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration's next step in aid to Syrian rebels is expected to be a broader package of nonlethal assistance, including body armor and night-vision goggles, as the U.S. grapples for ways to stem the bloodshed from Syria's civil war.

Administration officials say an announcement of the new aid is not imminent. But Secretary of State John Kerry says the administration had been holding intense talks on how to boost assistance to the rebels fighting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"Those efforts have been very much front and center in our discussions in the last week in Washington," Kerry said Tuesday, a day before meeting with Syrian opposition leaders in London. "I'm not sure what the schedule is, but I do believe that it's important for us to try to continue to put the pressure on President Assad and to try to change his calculation."

The United Nations estimates more than 70,000 people have been killed during more than two years of fighting between rebels and government forces.

Britain and France have already been shipping armor, night-vision goggles and other military-style equipment to the rebels.

Earlier this year, the U.S. announced a $60 million nonlethal assistance package for Syria that includes meals and medical supplies for the armed opposition. The aid package marked the first direct American assistance to the opposition forces trying to overthrow Assad.

But thus far, the U.S. has resisted providing lethal weapons to the rebels, in part out of fear that the arms could fall into the hands of jihadi groups that are designated as terrorist fronts linked to al-Qaida. However, the U.S. has said it would not stand in the way of other nations that decide to arm the rebels.

Senior officials from the White House, State Department and Pentagon held a high-level meeting Friday that focused on Syria.

In London, Kerry attended a British-hosted lunch alongside several leading members of the Syrian opposition. They included the interim prime minister, Hassan Hitto; Vice Presidents Suheir Atassi and George Sabra; Secretary-General Najib Ghadbian and the opposition's envoys to the United States and Britain.

Kerry then was to meet one-on-one with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for talks on the Syrian civil war and several U.S.-Russian disputes that have strained the relationship. Discussions on Syria are expected to continue into Wednesday night when the top diplomats from all the Group of Eight industrialized nations get together.

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Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper in London contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-10-US-Syria/id-29d2dc72a42c4028a853a3ffdf2e2c2b

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Shingles vaccine is associated with reduction in both postherpetic neuralgia and herpes zoster

Apr. 9, 2013 ? Shingles vaccine is associated with reduction in both postherpetic neuralgia and herpes zoster, but uptake in the US is low.

A vaccine to prevent shingles may reduce by half the occurrence of this painful skin and nerve infection in older people (aged over 65 years) and may also reduce the rate of a painful complication of shingles, post-herpetic neuralgia, but has a very low uptake (only 4%) in older adults in the United States, according to a study by UK and US researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

The researchers, led by Sin?ad Langan from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, reached these conclusions by examining the records of 766,330 Medicare beneficiaries* aged 65 years or more between 2007 and 2009.

They found that shingles vaccine uptake was extremely low -- only 3.9% of participants were vaccinated -- but was particularly low among black people (0.3%) and among people with a low income (0.6%).

Over the study period, almost 13,000 participants developed shingles and the vaccine reduced the rate of shingles by 48% (that is, approximately half as many vaccinated individuals developed shingles as those who were not vaccinated). However, the vaccine was less effective in older adults with impaired immune systems. The authors also found that vaccine effectiveness against post-herpetic neuralgia was 59%.

The authors say: "Herpes zoster vaccination was associated with a significant reduction in incident herpes zoster and [post-herpetic neuralgia] in routine clinical use."

They continue: "Despite strong evidence supporting its effectiveness, clinical use remains disappointingly low with particularly low vaccination rates in particular patient groups."

The authors add: " The findings are relevant beyond US medical practice, being of major importance to the many countries, including the UK, that are actively considering introducing the zoster vaccine into routine practice in the near future."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Sin?ad M. Langan, Liam Smeeth, David J. Margolis, Sara L. Thomas. Herpes Zoster Vaccine Effectiveness against Incident Herpes Zoster and Post-herpetic Neuralgia in an Older US Population: A Cohort Study. PLoS Medicine, 2013; 10 (4): e1001420 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001420

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/QybIeyvGhYg/130409173504.htm

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How a weight-loss drug could improve fragile x symptoms | MNN ...

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The drug, called rimonabant, blocks receptors that are activated by marijuana in the brain. Mice treated with the drug in the study showed improved memory and reduced seizures, and ?more normal sensitivity to pain, compared with mice not treated with the drug.

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It's not clear whether the same improvements could happen in people. Rimonabant, which basically works by creating the opposite effect of "the munchies" (or an increased appetite experienced by some marijuana users), was withdrawn from the market in 2009 because it caused depression and suicidal thoughts in some patients.

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However, the drug seems to improve autismlike symptoms at much lower doses than those typically used for weight loss, said study co-author Arnau Busquets Garcia, a neuroscience researcher at the University Pompeu Fabra in Spain.

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"It could be an interesting therapy approach in humans, but I think there is a lot of work to do to confirm this," Busquets Garcia said.

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Overactive brain cells

People with fragile X syndrome have a single change in a gene called FMR1, which prevents them from making enough of a key brain chemical that directs communication between brain cells. As a result, brain cells tend to fire too much, causing seizures, mental retardation, memory problems and insensitivity to pain.

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The research team noticed that receptors called CB1 receptors, which are activated by marijuana, also played a role in the firing of brain cells. Because brain cells go haywire in fragile X syndrome, they wondered whether quieting these receptors could reduce the symptoms of the disease.

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To find out, they gave rimonabant to mice that had a genetic change similar to fragile X, and measured the effects.

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Blocking the marijuana receptors?with rimonabant improved the mice's performance in a memory maze, and also eliminated their cognitive deficits. Mice given rimonabant also had fewer seizures and more normal pain responses.

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When examined under a microscope, the brain cells also looked more like healthy brain cells than those typical of fragile X syndrome.

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Autism symptoms

The new approach could, in theory, show promise for other forms of autism.

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"In lots of these autism deficits, there are also these imbalances between excitatory and inhibitory signals in the brain," Busquets Garcia said.

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However, the researchers would first have to show that rimonabant was safe at lower doses, and effective in people who had fragile X syndrome, he said.

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The findings were published March 31 in the journal Nature Medicine.

