Sunday, June 30, 2013

Texas Longhorns football: Austin is the best

The president of DBU has a message for the world.

This isn't a newsflash to fans of the Texas Longhorns, and particularly those who have lived in Austin or went to school at UT, but the city is pretty awesome:

Just another built-in advantage for a school that puts out defensive backs at a rate that only LSU can currently match. And over the course of the last 30 years, only Miami can contend with Texas in terms of defensive backs taken in the first round, with 12.

So, there's DBU. And the lakes. And the music. And 6th Street. And on and on.

Yeah, Austin is pretty awesome.

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Source: http://www.burntorangenation.com/football/2013/6/30/4480500/texas-longhorns-football-duane-akina-austin-is-awesome

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Need Suggestions for a Galaxy S4 Case


I bought a GS4 over the weekend and would like some suggestions for a case. I'm not someone who is rough on their phones. *knock on wood* I've never severely damaged a phone from dropping it or mishaps. So I would like some suggestions for a case that has a mid grade protection as I don't feel I need something bulky like OB Defender. I've looked into a few and I really like the Spigen Slim Armor, Puregear Dualtek, and Ballistic Aspira. If anyone has any of these cases let me know how you like it. Or what kind of case you are rocking right now.

One thing that does factor in for me is if it comes with a a screen protector. I would really like to find one that does as it changes the outlook of the value. I would have gone with the Spigen already but one thing that concerns me is people say it can be quite slippery, which just sounds like an accident waiting to happen. Here are the links to the above cases.

http://www.amazon.com/SPIGEN-SGP-Pro.../dp/B00BW6GHV2

http://www.amazon.com/Puregear-60165...ear+dualtek+s4

http://www.amazon.com/Ballistic-AP11...stic+aspira+s4

Source: http://www.psu.com/forums/showthread.php/313233-Need-Suggestions-for-a-Galaxy-S4-Case?goto=newpost

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Extreme weekend heat wave to scorch western US

Record hot temperatures beat down on parts of the country. NBC News' Chris Clackum reports.

By Daniel Arkin and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

A wave of record-setting, life-threatening heat is expected to blaze across the West this weekend, with temperatures in some areas projected to top 120 degrees.

Death Valley, Calif., could even top 130 degrees Saturday through Monday, just below the world record high of 134 recorded there on July 10, 1913, The Weather Channel said.


The cause is a high pressure system that will scorch a long arm of the Southwest. Temperatures in Phoenix and Las Vegas are expected to soar into the triple digits, with temperatures hovering between 115 and 120 degrees. In western parts of Arizona, temperatures could reach 125.

Officials in Arizona warned residents to take precautions.

"If you get dizzy or lightheaded, those are some signs of dehydration. If you become confused, that's a real warning sign," Dr. Kevin Reilly of the University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine told NBC station KVOA of Tucson.

In Las Vegas, meanwhile, the National Weather Service warned of the potential for a "life-threatening heat event." Temperatures were expected to match those of a July 2005 heat wave when 17 people died in the Las Vegas Valley.

The extreme weather is expected to reach Reno, Nev., reach across Utah and stretch into Wyoming and Idaho, where forecasters are predicting potentially lethal hot spells. Triple-digit temperatures were forecast during Idaho's Special Olympics in Boise.

Matt York / AP

Runners take advantage of lower temperatures at sunrise Thursday in Mesa, Ariz. Excessive heat warnings will continue for much of the Desert Southwest as building high pressure triggers major warming in eastern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Organizers urged coaches to prepare their athletes.

"The basic stuff, wearing breathable, appropriate clothes, staying in the shade as much as possible, staying hydrated is obviously a big thing," Matt Caropino, director of sports and training for Special Olympics Idaho, told NBC station KTVB. "We've put in place some misters that we're going to have at our outdoor venues."

The National Weather Service advised people to keep tabs on signs of potentially lethal heat stroke.

"Heat stroke symptoms include an increase in body temperature, which leads to deliriousness, unconsciousness and red, dry skin," it said in a report. "Death can occur when body temperatures reach or exceed 106-107 degrees."

Los Angeles was forecast to peak between the upper 80s and the lower 90s Saturday as inland communities like Burbank edge toward the low 100s. Palm Springs, Calif., no stranger to steamy summers, may peak at 120 degrees, NBC station KMIR reported. Sweltering heat also is expected for the state's Central Valley, according to The Weather Channel.

Commercial airlines were also monitoring conditions because excessive heat can throw flights off course. The atmosphere becomes less dense in extremely high heat humidity, meaning there's less lift for airplanes ? calculations that have to be made individually for every type of aircraft.

Triple-digit heat forced several airlines to bring operations to a halt after Phoenix climbed to 122 degrees in June 1990.

Related:

'It's brutal out there': Weekend heat wave to bake western US

Alaska sweating through brutal blast of heat

Oppressive heat hits West as storms soak East

This story was originally published on

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663306/s/2dedd7e4/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C280C191876780Eextreme0Eweekend0Eheat0Ewave0Eto0Escorch0Ewestern0Eus0Dlite/story01.htm

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

The Dancer. At Taksim Square.