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Related on MyHealthNewsDaily and MNN:

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This story was originally written for MyHealthNewsDaily and is reprinted with permission here. Copyright 2013 MyHealthNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company.

Source: http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/how-a-weight-loss-drug-could-improve-fragile-x-symptoms

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iMaze Lets You Turn Your Photos Into A Maze And Race Your Friends To The Finish

While visiting, and judging, the Photo Hack Day at Facebook headquarters yesterday, one of the more than 60 hacks presented in a two-minute format was iMaze. The team that put it together in just a little over a day was comprised of developers, some of whom were high-school students, and it ended up being one of the most polished apps coming out of the hackathon. With Aviary and Facebook putting on the event, some really cool things came out of it, but iMaze is one that just flat-out stuck with me. It’s simple: It turns your favorite photos into a maze. Once the maze is created, you can either make your way through it yourself or challenge your friend over the web in a real-time speed-test. Before we get to the app itself, the team geekily put together some stats on what went into making iMaze: 5 People 24 Hours 1304mg of Caffine 1,492 Lines of Code 194 GitHub Commits 12,920 Calories 3 APIs Impressive. Now to iMaze. Since you probably have a ton of photos on your computer or tossed about all over the web, iMaze uses Filepicker.io to let you pull in photos from Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr, Google Drive, Google Photos, Instagram or of course your machine. Once you upload the photo, you can use Aviary to edit it down before it’s turned into an interactive maze game that changes each time you upload a photo. Pick single player or invite a friend, and then compete with them in real-time. Now you’re ready to compete in getting all the way through this ZuckMaze by dragging the line with your mouse: Considering that this was a hack put together in a day, it’s pretty fun and well-designed. The iMaze team won third place overall, but I hope that they keep working on it, because it would be a fun Facebook game and app. Once in a while, I enjoy playing hangman or Tic Tac Toe, not because I’m a gamer, but because I like doing something while I chat with my friends. Considering that these mazes are built on top of your photos, it’s a nice way to reuse images from the past and start a fun discussion with your closest pals.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7LXjzN7zgJc/

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Judge deals blow to high-tech workers' lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? A federal judge on Friday struck down an effort to form a class action lawsuit to go after Apple, Google and five other technology companies for allegedly forming an illegal cartel to tamp down workers' wages and prevent the loss of their best engineers during a multiyear conspiracy broken up by government regulators.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., issued a ruling Friday concluding that the companies' alleged collusion may have affected workers in too many different ways to justify lumping the individual claims together. She denied the request to certify workers' lawsuits as a class action and collectively seek damages on behalf of tens of thousands of employees.

The allegations will be more difficult to pursue if they can't be united in a single lawsuit. Koh, though, will allow the workers' lawyers to submit additional evidence that they have been collecting to persuade her that the lawsuit still merits class certification.

"Plaintiffs appreciate the court's thorough consideration of the evidence and are prepared to address the court's concerns fully in a renewed motion," employee attorney Kelly Dermody wrote in a Friday email.

Apple Inc., Google Inc. and the other companies targeted in the lawsuit have been vigorously fighting the allegations. More is at stake than potentially paying out significant damages to more than 100,000 workers. If the lawsuit proceeds, it could also expose secret discussions among prominent technology executives who entered into a "gentlemen's agreement" not to poach employees working at their respective companies.

The case, filed in San Jose federal court, already has disclosed emails raising questions about the tactics of Apple's former CEO, the late Steve Jobs, and Google's former CEO, Eric Schmidt. Other sensitive information has so far been redacted in various court documents, including parts of Koh's 53-page ruling, but more dirty laundry could be aired if the lawsuit proceeds.

The lawsuit is trying to hold the companies accountable for an alleged scheme that cheated employees by artificially suppressing the demand for their services. The complaint hinges on the contention that the workers would have gotten raises either from their current employers or at other jobs if an anti-poaching provision hadn't been imposed. In most instances, the recruiting restrictions were in place from March 2005 through December 2009, according to the lawsuit.

Besides Apple and Google, the lawsuit is aimed at computer chip maker Intel Corp., software makers Intuit Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc., and film makers Pixar and LucasFilm, both of which are now owned by Walt Disney Co.

With the exception of LucasFilm, all the companies being sued settled similar allegations of an anti-poaching conspiracy with the U.S. Justice Department in 2010. The government opened its investigation in 2009 after finding evidence that the companies had reached behind-the-scenes agreements not to recruit each other's employees without permission. Apple, Google and the other companies lifted their poaching prohibitions without acknowledging any wrongdoing, as part of their settlement with the Justice Department.

Documents filed in the lawsuit indicated executives knew they were behaving badly. Both Schmidt and Intel CEO Paul Otellini indicated that they were worried about the anti-recruiting agreements being discovered, according to declarations cited in Koh's ruling. Nevertheless, Schmidt still fired a Google recruiter who riled Jobs by contacting an Apple employee, according to evidence submitted in the case.

Sometimes, workers who applied for a vacant position of their own volition were turned away if they were employed by one of the companies already adhering to the recruiting restrictions.

In her ruling, Koh said there's evidence that some of the employees working at the companies named in the lawsuit probably didn't earn as much money as they would have in a completely free market.

"The sustained personal efforts by the corporations' own chief executives...to monitor and enforce these agreements indicate that the agreements may have had broad effects on (their) employees," she wrote.

The problem with the lawsuit, Koh said, is that the circumstances for each employee differ too widely to qualify as a class action.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-04-05-Tech%20Jobs-Lawsuit/id-d67119caafb5448ea38aeab1f0842658

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Broadcasters worry about 'Zero TV' homes

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Some people have had it with TV. They've had enough of the 100-plus channel universe. They don't like timing their lives around network show schedules. They're tired of $100-plus monthly bills.

A growing number of them have stopped paying for cable and satellite TV service, and don't even use an antenna to get free signals over the air. These people are watching shows and movies on the Internet, sometimes via cellphone connections. Last month, the Nielsen Co. started labeling people in this group "Zero TV" households, because they fall outside the traditional definition of a TV home. There are 5 million of these residences in the U.S., up from 2 million in 2007.

Winning back the Zero TV crowd will be one of the many issues broadcasters discuss at their national meeting, called the NAB Show, taking place this week in Las Vegas.