It's called the Dancer. La Bailarina. Like some crazed Stravinsky diva, the Condor GL 310 gas grenade bobs and weaves when it lands, moving in random patterns, spewing noxious gas into the air. Its jittery swirls are specifically designed to cover large areas with gas, but also--critically--to prevent protestors from grabbing the thing and chucking it back at the police. The 202, you see, is a long-range gas grenade--also quite popular--but the 202 lands and just lies there. It can be shot from further away (over distant barricades, for example, or down into metro stations, or into second-floor windows or terraces or hospitals but it gives no chase. The 310 dances. Just weeks after Turkey's protest movement erupted, Brazilians have taken to the streets en masse. In a show of solidarity, Turks waved the Brazilian flag in Taksim square. The Condor company happens to be based in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, and is one of the two major suppliers of "non-lethal technologies" to both the Turkish and Brazilian governments. In a kind of bizarre, capitalist love triangle of tear gas, popular uprising and government repression, Turkey and Brazil have never been closer. All along Istiklal, the pale, dented corpses of Condor grenades skitter into gulleys and cracks in the pavement, nestle in piles of burned trash: like detritus on a seascape, old shells, broken eggs. ~~~ The first time I saw the Dancer--really saw it, I mean, not just the haze of its after-effects--I was standing with my brother John on a side street of Istanbul. We'd come for a vacation, actually, on the way to the Netherlands to present at a scientific conference. I have friends that teach in universities in Turkey. One with a 5-year-old daughter I hadn't seen in two years. Pleasantries, I mean. Socializing. And a bit of work. But then Turkey blew up. My brother started reporting for Science magazine. During the day, I worked on my data for the conference. At night I'd walk the city. It was just getting dark. Maybe 9 pm. We didn't see the police. We knew the protestors had set up a barricade on Istiklal, the main pedestrian shopping street that reaches down from Taksim Square, one of the major arteries of the city's public life. They'd built the barricade from anything they could find--old metal siding, garbage bins, bits of stray lumber, metal ladders--and were holding it against the police in the distance. But from a side street, down a little hill, all you could see was the faint glow of garbage fires and people walking back and forth. Then the grenade came. First the *pop* sound of a policeman firing his grenade launcher, then the zzzzzzzz as it flew through the air, then the tinny clatter when it hit the top of the hill and started to roll towards us. The Dancer doesn't start releasing gas on impact--for most gas grenades, it's a time delay after firing. That's why you'll see streaks of gas falling down around civilians on TV news programs--that's usually the Condor 210, another Brazilian number, or the MP-40L, manufactured in Pennsylvania, fired from enough of a distance that the lozenges inside the grenade have started to release into the air. But the Dancer isn't fired from a great distance. Sometimes it'll roll a pinch before it starts to go off. And that's what I remember, in that flash before my brother and I started to run. For a second or two, it rolled down the little stone street, picking up speed with gravity. Then the gas started. And that's when the stochastic movements kick in. It began dashing this way and that, spewing gas up and diagonally, semi-circles, jagged lines, at one point even pinging off the side of a building. It looked alive. Really alive. It was, to be honest, strangely beautiful. The novelty quickly wore off--neither of us had gas masks--and the neurons in my brain sent off a cascade of firing, all of which reminded me, "Cat, it's time to run." What I thought of at that moment--you think of strange things when you're running from a gas grenade near the Bosphorus--was stochastic movement. The rapid saccades of my eyes moving over the visual scene, the trill of my neurons firing--first in areas dealing with vision, then with novelty, then directly into recognition and fear. Underlying all these processes is the "random walk." **** First named by Karl Pearson at the dawn of the 20th century, the random walk is essentially a mathematical tool that is now one of the most widely borrowed principles from statistics. It's used to model everything from crowd behavior to biological systems and back again, even reaching out to fluctuations in international markets. The idea applied in molecular science is fairly simple: molecules bump into each other--sometimes violently, sometimes gently. All of those countless interactions shape the path of a single molecule in space. That path is called a "random walk." Bobbing and jagging, the path looks cluttered and wild, but it's just how molecules move in space. Every molecule in the human body is, at every moment, buzzing and colliding with other molecules. We are an aggregate of movement. A density in a cloud. The random walk is simply a statistical formulation of a series of random "steps" on a "walk". The size of those steps matter. For example, if step size is variable in a normal distribution, then you can use a random walk to model fluctuations in financial market data over time. Imagine the value of a stock over time on a graph. The value, for example, of Condor's stock on the international market is dependent on obvious factors--for example, how many of its usual buyers happen to be either actively using their products (and thus need to replenish their supplies) or are anticipating using them in the future. But just like the weather, predicting the future value of a stock is extremely hard. (If anyone could actually predict the stock market beyond a two-day horizon, that person would be extremely rich.) The best you can do, like weather, is statistical. By looking back over the years, a June day in Istanbul will probably be beautifully warm and breezy. But you could also get a rain storm. So while it's certainly the case that economists can tie real-world events to fluctations in Condor's stock, their power of prediction falls away to nothing over time. Yes, it's true that last November Condor secured a contract with the Brazilian government for 49 million dollars' worth of rubber bullets, gas grenades, "flashbangs" (sound and light grenades), and pepper spray. (That contract isn't even for the current protests--that's just for upcoming sporting events like the World Cup.) But the day to day fluctuations in the stock value, taken in aggregate, are best modeled with a random walk. That's why stock market graphs actually look a lot like data graphs of eye saccades, or neuronal activation patterns in a brain. Human behavior, at various scales, from cellular activity to large social groups, can also be approximated by a random walk. But it's not truly random. And for scientists who try to model it--which way a crowd will move, which way a stock will go, the international valuation of the Turkish lira or the Brazilian peso--that's the rub. To model, one can assume randomness as a given, but when thinking about what those graphs actually represent, one also has to assume that there's much more going on than you can know. The purpose of making a model is to predict. Many models rely on the assumption that some random process or mechanism determines human decisions. If you want to predict what will happen in a crowd when a tear gas grenade goes off, you can treat people as particles in a thermodynamic system. And you get a lot of powerful mathematical tools when you do that. You can even predict the rate at which people will flow through passageways, the likelihood of trampling, the likelihood of crush and compression deaths. Diffusion, at its root, is powered by random movement, and many modelers will use a random walk to build their computations. **** After wandering the winding streets and alleys of Istanbul's Beyo?lu district, we found ourselves back on Istiklal in the middle of the crowd. I climbed up on a tall metal utility box to get a better view. My brother followed. I hung onto a street light for balance. We were maybe three feet up. I wanted to get a handle on what was going on. The most dangerous thing about a crowd is usually the crowd itself. In a completely open space--say a very flat plane that runs for miles, unbounded on any side--crowds aren't that bad. Trampling isn't usually the problem. Sure, some people trip. But crowds don't usually gather in wide-open spaces. More often, they gather in cities and stadiums. Places that are bounded. Crowds flow like a liquid. They will fill every available space. And if a crowd panics and rushes into an enclosed space that's too tight--a bottleneck, or a police blockade, an alley that's too narrow for them--the pressure from the back can crush the people in the front and on the sides. Horribly, in those moments, no one can even hear the people screaming, because their lungs are compressed. The biggest advocates of "non-lethal technologies" like tear gas say that the real challenge for governments is controlling large crowds. If you can disperse them before they reach critical mass, lives can be saved. At low doses, by that logic, tear gas saves lives. Of course, that says nothing about why those crowds might be forming in the first place. Condor's company profile says that their products are an "effective instrument" that are used "without infringing upon individual Human Rights." But it's well known that the Dancer is being "weaponized" in Turkey, Brazil and Syria right now. Canisters are being fired directly at protestor's faces at close range, leaving grotesque wounds as they cut through flesh and bone. People are being heavily gassed in closed spaces. Doctors worldwide are concerned about the long-term lung and nerve damage that may result from inhaling that much gas over time. Nevertheless, at that moment, my brother and I were more concerned with the crowd than our burning lungs and eyes. I was the first to see it. The front line. Where the flags stopped, and just beyond, the glare of headlights from water cannon trucks. Maybe half a mile up, some thousands of people between it and us. And suddenly, it changed. The entire front wall of people turned and started running towards us. People in the street behind them also started to run, a ripple, like a shockwave. The start of a stampede. And it was coming in our direction. I didn't stop to think. I lept from the sill, barely pausing to hit my brother on the arm on the way down, and started sprinting up a side street. A couple of blocks out I heard Bro behind me calling out, "Sis? What are we running from exactly?" He hadn't seen it. Though others had seen me jump, and now they were running too--the way all of Istanbul has learned to run, now, when they see others running, even if it has nothing to do with them. If one runs, you run. I stopped to catch my breath and looked behind us. Some dozens ran past us. Some stopped, like us, to turn and see what was happening through a narrow opening onto Istiklal. It was maybe 60 seconds before the rest of the crowd slammed past our alley: a wall of panicked humans, wild-eyed and yelling. And another 60 seconds before we saw the gas. (to be continued...) Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dancer-taksim-square-130100443.html

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48th edition film fest opens at Czech spa town

PRAGUE (AP) ? An international film festival in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary is bestowing its Crystal Globe awards on actor John Travolta and director Oliver Stone for outstanding contributions to world cinema.

Travolta is receiving his award on Friday, the opening day of the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Stone has to wait for the final day, July 6.

Fourteen movies are competing for top honors, including "A Field in England" directed by Ben Wheatley, and U.S.-Swedish production "Bluebird" by director Lance Edmands.

The grand jury is led by Polish director Agnieszka Holland.

The festival, known for its relaxed atmosphere, features some 200 movies.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/48th-edition-film-fest-opens-czech-spa-town-181736378.html

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8 things you probably didn't know about Apple's iOS 7

Your gadgets

15 hours ago

Apple

Apple

Some were quickly mentioned when Apple unveiled iOS 7, some can be spotted on the company's website, and some were revealed by developers poking around in the software ? but all of the following iOS 7 features, due in a free OS upgrade for iPhone and iPad this fall, are likely to come as a surprise, perhaps even a delight.

Block calls and messages
If you want to prevent someone from calling you, messaging you or initiating a FaceTime video chat, you are nearly out of luck on the iPhone. Elaborate third-party solutions typically only work if you've jailbroken your device ? unlocked to run software not authorized by Apple ? or if you've complained to your carrier about harassment from a particular individual. But in iOS 7, Apple has announced a way "to prevent specific people from being able to contact you."

Bigger folders, more icons you can hide
Folders are bigger than ever in the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system. Instead of only having room for 16 apps, folders can contain pages and pages of apps ... and they can even hold Newsstand. That's right. In iOS 7, you can finally stash Newsstand into a folder and not have to stare at it all the time, Cult of Mac discovered.

Apple

Apple

Smarter, more relevant notifications
The Notifications Center consists of three sections in iOS 7 ? "today," "all," and "missed." The "today" section presents a quick summary of what's going on: How the weather looks and whether it's someone's birthday, but also more prescient stuff, like whether you should leave early for a meeting because traffic is looking bad. If it sounds a little like what Google Now does for Android, that's because it is similar, but it's a welcome addition to iOS that may keep you better organized.

Teach Siri how to pronounce names
Those of us with awkwardly pronounced names can finally teach Siri how we want her (or him) to say 'em. Instead of relying just on phonetic spellings, Siri will ask you how you want a name pronounced and then take some time to learn it, 9to5Mac says.

Special inboxes
Wouldn't it be nice if you could see all the emails addressed directly to you (rather than to some email alias or distribution list) at once? Or how about just emails with some sort of attachment? Special inboxes built into the Mail app on iOS 7 let you, says Cult of Mac. These new inboxes behave a lot like the VIP inbox already found in iOS ? they don't duplicate content, but instead provide another way to view it.

Bulk email management
It's frustrating that there's no way to mark a bunch of emails as read on the iPhone. You'll get that ability in iOS 7, say the folks at FastCompany. You'll be able to select multiple emails and mark 'em all as read or unread "in one fell swoop."

Apple

Apple

Livephoto filters
At this point, most of us are used to adding filters to photos after we snap the pics. But the Camera app in iOS 7 allows for live previews. You'll see exactly how the photo will look in black and white or with a vintage filter before you ever even take it.

And the best part? These filters are applied in a non-destructive way. So even though the photo looks like it came straight out of the 1960s when you take it, your iPhone still has the "normal" version saved. You can revert to it (or switch to another filter) in an instant.

Swipe back through menus
Tired of tapping the "back" button to navigate through apps? You'll likely love that iOS 7 lets you swipe back from just about any screen with a "back" button, says Mac Rumors. This gesture seems so natural, odds are you'll immediately begin swiping from one side of the screen to the other to get through websites or Settings menus.

Bonus: One iOS 7 perk you can get now
iOS 7 adds a neat button to Safari to switch into "private" browsing mode, so you can shop for presents or do other secret stuff, without leaving a history or cookie trail in the browser. But you can already access this "private" mode in the current iOS. Just go to Settings, tap on Safari and flip the "Private Browsing" toggle.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663301/s/2df0e06a/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0C80Ethings0Eyou0Eprobably0Edidnt0Eknow0Eabout0Eapples0Eios0E70E6C10A484131/story01.htm

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Daily Links: Love/Hate Relationships | The Jets Blog

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Source: http://thejetsblog.com/nyjets/daily-links-lovehate-relationships/

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Feds: Internet influenced Boston bombing suspect

AAA??Jun. 28, 2013?2:34 AM ET
Feds: Internet influenced Boston bombing suspect
By DENISE LAVOIE and TOM HAYSBy DENISE LAVOIE and TOM HAYS, Associated Press?THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES?

FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A federal grand jury in Boston returned a 30-count indictment against Tsarnaev on Thursday, June 27, 2013, on charges including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)

FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A federal grand jury in Boston returned a 30-count indictment against Tsarnaev on Thursday, June 27, 2013, on charges including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)

U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz speaks during a news conference, announcing a 30-count indictment against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Boston. Charges against Tsarnaev include using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death near the marathon finish line on April 15. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

FILE - In this April 15, 2013 file photo, medical workers aid injured people at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon following an explosion in Boston. A federal grand jury in Boston returned a 30-count indictment against bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Thursday, June 27, 2013, on charges including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz pauses during a news conference, announcing a 30-count indictment against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Boston. Charges against Tsarnaev include using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death near the marathon finish line on April 15. Alongside are Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, left, and Bruce Foucart, Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security in Boston, right. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

FILE - In this April 15, 2013, file photo, blood from victims covers the sidewalk on Boylston Street, at the site of an explosion during the 2013 Boston Marathon in Boston. At right foreground is a folding chair with the design of an American flag on the cover. A federal grand jury in Boston returned a 30-count indictment against bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Thursday, June 27, 2013, on charges including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

(AP) ? A federal indictment accusing Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) of carrying out the April bombings says the teenager had the information he needed to make explosives with a pressure cooker easily accessible on the Internet in jihadist files

The 30-count indictment returned Thursday provides one of the most detailed public explanations to date of the Tsarnaev brothers' alleged motive ? Islamic extremism ? and the role the Internet may have played in influencing them.