While show creators and networks make money from this group's viewing habits through deals with online video providers and from advertising on their own websites and apps, broadcasters only get paid when they relay such programming in traditional ways. Unless broadcasters can adapt to modern platforms, their revenue from Zero TV viewers will be zero.

"Getting broadcast programing on all the gizmos and gadgets ? like tablets, the backseats of cars, and laptops ? is hugely important," says Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters.

Although Wharton says more than 130 TV stations in the U.S. are broadcasting live TV signals to mobile devices, few people have the tools to receive them. Most cellphones require an add-on device known as a dongle, but these gadgets are just starting to be sold.

Among this elusive group of consumers is Jeremy Carsen Young, a graphic designer, who is done with traditional TV. Young has a working antenna sitting unplugged on his back porch in Roanoke, Va., and he refuses to put it on the roof.

"I don't think we'd use it enough to justify having a big eyesore on the house," the 30-year-old says.

Online video subscriptions from Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. ? which cost less than $15 a month combined ? have given him and his partner plenty to watch. They take in back episodes of AMC's "The Walking Dead" and The CW's "Supernatural," and they don't need more, he says.

He doesn't mind waiting as long as a year for the current season's episodes to appear on streaming services, even if his friends accidently blurt out spoilers in the meantime. With regular television, he might have missed the latest developments, anyway.

"By the time it gets to me to watch, I've kind of forgotten about that," he says.

For the first time, TV ratings giant Nielsen took a close look at this category of viewer in its quarterly video report released in March. It plans to measure their viewing of new TV shows starting this fall, with an eye toward incorporating the results in the formula used to calculate ad rates.

"Our commitment is to being able to measure the content wherever it is," says Dounia Turrill, Nielsen's senior vice president of insights.

The Zero TV segment is increasingly important, because the number of people signing up for traditional TV service has slowed to a standstill in the U.S.

Last year, the cable, satellite and telecoms providers added just 46,000 video customers collectively, according to research firm SNL Kagan. That is tiny when compared to the 974,000 new households created last year. While it's still 100.4 million homes, or 84.7 percent of all households, it's down from the peak of 87.3 percent in early 2010.

Nielsen's study suggests that this new group may have left traditional TV for good. While three-quarters actually have a physical TV set, only 18 percent are interested in hooking it up through a traditional pay TV subscription.

Zero TVers tend to be younger, single and without children. Nielsen's senior vice president of insights, Dounia Turrill, says part of the new monitoring regime is meant to help determine whether they'll change their behavior over time. "As these homes change life stage, what will happen to them?"

Cynthia Phelps, a 43-year-old maker of mental health apps in San Antonio, Texas, says there's nothing that will bring her back to traditional TV. She's watched TV in the past, of course, but for most of the last 10 years she's done without it.

She finds a lot of programs online to watch on her laptop for free ? like the TED talks educational series ? and every few months she gets together with friends to watch older TV shows on DVD, usually "something totally geeky," like NBC's "Chuck."

The 24-hour news channels make her anxious or depressed, and buzz about the latest hot TV shows like "Mad Men" doesn't make her feel like she's missing out. She didn't know who the Kardashian family was until she looked them up a few years ago.

"I feel absolutely no social pressure to keep up with the Joneses in that respect," she says.

For Phelps, it's less about saving money than choice. She says she'd rather spend her time productively and not get "sucked into" shows she'll regret later.

"I don't want someone else dictating the media I get every day," she says. "I want to be in charge of it. When I have a TV, I'm less in control of that."

The TV industry has a host of buzz words to describe these non-traditionalist viewers. There are "cord-cutters," who stop paying for TV completely, and make do with online video and sometimes an antenna. There are "cord-shavers," who reduce the number of channels they subscribe to, or the number of rooms pay TV is in, to save money.

Then there are the "cord-nevers," young people who move out on their own and never set up a landline phone connection or a TV subscription. They usually make do with a broadband Internet connection, a computer, a cellphone and possibly a TV set that is not hooked up the traditional way.

That's the label given to the group by Richard Schneider, the president and founder of the online retailer Antennas Direct. The site is doing great business selling antennas capable of accepting free digital signals since the nation's transition to digital over-the-air broadcasts in 2009, and is on pace to sell nearly 600,000 units this year, up from a few dozen when it started in 2003.

While the "cord-nevers" are a target market for him, the category is also troubling. More people are raised with the power of the Internet in their pocket, and don't know or care that you can pull TV signals from the air for free.

"They're more aware of Netflix than they're aware over-the-air is even available," Schneider says.

That brings us to truck driver James Weitze. The 31-year-old satisfies his video fix with an iPhone. He often sleeps in his truck, and has no apartment. To be sure, he's an extreme case who doesn't fit into Nielsen's definition of a household in the first place. But he's watching Netflix enough to keep up with shows like "Weeds," ''30 Rock," ''Arrested Development," ''Breaking Bad," ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Sons of Anarchy."

He's not opposed to TV per se, and misses some ESPN sports programs like the "X Games."

But he's so divorced from the traditional TV ecosystem it could be hard to go back. It's become easier for him to navigate his smartphone than to figure out how to use a TV set-top box and the button-laden remote control.

"I'm pretty tech savvy, but the TV industry with the cable and the television and the boxes, you don't know how to use their equipment," he says. "I try to go over to my grandma's place and teach her how to do it. I can't even figure it out myself."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/broadcasters-worry-zero-tv-homes-154357101--finance.html

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Bird flu mutation study offers vaccine clue

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Scientists have described small genetic changes that enable the H5N1 bird flu virus to replicate more easily in the noses of mammals.

So far there have only been isolated cases of bird flu in humans, and no widespread transmission as the H5N1 virus can't replicate efficiently in the nose. The new study, using weakened viruses in the lab, supports the conclusions of controversial research published in 2012 which demonstrated that just a few genetic mutations could enable bird flu to spread between ferrets, which are used to model flu infection in humans.

Researchers say the new findings could help to develop more effective vaccines against new strains of bird flu that can spread between humans.