It contains the bombing charges, punishable by the death penalty, that were brought in April against the 19-year-old, including use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill.

The indictment makes no mention of any overseas influence.

Tsarnaev will be arraigned July 10.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-28-Boston%20Marathon%20Bombing/id-e245f8ed7ba049b0bcf130a2ecba2c16

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Vows wait, but gay pairs cheer Supreme Court moves

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Backed by rainbow flags and confetti, thousands celebrated in California's streets after U.S. Supreme court rulings brought major advances for gay marriage proponents in the state and across the country.

Though wedding bells may be weeks away, same-sex couples and their supporters filled city blocks of San Francisco and West Hollywood on Wednesday night to savor the long awaited decisions as thumping music resounded.

"Today the words emblazoned across the Supreme Court ring true: equal justice under law," said Paul Katami, one of the plaintiffs who challenged California's gay marriage ban, as he celebrated in West Hollywood.

In one of two 5-4 rulings, the high court cleared the way for gay marriages to resume in California, holding that the coalition of religious conservative groups that qualified a voter-approved ban for the ballot did not have the authority to defend it after state officials refused. The justices thus let stand a San Francisco trial court's ruling in August 2010 that overturned the ban.

In the other, the court wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law, the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, putting legally married gay couples on equal federal footing with all other married Americans, allowing them to receive the same tax, health and pension benefits.

The court sidestepped the larger question of whether banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, and states other than California and the 12 others where gay couples already have the right to wed were left to hash out the issue within their borders.

As the sun set on San Francisco, a crowd surged from hundreds to several thousand in the city's Castro neighborhood, with rainbow flags and confetti filling the air.

James Reynolds, 45, was among the revelers, saying he had been married to his partner of 23 years several times, including once in California.

"It's been taken away from us," Reynolds said as he stood in a crosswalk near the barrier blocking off the street for the celebration. "But we'll be married again."

In Southern California, an all-day celebration in West Hollywood grew to hundreds by night, including many gay couples dressed in red, white and blue and one sign that read "Today we are American."

Brendan Banfield, 46, stood on the very spot under a tree in West Hollywood Park where in 2008 he married his partner Charles, becoming one of an estimated 18,000 couples that got married during the four-and-a-half months when gay marriage was legal in California.

"I want to cry," Banfield said. "It's been a long journey. I'm grateful I'm alive to see it."

It remained unclear, however, when California's gay marriages might start again. Backers of the ban known as Proposition 8 have 25 days to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also must lift a hold it placed on the lower court order before the state can be free to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Still, state officials moved quickly. Gov. Jerry Brown said he had directed the California Department of Public Health to start issuing licenses as soon as the hold is lifted, and state Attorney General Kamala Harris went even further, publicly urging the appellate court to act ahead of the final word from the Supreme Court.

In the DOMA decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by the four liberal justices, said the purpose of the federal law was to impose a disadvantage and "a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages."

Justice Antonin Scalia issued a pungent dissent, predicting that the ruling would be used to upend state restrictions on marriage, reading aloud in a packed courtroom that included two couples who sued for the right to marry in California.

"It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here," Scalia read.

President Barack Obama praised the ruling, labeling DOMA "discrimination enshrined in law."

"It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people," Obama said in a statement. "The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he was disappointed in the outcome case and hoped states continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Without offering any specifics about their next move, lawyers for Proposition 8 sponsors insisted state officials remained obligated by the California Constitution to enforce the ban, and that the ruling only legalized marriage for the two couples who sued to overturn it.

"What was sought in this lawsuit was a 50-state mandate or to establish there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court did not rule today," said Austin Nimiocks, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.

California's same-sex marriage California has been in overdrive since then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in 2004. Resulting lawsuits spurred the California Supreme Court to overturn the state's man-woman marriage laws in 2008.

But opponents responded by qualifying Proposition 8 for the ballot, and it passed with 52 percent of the vote.

Katami, the Proposition 8 co-plaintiff, said he and longtime partner Jeff Zarrillo were seeking status only a legal wedding could provide.

"There was something about that word marriage and what it meant," Katami said. "Something about the celebration and the right, the language and the association across the globe that comes with the word marriage."

___

AP writers Mihir Zaveri in San Francisco and Sarah Parvini in West Hollywood contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vows-wait-gay-pairs-cheer-supreme-court-moves-083428987.html

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Windows developers itching to get their hands on Xbox One's new Kinect are in luck.

Windows developers itching to get their hands on Xbox One's new Kinect are in luck. Pre-orders for the new Kinect's development kits?going at $399 a pop?have just opened up.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/windows-developers-itching-to-get-their-hands-on-xbox-o-586592158

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Great Advice For Every Kind Of Home Improvement Project ...

With the proper tools and a few good pieces of advice from a professional, you may be able to knock out all the jobs that trouble your new residence. The following article is filled with everything you need to know to begin working on your home. Carefully read all these tips so that your home?s potential can be maximized.

Think about putting in matching metal fixtures if you want to change the look of your bathroom. It is possible to find a wide range of shower curtain rods, cabinetry pulls and towel racks to suit almost any taste. In many cases, a coordinated set of hardware comes in a single, handy package. Installing one of these sets is a simple one-day (or even one-afternoon) project.

When you are considering home projects, be creative and think about what you aim to accomplish. After you have started the project, you?ll be free to focus on what it takes to accomplish it rather than elements of design. Use homes you love as inspiration, or take inspiration from your favorite home-improvement shows.

Purchase some plastic bins, and start sorting things in your garage. These boxes should be stackable, and you should label them once you?re done. This allows you to keep your garage organized while keeping bugs and rodents at bay.

Doing a home project requires the right tool for the job. This will help make sure the job is done right. The key to using the right tools is having the right knowledge to use them properly.

Because you are now armed with some excellent home renovation tips in the above article, you should now start gathering all the tools that you?ll need in order to begin. If you get stuck at any time while you are working on your project, read this article again to see if there is a solution here.

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Source: http://www.poolbuildersinorlando.com/great-advice-for-every-kind-of-home-improvement-project-2/

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Ines Di Santo, Bridal Designer, Introduces LUXE Collection (PHOTOS)

Ines Di Santo is known for her stunning trumpet and mermaid-style couture gowns, and while every fashion-forward bride would probably love to strut down the aisle in one of them, they can retail for more than $10,000 -- a pretty penny for even the biggest wedding budget.