"Knowing why bird flu struggles to replicate in the nose and understanding the genetic mutations that would enable it to happen are vital for monitoring viruses circulating in birds and preparing for an outbreak in humans," said Professor Wendy Barclay, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, who led the study.

"The studies published last year pointed to a mechanism that restricts replication of H5N1 viruses in the nose. We've engineered a different mutation with the same effect into one of the virus proteins and achieved a similar outcome. This suggests that there is a common mechanism by which bird flu could evolve to spread between humans, but that a number of different specific mutations might mediate that."

Bird flu only rarely infects humans because the human nose has different receptors to those of birds and is also more acidic. The Imperial team studied mutations in the gene for haemagglutinin, a protein on the surface of the virus that enables it to get into host cells. They carried out their experiments in a laboratory strain of flu with the same proteins on its surface as bird flu, but engineered so that it cannot cause serious illness.

The research found that mutations in the H5 haemagglutinin enabled the protein to tolerate higher levels of acidity. Viruses with these mutations and others that enabled them to bind to different receptors were able to replicate more efficiently in ferrets and spread from one animal to another.

The results have important implications for designing vaccines against potential pandemic strains of bird flu. Live attenuated flu vaccines (LAIV) might be used in a pandemic situation because it is possible to manufacture many more doses of this type of vaccine than of the killed virus vaccines used to protect against seasonal flu. LAIV are based on weakened viruses that don't cause illness, but they still have to replicate in order to elicit a strong immune response. Viruses with modified haemagglutinin proteins induced strong antibody responses in ferrets in this study, suggesting that vaccines with similar modifications might prove more effective than those tested previously.

"We can't predict how bird flu viruses will evolve in the wild, but the more we understand about the kinds of mutations that will enable them to transmit between humans, the better we can prepare for a possible pandemic," said Professor Barclay.

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust and published in the Journal of General Virology.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Imperial College London. The original article was written by Sam Wong.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. H. Shelton, K. L. Roberts, E. Molesti, N. Temperton, W. S. Barclay. Mutations in hemagglutinin that affect receptor binding and pH stability increase replication of a PR8 influenza virus with H5 HA in the upper respiratory tract of ferrets and may contribute to transmissibility.. Journal of General Virology, 2013; DOI: 10.1099/vir.0.050526-0

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/1bo5URhKBC8/130408085043.htm

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It's Not Just You, Twitter's Latest Android Update Doesn't Let You Access Your Profile Or DMs On The ?Me? Tab

Twitter rolled out sweeping updates to all of its mobile properties this week, mostly to support the new Twitter Cards, but unfortunately, those who are using the service on Android aren’t so happy. The app has always been a bit buggy on the Android platform, but the issues that are being reported are more than just a little problematic. Users have experienced not being able to open the “Me” tab which allows you to access your DMs and switch accounts, important parts of the service. I’ve experienced this bug from the second that the update was released, and I’ve heard that Twitter is working on the issue. It’s not affecting all devices, but this tweet search shows it as being pretty widespread. You’re presented with a blank screen and a small spinner, with no information or message that says that the service is having any problems. At first, I thought that I just had a poor connection, but after using the app with Wi-Fi turned on, it became clear that this was a big ol’ bug: Since Twitter has been streamlining all of its apps, and site, it’s a glaring issue when one of the four tabs don’t work. While no timeframe is being offered, and Twitter hasn’t made an official statement on the issue, it’s safe to say that the beautiful redesign that the Android app received is overshadowed by these issues. If you’re having the same issue, you might have to revert to using the mobile version of the site, as I’ve done. Or, you could search for yourself and get to your profile that way. The nice part about Google Play is that as soon as Twitter updates the app with a new build, it will go live for everyone to grab without any submission process like Apple’s. Hurry up, Twitter, people are cheesed off about not being able to get their DMs from cute girls and stuff. [Photo credit: Flickr]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-hxGoCCNtKc/

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Google uses Facebook Home announcement to plug other Google services

By Iain Rogers MADRID, April 7 (Reuters) - If Saturday's La Liga match at home to Real Mallorca was a test to see if Barcelona could cope without Lionel Messi, they passed it with flying colours. The World Player of the Year was ruled out with a damaged hamstring, the first league game he has missed through injury since the 2010-11 season, but Barca made light of his absence with a crushing 5-0 victory that maintained their 13-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid with eight games left. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-uses-facebook-home-announcement-plug-other-google-020209370.html

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South Africa's Mandela leaves hospital after pneumonia

By Jon Herskovitz

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela left hospital on Saturday after more than a week of treatment of pneumonia that raised global concern about the health of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

"(He) has been discharged from hospital today ... following a sustained and gradual improvement in his general condition," the South African presidency said in a statement.

A military ambulance pulled into Mandela's spacious Johannesburg home before the statement was released. The presidency said Mandela, who spent about 10 days in hospital, would receive further medical care at his residence.

This was the third health scare in four months for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and who is a global symbol of tolerance and the struggle for equality.

He was in hospital briefly in early March for a check-up and was hospitalised in December for nearly three weeks with a lung infection and after surgery to remove gallstones.

Mandela stepped down as president in 1999 and has not been politically active for a decade. But he is still revered at home and abroad for leading the long campaign against apartheid and then championing racial reconciliation while in office.

His lung problems date from when he contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years on Robben Island and in other jails for trying to oust the white-minority government.

Mandela's last notable public appearance was at the final of the soccer World Cup in 2010. Since then, he has stayed at his home in Johannesburg or in Qunu, the remote village where he was born in the impoverished province of Eastern Cape.

REMINDER OF MORTALITY

For several years South Africans have watched Mandela's health gradually deteriorate, reminding them of the mortality of the man whose face adorns the nation's new banknotes.

As he has receded from public life, critics say his ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost the moral compass he bequeathed it when he stepped down as president in 1999.

"There are those in South Africa who argue that the ANC, especially under the leadership of current President Jacob Zuma, has deviated from Mandela's principles and values," said political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi.

Under such leaders as Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, the ANC gained international respect as it battled white rule.

Once the yoke of apartheid was thrown off in 1994, it began governing South Africa in a blaze of goodwill from world leaders who viewed it as a beacon for a troubled continent and world.