That's why we were thrilled to learn that the beloved couturier is releasing a new line, LUXE by Ines Di Santo, featuring gowns priced between $2,400 and $5,500 (still a pretty penny but closer to the average bride's dress budget).

Click through the slideshow below to see the collection, then head to your nearest bridal salon to try one on in July.

Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Weddings on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/ines-di-santo_n_3497725.html

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Chrissy Teigen to Haters: F--k Off Already!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/chrissy-teigen-to-haters-f-k-off-already/

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New Moms May Experience OCD Symptoms

Image: JUSTIN PAGET Corbis

  • In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...

    Read More??

We all experience the occasional life-changing event?a new baby, a cross-country move, a serious injury. In rare cases, such events can precipitate a mental disorder. The problem is compounded because people often assume their suffering is par for the course after such upheaval. In reality, relief is probably a short treatment away, via therapy or medication.

For a new mother, dealing with a newborn is fraught with anxieties. Did I fasten the car seat properly? Is the baby still breathing? In more than one in 10 new mothers, these normal worries can escalate into more serious obsessions that can interfere with her ability to care for herself and her baby.

Most of the research on postpartum psychiatric problems has focused on depression and psychosis. Obstetricians such as Emily Miller of Northwestern University, however, were also noticing a range of anxiety-related disorders, including intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. ?It's good to check that your baby is strapped into the car seat,? Miller notes. ?But these women aren't just doing it once. They're doing it over and over, and it's interfering with their lives.?

With her colleagues, Miller followed 461 women after they gave birth. Eleven percent said they had obsessions and compulsions two weeks after delivery that the researchers found to be the equivalent of mild to moderate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?a sharp increase over the 2 to 3 percent rate of OCD in the general population. Half of these women's symptoms continued six months' postpartum, and an additional 5.4 percent developed new OCD symptoms in that time. The afflicted women indicated that their symptoms were distressing, taking up a significant amount of time and otherwise interfering with their daily life.

Nearly three quarters of the women with OCD also showed signs of postpartum depression. As with depression, therapy would probably help new moms cope with OCD, according to Miller. ?If OCD symptoms are mild and resolve by six weeks' postpartum, they may be normal,? Miller says. ?But if they interfere with a patient's daily functioning and persist, she should talk to her doctor.?


More Unusual Causes of Mental Symptoms

Common life events occasionally lead to mental distress. If you think any of these scenarios might describe you or a loved one, tell a doctor: treatments today are more effective than ever.

Reading or hearing about a traumatic event may lead to a specific phobia, the persistent fear of a certain situation or object. Targeted exposure therapy has been shown to diminish, and perhaps erase, such phobias in a few sessions.

Bacterial infections, such as strep throat, may cause symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in kids. Only a small subset of all OCD cases, which affect 3 percent of children, are thought to be caused by infections. Treatment with antibiotics cures most infected kids.

Eating more processed foods may be linked to experiencing greater levels of anxiety and depression. Avoiding grocery items with trans fats (hydrogenated oils) may help lift your mood.

Moving to a new house or school may trigger anorexia or bulimia in teens. Treatments such as talk therapy usually reverse the eating disorder.


More about how motherhood affects the brain:

?

This article was originally published with the title OCD in New Moms.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ocd-in-new-moms

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Sky adding more on demand content, revamping Go apps for summer

Sky adding more on demand content, revamping Go apps for summer

Lounging around in the sun is great and all, but what to do on a rainy day? One option is to get some TV time in, and Sky's got a few updates to share that might tempt you in front of a screen on dreary afternoons. At some point this summer, shows from Fox, Universal and SyFy will be available on Sky's On Demand service, as well as content from Disney if you're signed up for the Entertainment Extra package. Mobile apps will be getting a makeover, with "enhanced navigation" and a new design including bigger thumbnails when cruising through the VOD library. The Sky Go Xbox 360 app will also be updated to bring it in line with Microsoft's UI style. Furthermore, Sky Multiroom subscribers will get access to Sky Go Extra, which allows you to download content in addition to streaming, at no extra cost in early July. Vitamin D's overrated anyways.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Jg_Kv4SOXo0/

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Samsung Galaxy S4 with LTE-Advanced leaks out in red and blue

Samsung Galaxy S4 with LTEAdvanced leaks out in full

Variants -- Samsung's clearly a fan of them. Need solid evidence of that? Just look to the company's recent London event where a slew of Galaxy S4 products, like the Active, the Mini and the Zoom were officially introduced. But there's one more GS4 on the way and, as Samsung head JK Shin previously confirmed, it's going to be the 'world's first' to run on LTE-Advanced. Well, it appears that handset (purported to bear a Snapdragon 800) is close to final production, as Korean site Naver.com has allegedly obtained two glossy units offered in two gaudy hues: crimson red and cobalt blue. Though these could turn out to be masterful fakes, everything from the faux wood grain on the paper packaging, to the logo-ridden protective screen cover to the cross-hatched back emblazoned with the LTE-Advanced logo seem to be the real deal. When and where we'll actually see this GS4 LTE-A officially launched is another matter. But if you're in the mood for a very comprehensive photo tour of the two devices in question, hit up the source below.

[Thanks, Felipe]

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Source: Naver.com (Translated)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/25/samsung-galaxy-s4-lte-advanced-leak/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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IFC books U.S. rights on Michael Winterbottom's 'The Trip to Italy'

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican security forces on Tuesday rescued 52 kidnapped migrants, mostly Guatemalans, who were being held in a house in the violent state of Tamaulipas near the U.S. border. The migrants had been held for several days in a house in the city of Reynosa, where they were found by a group of federal and state police, officials said. The group was made up of 48 men from Guatemala, two from El Salvador and two more from Mexico, a press release from the state government said. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ifc-books-u-rights-michael-winterbottoms-trip-italy-191813904.html

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94 in Alaska? Weather extremes tied to jet stream

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The jet stream, the river of air high above Earth that generally dictates the weather, usually rushes rapidly from west to east in a mostly straight direction.

But lately it seems to be wobbling and weaving like a drunken driver, wreaking havoc as it goes.

The more the jet stream undulates north and south, the more changeable and extreme the weather.

The most recent example occurred in mid-June when some towns in Alaska hit record highs. McGrath, Alaska, recorded an all-time high of 94 degrees on June 17. A few weeks earlier, the same spot was 15 degrees, the coldest recorded for so late in the year.

You can blame the heat wave on a large northward bulge in the jet stream, Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis said.

Several scientists are blaming weather whiplash ? both high and low extremes ? on a jet stream that's not quite playing by its old rules. It's a relatively new phenomenon that experts are still trying to understand.

Some say it's related to global warming, but others say it's not.

Upside-down weather also happened in May: Early California wildfires fueled by heat contrasted with more than a foot of snow in Minnesota. Seattle was the hottest spot in the nation one day, and Maine and Edmonton, Canada, were warmer than Miami and Phoenix.

Consider these unusual occurrences over the past few years:

? The winter of 2011-12 seemed to disappear, with little snow and record warmth in March. That was followed by the winter of 2012-13 when nor'easters seemed to queue up to strike the same coastal areas repeatedly.

? Superstorm Sandy took an odd left turn in October from the Atlantic straight into New Jersey, something that happens once every 700 years or so.

? One 12-month period had a record number of tornadoes. That was followed by 12 months that set a record for lack of tornadoes.

And here is what federal weather officials call a "spring paradox": The U.S. had both an unusually large area of snow cover in March and April and a near-record low area of snow cover in May. The entire Northern Hemisphere had record snow coverage area in December but the third lowest snow extent for May.

"I've been doing meteorology for 30 years and the jet stream the last three years has done stuff I've never seen," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the private service Weather Underground. "The fact that the jet stream is unusual could be an indicator of something. I'm not saying we know what it is."

Rutgers' Francis is in the camp that thinks climate change is probably playing a role in this.

"It's been just a crazy fall and winter and spring all along, following a very abnormal sea ice condition in the Arctic," Francis said, noting that last year set a record low for summer sea ice in the Arctic. "It's possible what we're seeing in this unusual weather is all connected."

Other scientists don't make the sea ice and global warming connections that Francis does. They see random weather or long-term cycles at work. And even more scientists are taking a wait-and-see approach about this latest theory. It's far from a scientific consensus, but it is something that is being studied more often and getting a lot of scientific buzz.

"There are some viable hypotheses," Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said. "We're going to need more evidence to fully test those hypotheses."

The jet stream, or more precisely the polar jet stream, is the one that affects the Northern Hemisphere. It dips down from Alaska, across the United States or Canada, then across the Atlantic and over Europe and "has everything to do with the weather we experience," Francis said.

It all starts with the difference between cold temperatures in the Arctic and warmer temperatures in the mid-latitudes, she explained. The bigger the temperature difference, the stronger the jet stream, the faster it moves and the straighter it flows. But as the northern polar regions warm two to three times faster than the rest of the world, augmented by unprecedented melting of Arctic sea ice and loss in snow cover, the temperature difference shrinks. Then the jet stream slows and undulates more.

The jet stream is about 14 percent slower in the fall now than in the 1990s, according to a recent study by Francis. And when it slows, it moves north-south instead of east-west, bringing more unusual weather, creating blocking patterns and cutoff lows that are associated with weird weather, the Rutgers scientist said.

Mike Halpert, the deputy director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said that recently the jet stream seems to create weather patterns that get stuck, making dry spells into droughts and hot days into heat waves.

Take the past two winters. They were as different as can be, but both had unusual jet stream activity. Normally, the jet stream plunges southwest from western Washington state, sloping across to Alabama. Then it curves slightly out to sea around the Outer Banks, a swoop that's generally straight without dramatic bends.

During the mostly snowless winter of 2011-12 and the record warm March 2012, the jet stream instead formed a giant upside-down U, curving dramatically in the opposite direction. That trapped warm air over much of the Eastern U.S. A year later the jet stream was again unusual, this time with a sharp U-turn north. This trapped colder and snowier weather in places like Chicago and caused nor'easters in New England, Francis said.

But for true extremes, nothing beats tornadoes.

In 2011, the United States was hit over and over by killer twisters. From June 2010 to May 2011 the U.S. had a record number of substantial tornadoes, totaling 1,050. Then just a year later came a record tornado drought. From May 2012 to April 2013 there were only 217 tornadoes ? 30 fewer than the old record, said Harold Brooks, a meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Brooks said both examples were related to unusual jet stream patterns.

Last fall, a dip in the jet stream over the United States and northward bulge of high pressure combined to pull Superstorm Sandy almost due west into New Jersey, Francis said. That track is so rare and nearly unprecedented that computer models indicate it would happen only once every 714 years, according to a new study by NASA and Columbia University scientists.

"Everyone would agree that we are in a pattern" of extremes, NOAA research meteorologist Martin Hoerling said. "We don't know how long it will stay in this pattern."

___

Online:

NOAA on the jet stream: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/global/jet.htm

Jennifer Francis study linking Arctic sea ice loss to jet stream changes: http://bit.ly/1aAFM5g

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/94-alaska-weather-extremes-tied-jet-stream-070623134.html

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Insight: Ex-Qaeda allies ready to fight for Mursi in Luxor

By Maggie Fick

LUXOR, Egypt (Reuters) - When President Mohamed Mursi made a hardline Islamist governor of Luxor, it seemed his latest folly to many in this city, and across Egypt, who depend on tourists already scared off by unrest since the revolution.

Yet nominating a member of al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, remembered for a 1997 massacre of visitors in Luxor that some call "Egypt's 9/11", showed the growing importance to the beleaguered Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood of a group whose leadership includes at least one unrepentant former associate of Osama bin Laden.

That man, cleric Refai Taha, and other leaders of al-Gamaa and its parliamentary wing in Luxor told Reuters they renounced violence because Islamist rule had now been achieved, through elections - but they would take up arms again to defend Mursi and were committed eventually to establishing full Islamic law.

"There is freedom now, so violence is not necessary," Taha, 58, said in an interview last week at a hotel on the Nile. "The revolution changed the situation in Egypt in ways we wanted."

But like other senior figures in al-Gamaa he warned that anyone trying to force Mursi out - referring to the military that oppressed the Islamists for decades, or liberal opponents planning mass protests next Sunday - would be met with force.

"Violence begets violence," said Taha, recalling attacks on the old regime and its tourist industry which he, unlike others in al-Gamaa, went on advocating until Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

Al-Gamaa gave in to the uproar in the tourist industry and resigned the Luxor governor's post on Sunday - for the national good - after failing to reassure angry hoteliers who feared it would immediately ban beer and bare flesh, killing their trade just as the gunning down of 58 foreigners had done 16 years ago.

But its role is clearly expanding at the side of a president unable, or unwilling, to build a coalition beyond the Islamist camp. Such hardline allies may further polarize a still fragile state in ways that trouble the Western powers which abandoned Mubarak when Egyptians pushed him aside demanding democracy.

Al-Gamaa supporters formed a vocal contingent at a rally in Cairo on Friday, organized by the Brotherhood to show Islamist strength ahead of protests the hitherto divided opposition plans on June 30, the first anniversary of Mursi's inauguration.