Almost two decades later, this image has dimmed as ANC leaders have been accused of indulging in the spoils of office, squandering mineral resources and engaging in power struggles.

Mandela was criticised for not doing enough to prevent an HIV/AIDS epidemic and for making political compromises in the transition from apartheid that have kept the black majority from benefiting significantly from South Africa's mineral wealth.

The country has some of the world's highest rates of income inequality. Nearly two decades after the end of apartheid, the average white household earns about six times more than the average black household, according to government data.

But Mandela's achievement in leading South Africa out of apartheid is seen as eclipsing any criticism.

"There was no one else in 1994 who could have pulled off what he did and kept the country together and kept those forces at bay that would have plunged South Africa into a racial, civil war," analyst Matshiqi said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mandela-discharged-hospital-says-african-presidency-125710691.html

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Comedy on Mexico income gap a big screen hit

This undated promotional image released by Warner Bros. Studios shows actors, from left, Luis Gerardo Mendez, Karla Souza, Juan Pablo Gil and Gonzalo Vega in the movie "Nosotros los Nobles," or ?We are the Nobles.? The Mexican riches-to-rags movie has opened to packed theaters in a country with one of the world's widest income gaps, and a love for laughing at misfortune. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Studios)

This undated promotional image released by Warner Bros. Studios shows actors, from left, Luis Gerardo Mendez, Karla Souza, Juan Pablo Gil and Gonzalo Vega in the movie "Nosotros los Nobles," or ?We are the Nobles.? The Mexican riches-to-rags movie has opened to packed theaters in a country with one of the world's widest income gaps, and a love for laughing at misfortune. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Studios)

This undated promotional image released by Warner Bros. Studios shows actors, from left, Luis Gerardo Mendez, Juan Pablo Gil, Gonzalo Vega and Karla Souza in the movie "Nosotros los Nobles," or ?We are the Nobles.? The Mexican riches-to-rags movie has opened to packed theaters in a country with one of the world's widest income gaps, and a love for laughing at misfortune. In Mexico, 10 percent of the people held nearly 40 percent of the wealth in 2010, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America. The world's richest man, Carlos Slim, holds more than 6 percent himself. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Studios)

This undated promotional image released by Warner Bros. Studios shows actor Luis Gerardo Mendez, left, Juan Pablo Gil, center, and Karla Souza in the movie "Nosotros los Nobles." The Mexican riches-to-rags movie, ?We are the Nobles? has opened to packed theaters in a country with one of the world's widest income gaps, and a love for laughing at misfortune. More than 1 million people showed up in the first week to see the story of an impresario who fakes a government raid on his riches to teach his children the value of work. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Studios)

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? A construction magnate's preppy son is forced to drive one of Mexico City's battered green buses, while his spoiled sister waits tables at a cantina in a miniskirt and non-designer shoes. Their credit cards have been canceled, their BMWs and mansion seized.

OMG!

The Mexican riches-to-rags movie, "We are the Nobles" has opened to packed theaters in a country with one of the world's widest income gaps ? and a love for laughing at misfortune. More than 1 million people showed up in the first week to see the story of an impresario who fakes a government raid on his riches to teach his children the value of work.

Only a Hollywood blockbuster featuring Bruce Willis and DreamWorks' latest 3D animation beat it at the box office last weekend, the second-biggest opening for a domestic film here in more than 10 years.

"Latin America is a region where middle class is very small," said writer and director Gary "Gaz"Alazraki. "So I thought if you want to capture the mood of the public with cinema, that's the first place to look, the contrast between rich and poor."

In the movie, patriarch German Noble's eldest son spends his days at daddy's company dreaming up big ideas, such as mixing the world's largest rum and Coke in Mexico City's storied Aztec Stadium. His daughter is engaged to a failed businessman and aspires to open a restaurant on her father's dime. The youngest is a hipster who preaches against capitalism, even as dad pays his private college tuition ? until he is expelled for sleeping with a professor.

After surviving a heart attack and getting a second chance at life, Noble decides to stage a raid on his Beverly Hills-like home.

"Can someone please explain why they are confiscating all our stuff, as if we were in Venezuela?" the agitated daughter, Barbie, demands to know in the Mexican equivalent of Valley speak.

"They discovered fraud," German Noble tells her.

"Jesus Christ," she answers in English.

People like the fictitious Nobles can be seen on any ritzy corner of the city, where Mexico's carefully coiffed, wearing the highest fashions, can be seen stepping from the running boards of their enormous SUVs, their bodyguards lurking outside as they go for a workout or pedicure. They have been to the best schools in the world and the finest malls in Texas, but never to one of the city's ubiquitous, crowded marketplaces or a street-food stand.

"I haven't seen the archetypes of urban Mexico portrayed on the big screen so well in a long time," said Oscar de los Reyes, an expert on cinema and society at the Technological Institute of Monterrey.

It's not surprising that the social contrast is playing big in the cinema. In Mexico, 10 percent of the people held nearly 40 percent of the wealth in 2010, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America. The world's richest man, Carlos Slim, holds more than 6 percent himself. While Americans look up to the rich, believing they too could be among them one day, the dream is mostly unattainable in Mexico, where upward mobility is smaller and slower.

Videos and tweets displaying the arrogance of Mexico's privileged class periodically go viral.

One video, recorded by a passer-by, shows two rich girls, dubbed "the Ladies of Polanco" after one of Mexico City's most exclusive neighborhoods, shoving, slapping and insulting a traffic cop who pulled them over suspecting they were drunk. In another clip drawn from surveillance cameras a man in an affluent suburb beats up the valet of his luxurious apartment building for not providing a jack to replace a flat tire on his Porsche.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's daughter reacted to people who laughed at one of her father's campaign gaffes by tweeting that they were "a bunch of idiots who form part of the proletariat and only criticize those they envy," causing a national uproar. The tweet disappeared and Pena Nieto apologized.

Alazraki said he was trying to capture the behavior behind Paulina Pena's tweet in his film, whose hashtag is (hash)WelcomeToTheProle.

He acknowledges he comes from the very society he is lampooning. His father, Carlos Alazraki, is an influential advertising businessman behind several presidential campaigns and publicity for Slim's restaurants and phone company. When he was younger, Alazraki has said in interviews, all he cared about was having the prettiest girlfriend and going to the hottest club. After attending film school at the University of Southern California, he now pities people who stay inside the bubble of Mexico's rich.