Al-Gamaa leaders were among those giving veiled warnings of a violent response to any move against the elected leader; they included Tarek al-Zumar, jailed for life over the 1981 assassination of Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, and Assem Abdel Maged, who once shared a cell with Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian who has led al Qaeda since bin Laden was killed.

Hardliners fear the end of the much bigger Brotherhood's hold on power would mean prison again for them, or death.

BIN LADEN

In Luxor, Taha blames the United States for his "rendition" from Damascus in 2001 to a life in Mubarak's jails. He was in Syria after time in Afghanistan with bin Laden and Zawahri and was seen by Washington as an heir to "blind cleric" Omar Abdel Rahman, al-Gamaa al-Islamiya's spiritual leader now serving a life term for a 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Center.

Until 2010, annual U.S. State Department lists of "Foreign Terrorist Organizations" described Taha as "missing" since 2001. He is not mentioned by name in subsequent editions of the list.

Freed when Mubarak fell, he denied a U.S. assertion that he signed a 1998 al Qaeda fatwa calling for attacks on the United States but he said its government was "oppressive just like our former regime" and said his main difference from Zawahri was in his aim of an Islamic state in Egypt, rather than global jihad.

Sitting in the lobby of a tourist hotel, largely empty since the revolution, clad in a beige robe, the white-bearded sheikh defined his goals and those of al Qaeda: "Sheikh Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri see a need to administer justice all over the world. We demand justice be administered in Egypt."

Asked if that would mean banning alcohol or revealing clothing for tourists - something Mursi's government says it will not do - Taha said: "Just as you in America require Muslims to abide by American law when they enter your country, Americans who enter Egypt should abide by Egyptian law."

Were his ideas those of al Qaeda? "The same ideas," he said. "When there is an oppressive regime. If there's an oppressive regime, we, like all people in the world, we fight oppression."

ORGANISED MOVEMENT

After the Luxor massacre, Taha split with a faction in al-Gamaa which declared a ceasefire; the group now appears united and Taha, back in the southern home region where he helped found the movement in the 1970s, seems to command respect from leaders of the political party it set up in 2011 to contest elections.

The Building and Development Party won 13 of 508 seats in the lower house of parliament, allied with the Brotherhood.

A senior party official in Luxor, Hussein Ahmed Shmeet, echoed the concerns of Taha and other al-Gamaa leaders that it was ready to use force if had to protect Mursi: "If the nation is being destroyed, we must defend ourselves and protect the legitimate president and the state institutions," he said.

"If the army and police cannot protect state institutions and we see violence, the representatives of the Islamic groups must take to the streets to protect the state institutions," Shmeet said, adding for emphasis: "We are very organized."

Opponents worry that Egypt's Islamists also intend to keep power by force, even if voters turn against them. Shmeet insisted, however, that the movement has embraced democracy.

Al-Gamaa's numbers are unclear but its claims to be able to mobilize "popular committees" to fix problems locally were corroborated by Brotherhood officials who said Mursi choice for governor was prompted by its success in using local tribal and family structures to bring order where it once sowed chaos.

"Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya members in Luxor were born here," said local Building and Development Party leader Mohamed Bakry. "They know everyone in Luxor, they're cousins, friends, neighbors - our relations are very strong and so we can solve problems."

What the party did not do was force its new governor through the picket lines of angry tour guides and restaurateurs who set up barricades round the local administration building last week and painted the gate with a sign: "No entry for terrorists."

Its moderation toward the demonstrators, Bakry said, should reassure those who doubt it had put its militant past behind it.

"Everything the media are saying is not true," he said of alarmist headlines about Mursi's choice of "terrorist governor".

"Today is proof of that," he said. "Because if we had wanted to, we could have done something ... We were capable of it."

FEAR AND HOSTILITY

Such veiled references to al-Gamaa's strength do little to appease the many of Luxor's half million people who depend on foreigners coming to see its 3,500-year-old temples and tombs.

"Religion and violence is all they know," said Walid Nowendi of the liberal opposition Dustour Party as protesters burned tires to form a barrier to the governor's office.

Across the Nile, sweeping the same green swath through the desert that has nourished Egyptian civilization for millennia, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut stands as forlorn in the sunshine as it did in the months after it witnessed the horror of six gunmen methodically shooting down 62 people in November 1997.

A lone tour bus and a handful of minivans sat under a baking sun in the parking lot. "You should have seen how crowded this place was before the revolution," said Ahmed Hageb, 24, who works in the cafeteria. "For two years, we've suffered as we did after the 1997 attack ... This is because of the Brotherhood."

Mursi, in a newspaper interview, assured Egyptians economic problems were being addressed and, defending his choice of Luxor governor, insisted there was nothing to fear from al-Gamaa - its party, he said, "operates within the rule of law".

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Anna Willard)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-ex-qaeda-allies-ready-fight-mursi-luxor-121517764.html

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Jeff Shaara, The University of Texas at Arlington, and Writing ...

Author Jeff Shaara

Author Jeff Shaara

Today is Sunday June 23, 2013. it is 8:15 PM. I am at home at my desk listening to Author Jeff Shaara being interviewed by Ed Tracy on February 4, 2010 at the Pritzker Military in Chicago. He is discussing his book ?No Less Than Victory?.

Speaking of Jeff Shaara ? I posted fourteen pictures of Jeff Shaara at PICTURES. The photographs were taken on November 11, 2009 during a private dinner with a meet and greet I attended with author Jeff Shaara. He spoke later that evening to the public at The University of Texas at Arlington promoting his book of ?No Less Than Victory?. It concluded the World War Two trilogy of historical fiction that Jeff Shaara began with The Rising Tide and continued in The Steel Wave. The evening ended with him being interviewed on stage with a question-and-answer session with the audience. Jeff Shaara has written twelve New York times bestsellers.

Speaking of The University of Texas at Arlington ? I attend this fine university from August 1971 to December 1975 graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in history with minors in English and military science. On December 19, 1975 I not only graduated but was commissioned a second lieutenant, Infantry, United States Army Reserves. I was selected for indefinite active duty (career status). It was at The University of Texas at Arlington I developed a deep love for history, reading, and writing.

Speaking of Writing ? I am 99% finished doing my third rewrite/edit of the historical fiction novel ?Honor and Jealousy in Texas?. This weekend I worked on rewrite/edit of last chapter in book and wrote the first draft of a nonfiction article. The target audience of this article is unusual as it directed at suicide prevention of adult men. This is for a national suicide prevention organization that has a website getting over 50,000 people visit a month from people who are considering suicide. They do a web search on suicide and through the magic of Goggle search people thinking of suicide are directed to a Christian site focusing on stopping suicides. I was given the assignment when at the Colorado Christian Writer?s Conference. I pray that God will direct my thoughts as I write this article and He will use it to save lives.