"It's very interesting to see our characters transform," said Luis Gerardo Mendez, who plays Javi. "You get to see on one side how this group of people spends so much money, and on the other end, the everyday jobs people have to do to survive. People who think there is no racism here, there is. It is called classism."

The script was inspired by the 1949 film "The Great Madcap" by surrealist Luis Bunuel, in which a rich man wasting his money and life is fooled into thinking he lost his fortune. It leads his family members to take low-paying jobs as seamstresses, shoe shiners and carpenters.

The three Noble offspring end up working as a bus driver, a waitress and a bank teller.

"What is your biggest problem?" eldest son Javi Noble asks a fellow bus driver.

"There is this chick from my town who says that her child is mine and she wants me to send her money. But she can't prove it. So, until I send her money, she will send her cousins with sticks and machetes..."

"For that, you need bodyguards," Javi tells him.

Barbie, meanwhile, ends up falling for her nanny's nephew, a youth she once teased for being poor.

When he tells her that he used money her father loaned him to open a stand selling pirated CDs, she scolds him: "Did you know that drug traffickers run those informal CD shops ... Seriously, you are only fostering crime in this country."

He becomes enraged.

"The criminals are your little friends," he says. "Don't tell me you don't know about the two friends who were at your most recent party. The politician's sons. Haven't you seen the videos? Everyone did. If you are really worried about your country, don't feed them, don't invite them to your parties, don't get on their yachts."

Moviegoers said they find a lot of reality in the humor. Arturo Lopez, who works in construction, said he has friends like the Nobles.

"Here, your social status depends completely on what you have," he said at an exclusive movie theater in high-end Polanco. "It's really ugly, but there are many people like that."

Maria Larios, a nurse, paid a third of the luxury theater's ticket price to see the same film in the middle-class neighborhood of Santa Maria La Ribera.

"This is real," Larios said. "There are people who are very picky and stuck-up. When the roles are reversed, it changes them, brings them down to earth."

_______

Adriana Gomez Licon is on Twitter http://twitter.com/agomezlicon

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-05-Mexico-Movie-Riches%20to%20Rags/id-da6327d3e7b14b4c8d84be8066d12235

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'LetterScapes' By Anna Saccani Puts Typography In The Spotlight (PHOTOS)

"A public lettering is made unique by the relationships it sets up with what is around it: not a blank page, but the sky, the streets, the sunlight with the shadows it creates, the rain making the colours brighter, combined with the slow erosion from the passage of time," Anna Saccani writes in the introduction to her new book, "LetterScapes" (Thames & Hudson, May 2013).

What began as Saccani's doctoral thesis turned into an ode to the art of large-scale public typography projects. Besides Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE statue in Philadelphia, the book includes Lawerence Weiner's NYC manhole covers stating, "iN DiRECT LiNE WiTH ANOTHER & THE NEXT," as well as Maya Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Looking at both the sculptures themselves and how they function in a public context, Saccani shows us that "LOVE" can mean something different in New York City or in Tokyo, depending on the context.

Scroll down to see some of Saccani's LetterScapes in the slideshow, and tell us what your favorite examples of public lettering are in the comments.

• NYC MANHOLE COVERS, LAWRENCE WEINER

  Nineteen manhole covers were installed in New York City by the Public Art Fund in collaboration with the Consolidated Edison Company and the Roman Stone. Photo Credit: Kirsten Vibeke Thueson Weiner From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• LITTLE SPARTA, IAN HAMILTON FINLAY

  From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013) Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Archive of Ian Hamilton Finlay and Sam Rebben

• HOUSE OF TERROR MUSEUM, ATTILA F. KOVACS

  Photo Credit: Attila F. Kovacs From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• BRITISH LIBRARY GATES, CARDOZO KINDERSLEY WORKSHOP

  Details of the ?lettergrid? that makes up the gates of the British Library. Photo Credit: Gianluca Balzerano From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• BARCINO, JOHN BROSSA

  The arrangement of Brossa?s individual sculptures in front of the original Roman walls. Photo Credit: Ruben Cruz Vegas From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• WELLINGTON WRITERS WALK, CATHERINE GRIFFITHS

  From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013) Photo Credit: Jason Busch

• BRITISH LIBRARY GATES, CARDOZO KINDERSLEY WORKSHOP

  Gates constructed from letterforms grant entry to one of the world?s great temples of learning. Photo Credit: Carlos Santos Armendariz From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• LOVE , ROBERT INDIANA

  The evolution of Robert Indiana?s idea from art piece, to public installation, to Pop icon. Photo credit: John Doe From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• 9 WEST 57TH STREET, CHERMAYEFF & GEISMAR

  The curve of the skyscraper suggested the idea of a launching pad with the installation sliding down it and landing on the pavement. Photo Credit: Michele Bruni From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

• MARION CULTURAL CENTRE, ASHTON RAGGATT MCDOUGALL

  A symbolic integration of architecture and lettering creates a landmark for a growing community. Photo Credit: Peter Bennetts, Courtesy of the Ashton Raggatt McDougall Architecture From <em>LetterScapes</em> by Anna Saccani (Thames & Hudson, May 2013)

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/06/letterscapes-anna-saccani-put-typography-in-the-spotlight_n_2760305.html

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Facebook may reveal new Android smartphone

MENLO PARK -- Tech industry insiders expect Facebook to unveil a new Android smartphone on Thursday that will showcase the social network on the device's home screen, and make it even easier to use Facebook's popular services on the go.

But some experts aren't convinced there's a huge demand for a so-called Facebook phone, when many consumers prefer to choose from a variety of competing apps and services.

"What happens if you buy a Facebook phone and decide you don't want to be a Facebook person?" asked Will Stofega, a veteran mobile technology analyst with the IDC research firm.

"Everybody has their own preferences when it comes to apps," he

The Facebook logo is pictured at the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters file)

added, noting that younger users especially are known for experimenting with new or trendy services for messaging, photo-sharing and other activities.

Facebook hasn't said exactly what it plans to announce at Thursday's event, though an official invitation offered to let reporters "see our new home on Android." But in recent days, several industry blogs and news outlets, citing unnamed sources, have said the company will show off a new phone, built by the Taiwanese hardware-maker HTC, that uses special software to feature Facebook's programs on a version of Google's (GOOG) Android

operating system.

The phone is expected to display Facebook content, such as updates and posts from friends, on the home screen that appears when the device is turned on, according to these reports. It may also be designed to automatically use Facebook programs, including its messaging app and photo-sharing software, as the default services for the phone.

By making it easier for people to use Facebook's services, the company is clearly hoping to deliver more mobile advertising to those users. "The deeper that Facebook can get its users engaged, ultimately the more ad revenue they can get," said Clark Fredricksen, a vice president at the research firm eMarketer.

The company has already made what Fredricksen called "astonishing" progress in building a mobile ad business over the past year, after it was criticized last spring for making virtually no money off the growing number of users who access the social network on smartphones and tablets.

Facebook reported more than $300 million in mobile ad sales last quarter. Its share of the U.S. mobile advertising market grew from zero to nearly 10 percent in 2012, according to eMarketer, which estimates Facebook will garner 13 percent of the $7.3 billion spent on mobile ads in the United States this year.

That makes Facebook an increasing threat to its Internet rival, Google, which still dominates the market because it shows more mobile ads when people use Google's search engine and other services on both Android and Apple (AAPL) phones.

Facebook users are clearly mobile: More than half its 1 billion active members check the social network regularly on their smartphones or tablets. And at the end of last year, researchers at comScore estimated Facebook outpaced Google Maps as the most frequently used smartphone app in the United States.

But experts say the business of selling smartphones may be difficult to crack. HTC had little success with earlier phones that came with a Facebook "button" preinstalled, Stofega said. And wireless carriers may be reluctant to promote a new HTC phone in their retail outlets, since HTC has become a much less popular brand than Apple and Samsung.

Still, analysts say a Facebook-HTC phone could serve as a showcase for Facebook's services, in the way that Google has partnered with different phone-makers to build a series of Nexus-brand phones that showed off the latest features of Android and other Google services.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously insisted he doesn't want Facebook to build its own phone, since he wants the social network to be available on a variety of phones and operating systems. Facebook has also worked with Apple to make its services easier to use on new iPhones. And some news outlets have reported Facebook will also announce a new app Thursday that owners of other Android phones can download to create an interface similar to the new HTC phone.

That strategy might give people more flexibility to use Facebook when they want, analysts said.

"The idea of developing a version of Android that is deeply integrated with Facebook is a good idea, in theory, for Facebook," Fredricksen added. "But it's unclear whether or not consumers will feel it's a good idea for them."

Contact Brandon Bailey at 408-920-5022; follow him at Twitter.com/brandonbailey

Source: http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_22941202/facebook-may-reveal-new-android-smartphone?source=rss_viewed

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What Are Facebook Chat Heads?

One of the centerpieces of Facebook's new interface are "chat heads," Facebook's vision for the way that we should do messaging. Sounds fun! But what are they, exactly? And will they really change how we communicate? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Jjg1PEerU8M/what-are-facebook-chat-heads

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Video: Facebook's New 'Home'

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/51435690/

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Late-night hosts revel in Leno-Fallon changeover

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The coming Jay Leno-Jimmy Fallon "Tonight" handover is the talk of the late-night TV town.

David Letterman poked fun at Leno and NBC. Leno poked fun at Letterman and NBC. Jimmy Kimmel mocked himself. Fallon played it cool. And Conan O'Brien took the high road after NBC said Wednesday that Fallon will inherit "Tonight" from Leno in 2014 ? as O'Brien did in 2009, before Leno took it back.

"I want to congratulate Jimmy. That is a really fun gig," O'Brien said on his TBS talk show, drawing laughs from the studio audience. "It is," he said, protesting, then added, "And Jimmy is the perfect guy to do it. Congratulations, Jimmy."

It was short and sweet. Letterman, on the other hand, made a three-course meal out of the news on CBS' "Late Show," starting with his monologue.

"NBC, God bless 'em, announced the official date for Jay Leno's departure ? no mention of his official date of return, however," he said. "I happen to know Jay's got another job on network that has greater viewership, higher ratings: Univision."

Then Letterman settled behind his desk for more.

"Good luck to Jay. I know he'll be out on the road, getting it done and taking care of business. And congratulations on a nice long run there at the 'Tonight Show,' if in fact you're not coming back," he said.

And there was a "things we'll miss about Jay Leno" top 10 list, including No. 4: "Can't remember the name of the bit, but it's the one where Jay is walking."

Leno, who won the "Tonight" job over Letterman in 1992, was ready with a monologue to mark the newly announced transition.

"Folks, I got to be honest with you, I had a really awkward day today. I had to call David Letterman and tell him he didn't get the 'Tonight Show' again," Leno said.

Then came NBC's turn to get jabbed.

"I just have one request for Jimmy: We've all fought, kicked and scratched to get this network up to fifth place. Now we have to keep it there. Jimmy, don't let it slip into sixth!" Leno said, according to a network transcript.

Kimmel, whose move to 11:35 p.m. Eastern on ABC helped trigger the NBC switch, played it safe with a mild monologue joke about himself.

"As you probably heard ... I will take over as new host of the 'Tonight Show,' he said, only to be interrupted by a producer's whispered correction. "Ummm, apparently it was a different Jimmy. ... Does anyone know what the return policy is on yachts?" Kimmel asked.

Fallon, who has about a year to ponder his future promotion, was succinct.