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Photo credit: Author Jeff Shaara by Photographer Jimmie A. Kepler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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Source: http://jimmiekepler.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/jeff-shaara-the-university-of-texas-at-arlington-and-writing/

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Reading DNA, backward and forward: Biologists reveal how cells control the direction in which the genome is read

June 24, 2013 ? MIT biologists have discovered a mechanism that allows cells to read their own DNA in the correct direction and prevents them from copying most of the so-called "junk DNA" that makes up long stretches of our genome.

Only about 15 percent of the human genome consists of protein-coding genes, but in recent years scientists have found that a surprising amount of the junk, or intergenic DNA, does get copied into RNA -- the molecule that carries DNA's messages to the rest of the cell.

Scientists have been trying to figure out just what this RNA might be doing, if anything. In 2008, MIT researchers led by Institute Professor Phillip Sharp discovered that much of this RNA is generated through a process called divergent expression, through which cells read their DNA in both directions moving away from a given starting point.

In a new paper appearing in Nature on June 23, Sharp and colleagues describe how cells initiate but then halt the copying of RNA in the upstream, or non-protein-coding direction, while allowing it to continue in the direction in which genes are correctly read. The finding helps to explain the existence of many recently discovered types of short strands of RNA whose function is unknown.

"This is part of an RNA revolution where we're seeing different RNAs and new RNAs that we hadn't suspected were present in cells, and trying to understand what role they have in the health of the cell or the viability of the cell," says Sharp, who is a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "It gives us a whole new appreciation of the balance of the fundamental processes that allow cells to function."

Graduate students Albert Almada and Xuebing Wu are the lead authors of the paper. Christopher Burge, a professor of biology and biological engineering, and undergraduate Andrea Kriz are also authors.

Choosing direction

DNA, which is housed within the nucleus of cells, controls cellular activity by coding for the production of RNAs and proteins. To exert this control, the genetic information encoded by DNA must first be copied, or transcribed, into messenger RNA (mRNA).

When the DNA double helix unwinds to reveal its genetic messages, RNA transcription can proceed in either direction. To initiate this copying, an enzyme called RNA polymerase latches on to the DNA at a spot known as the promoter. The RNA polymerase then moves along the strand, building the mRNA chain as it goes.

When the RNA polymerase reaches a stop signal at the end of a gene, it halts transcription and adds to the mRNA a sequence of bases known as a poly-A tail, which consists of a long string of the genetic base adenine. This process, known as polyadenylation, helps to prepare the mRNA molecule to be exported from the cell's nucleus.

By sequencing the mRNA transcripts of mouse embryonic stem cells, the researchers discovered that polyadenylation also plays a major role in halting the transcription of upstream, noncoding DNA sequences. They found that these regions have a high density of signal sequences for polyadenylation, which prompts enzymes to chop up the RNA before it gets very long. Stretches of DNA that code for genes have a low density of these signal sequences.

The researchers also found another factor that influences whether transcription is allowed to continue. It has been recently shown that when a cellular factor known as U1 snRNP binds to RNA, polyadenylation is suppressed. The new MIT study found that genes have a higher concentration of binding sites for U1 snRNP than noncoding sequences, allowing gene transcription to continue uninterrupted.

A widespread phenomenon

The function of all of this upstream noncoding RNA is still a subject of much investigation. "That transcriptional process could produce an RNA that has some function, or it could be a product of the nature of the biochemical reaction. This will be debated for a long time," Sharp says.

His lab is now exploring the relationship between this transcription process and the observation of large numbers of so-called long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). He plans to investigate the mechanisms that control the synthesis of such RNAs and try to determine their functions.

"Once you see some data like this, it raises many more questions to be investigated, which I'm hoping will lead us to deeper insights into how our cells carry out their normal functions and how they change in malignancy," Sharp says.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/vK48xKSPdxQ/130624141412.htm

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Thousands in pro-Erdogan demo in Vienna

VIENNA (AP) ? Several thousand people have taken part in a demonstration in Vienna in support of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Police said about 8,000 people participated in Sunday's pro-Erdogan demonstration in the Austrian capital? many waving red-and-white Turkish flags and some carrying banners with pictures of the Turkish leader.

About 600 people took part in a separate protest against a crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in Turkey.

Protests in Turkey erupted three weeks ago after riot police brutally cracked down on environmental activists opposing plans to develop Istanbul's Gezi Park.

The demonstrations soon turned into expressions of discontent against Erdogan, who won a third term in office in 2011 elections. His critics say he is showing increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

Austria has a sizeable Turkish community.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-pro-erdogan-demo-vienna-151805925.html

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The genome's 3-D structure shapes how genes are expressed

June 23, 2013 ? Scientists from Australia and the United States bring new insights to our understanding of the three-dimensional structure of the genome, one of the biggest challenges currently facing the fields of genomics and genetics. Their findings are published in Nature Genetics, online today.

Roughly 3 metres of DNA is tightly folded into the nucleus of every cell in our body. This folding allows some genes to be 'expressed', or activated, while excluding others.

Dr Tim Mercer and Professor John Mattick from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Professor John Stamatoyannopoulos from Seattle's University of Washington analysed the genome's 3D structure, at high resolution.

Genes are made up of 'exons' and 'introns' - the former being the sequences that code for protein and are expressed, and the latter being stretches of noncoding DNA in-between. As the genes are copied, or 'transcribed', from DNA into RNA, the intron sequences are cut or 'spliced' out and the remaining exons are strung together to form a sequence that encodes a protein. Depending on which exons are strung together, the same gene can generate different proteins.

Using vast amounts of data from the ENCODE project*, Dr Tim Mercer and colleagues have inferred the folding of the genome, finding that even within a gene, selected exons are easily exposed.

"Imagine a long and immensely convoluted grape vine, its twisted branches presenting some grapes to be plucked easily, while concealing others beyond reach," said Dr Mercer. "At the same time, imagine a lazy fruit picker only picking the grapes within easy reach.

"The same principle applies in the genome. Specific genes and even specific exons, are placed within easy reach by folding."

"Over the last few years, we've been starting to appreciate just how the folding of the genome helps determine how it's expressed and regulated,"

"This study provides the first indication that the three-dimensional structure of the genome can influence the splicing of genes."

"We can infer that the genome is folded in such a way that the promoter region -- the sequence that initiates transcription of a gene -- is located alongside exons, and they are all presented to transcription machinery."

"This supports a new way of looking at things, one that the genome is folded around transcription machinery, rather than the other way around. Those genes that come in contact with the transcription machinery get transcribed, while those parts which loop away are ignored."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/459JXnr-9hM/130623145058.htm

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