"Welcome! This is 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon ... for now," he said. "You guys probably heard the news: I'm going to be taking over the 'Tonight Show' next February! But don't worry. Until February, our focus is right here on whatever this show is called."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/night-hosts-revel-leno-fallon-changeover-051815086.html

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BillPin Acquires Obopay's BillMonk Bill-Splitting Service

After some years of languishing, BillMonk’s service and user base will be taken over by a young Singapore startup, BillPin, which provides a similar bill-splitting service. Just over six months old, BillPin pitches itself as a “Mint for groups” and offers a way for people to track how much money they owe each other. It has plenty of competitors in the bill-splitting space, including?Splitwise, Billsup, Spotme, Divvyit, Splitmybill.ie;?scooping up BillMonk’s user base might provide it a firm leg up in the fight for user acquisition. BillMonk was founded in 2005 and was acquired by Indian mobile money provider Obopay in 2007. It’s one of the older players in the space, and seems to have suffered from neglect for a few years. Some of its competitors have tried to capitalize on that. Splitwise launched a campaign to bring BillMonk users onboard last year. BillPin launched a similar service?in October last year. BillPin’s co-founder, Darius Cheung (whose previous startup, tenCube WaveSecure, was acquired by McAfee in 2010), acknowledged the older firm’s state of neglect.?”Not much improvement was added to BillMonk at all over the past seven years, and in fact BillMonk has suffered significant down time in the last six months or so,” he said. Of the migration service BillPin created, he said: “It was launched to catch BillMonk users who were frustrated with its downtime, but we didn’t know then we were going to inherit its entire user base.” Still, BillMonk continued to add users over its lifetime, and steadily at that, he said. As a result, bringing BillMonk’s user base onboard will give BillPin “easily 50 times” more users. He wouldn’t say how many that is, but according to reports, BillPin has a small base of 5,000 or so users. He made it clear that this move was an acquisition of the larger service’s user base, but none of BillMonk’s engineers will come over from Obopay. BillPin has five employees in Singapore and one in India. It’s bootstrapped so far, but Cheung is currently hoping to raise an angel round. Obopay started in 2005, and provides technology to corporate clients like Nokia and Societe Generale, and telcos like Warid Telecom in Uganda to allow them to offer their own branded mobile money-transfer services. It was started in Bangalore, and now has its headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. It has Bangalore and Mumbai offices.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/70B3UrF_2gg/

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A comet, not an asteroid, killed the dinosaurs, according to new research

Apr. 4, 2013 ? In a geological moment about 66 million years ago, something killed off almost all the dinosaurs and some 70 percent of all other species living on Earth. Only those dinosaurs related to birds appear to have survived. Most scientists agree that the culprit in this extinction was extraterrestrial, and the prevailing opinion has been that the party crasher was an asteroid.

Not so, say two Dartmouth researchers. Professors Jason Moore and Mukul Sharma of the Department of Earth Sciences favor another explanation, asserting that a high-velocity comet led to the demise of the dinosaurs.

Recently, asteroids have been in the headlines. On February 15, 2013, an asteroid exploded in the skies over Siberia. Later that day, another swept past Earth in what some regard as a close call -- just 17,000 miles away.

The asteroid impact theory of extinction began with discoveries by the late physicist and Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez and his son, the geologist Walter Alvarez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1980 they identified extremely high concentrations of the element iridium in a layer of rock known as the K-Pg (formerly called K-T) boundary. The layer marks the end of the Cretaceous period (abbreviated "K"), the epoch of the dinosaurs, and the beginning of the Paleogene period, with its notable absence of the large lizards.

While iridium is rare in Earth's crust, it is a common trace element in rocky space debris such as asteroids. Based on the elevated levels of iridium found worldwide in the boundary layer, the Alvarezes suggested that this signaled a major asteroid strike around the time of the K-Pg boundary -- about 66 million years ago. Debate surrounded their theory until 2010, when a panel of 41 scientists published a report in support of the Alvarezes' theory. The panel confirmed that a major asteroid impact had occurred at the K-Pg boundary and was responsible for mass extinctions.

The scientific community today looks to the deeply buried and partially submerged, 110-mile wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico's Yucat?n as the place where the death-dealing asteroid landed. The 66-million-year age of Chicxulub, discovered in 1990, coincides with the KT boundary, leading to the conclusion that what caused the crater also wiped out the dinosaurs.

Moore and Sharma do agree with fellow scientists that Chicxulub was the impact zone, but dispute the characterization of the object from space as an asteroid. In a paper presented to the 44th Lunar and Planetary Conference on March 22, 2013, they described their somewhat controversial findings.

Moore notes that in the past geochemists toiled away, isolated from their geophysicist colleagues, each focused on his or her particular area of expertise. "There hadn't been a concerted synthesis of all the data from these two camps," says Moore. "That's what we've tried to do."

The Dartmouth duo compiled all the published data on iridium from the K-Pg boundary. They also included the K-Pg data on osmium -- another element common in space rock. In sifting through all this they found a wide range of variability, so consequently kept only the figures they demonstrated to be most reliable. "Because we are bringing a fresh set of eyes into this field, we feel our decisions are objective and unbiased," says Sharma.

For example, they deleted data drawn from deep ocean cores where there were very high amounts of iridium. "We discovered that even then there was a huge variation. It was much worse in the oceans than on the continents," Sharma said. "We figured out that the oceanic variations are likely caused by preferential concentration of iridium bearing minerals in marine sediments."

In the final analysis, the overall trace element levels were much lower than those that scientists had been using for decades and being this low weakened the argument for an asteroid impact explanation. However, a comet explanation reconciles the conflicting evidence of a huge impact crater with the revised, lower iridium/osmium levels at the K-Pg boundary.

"We are proposing a comet because that conclusion hits a 'sweet spot.' Comets have a lower percentage of iridium and osmium than asteroids, relative to their mass, yet a high-velocity comet would have sufficient energy to create a 110-mile-wide crater," says Moore. "Comets travel much faster than asteroids, so they have more energy on impact, which in combination with their being partially ice means they are not contributing as much iridium or osmium."

Moore attributes much of the early resistance to a comet impact theory to a lack of knowledge about comets in general. "We weren't certain whether they were dirty snowballs or icy dirt balls," he says. "Today, we are inclined toward the icy dirt ball description."

Comet composition and physical structure were unknown, but with the advent of NASA missions to comets like "Deep Impact" in 2010, a much larger database has been developed. "We now have a much better understanding of what a comet may be like and it is still consistent with the K-Pg boundary data we are seeing," Moore adds.

Sharma says that, "In synthesizing the data generated by two very disparate fields of research -- geochemistry and geophysics -- we are now 99.9 percent sure that what we are dealing with is a 66-million-year-old comet impact -- not an asteroid."

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