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Monday, April 29, 2013

The politics of climate change

Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
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Contact: Andy Henion
henion@msu.edu
517-355-3294
Michigan State University

EAST LANSING, Mich. U.S. residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.

However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.

The study, in the journal Climatic Change, is one of the first to examine the influence of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions.

"The more people believe scientists agree about climate change, the more willing they are to support government action, even when their party affiliation is taken into account," McCright said. "But there is still a political split on levels of perceived scientific agreement, in that fewer Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals believe there is a scientific consensus."

McCright and colleagues analyzed a Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.

The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the "denial machine" an organized movement to undercut the scientific reality of climate change during the past two decades.

McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.

He said both the government and industry should be involved in that effort.

"Certainly we can't solve all our problems with global warming through government regulations in fact, for some problems, government regulations might make it worse," McCright said. "And so we need a combination of market-based solutions and government regulations."

###
McCright's co-authors are Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.

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The politics of climate change Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andy Henion
henion@msu.edu
517-355-3294
Michigan State University

EAST LANSING, Mich. U.S. residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.

However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.

The study, in the journal Climatic Change, is one of the first to examine the influence of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions.

"The more people believe scientists agree about climate change, the more willing they are to support government action, even when their party affiliation is taken into account," McCright said. "But there is still a political split on levels of perceived scientific agreement, in that fewer Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals believe there is a scientific consensus."

McCright and colleagues analyzed a Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.

The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the "denial machine" an organized movement to undercut the scientific reality of climate change during the past two decades.

McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.

He said both the government and industry should be involved in that effort.

"Certainly we can't solve all our problems with global warming through government regulations in fact, for some problems, government regulations might make it worse," McCright said. "And so we need a combination of market-based solutions and government regulations."

###
McCright's co-authors are Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/msu-tpo042913.php
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Pathological gambling caused by excessive optimism

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Compulsive gamblers suffer from an optimism bias that modifies their subjective representation of probability and affects their decisions in situations involving high-risk monetary wagers. This is the conclusion drawn by Jean-Claude Dreher's research team at the CNC (Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives, CNRS / Universit? Claude Bernard Lyon 1). These findings, published in the May print edition of Psychological Medicine, could help explain and anticipate certain individuals' vulnerability to gambling, and could lead to new therapeutic approaches.

A growing number of gamblers suffer from pathological gambling, a disease that is usually characterized as either a loss of impulse control or a behavioral addiction. It results in an inability to limit the frequency of gambling and the amount of money wagered. This increasingly common psychiatric disorder creates financial, professional and personal hardships that can have severe consequences for the patients and the people around them. The mechanisms responsible for its emergence and development remain largely unknown, which limits the clinician's ability to proceed with a diagnosis, prognosis or effective treatment for this condition.

In this study, the researchers set out to test and verify the hypothesis that links pathological gambling to an alteration of probabilistic reasoning. The capacity to reason in probabilistic terms appears only at an advanced stage of human intellectual development (in fact, the basic concept of probability is not fully understood until the age of 11 or 12). Pioneering research in the late 1970s had already shed light on the difficulties that people experience in situations involving risk or uncertainty. These difficulties are reflected in the development and perpetuation in adults of cognitive biases1 specific to probabilistic decision-making, one of the most common being probability distortion (2).

The researchers conducted an experiment on compulsive gambling patients using a standard experimental economics task and a mathematical model for measuring both probability distortion and a more general optimism bias in relation to high-risk bets. The primary result obtained confirms the general hypothesis of a distortion, associated with pathological gambling, in the subjective representation of probabilities. The results also show that the compulsion to gamble is not explained by an exaggerated distortion of probability, but rather by an increased optimism bias. In other words, regardless of the objective probability of winning a high-risk bet, gamblers tend to act as though this probability were greater than it actually is. The researchers also observed that in the patient population under study, the intensity of this bias was significantly correlated to the severity of the symptoms.

For clinical psychiatrists, the simplicity of the procedure used to reach this conclusion could offer a rapid and reliable way of measuring the representation of probability, thus allowing them to refine both their diagnoses and therapeutic decisions. This study raises many new questions for researchers in the cognitive neurosciences: how does the brain represent the probability of winning? How do the cerebral structures responsible for this representation interact with the structures involved in the development and perpetuation of an addiction? Is a pathological gambler's particular relationship to probability accompanied by an increased sensitivity to reward and/or insensitivity to monetary loss? These important questions are now being investigated at the CNC.

(1) Internal or external influence causing an alteration of human judgment or perception.

(2) Identified by the Nobel laureates Kahneman and Tversky in 1979, probability distortion is characterized by the overestimation of low probabilities and underestimation of high probabilities.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by CNRS (D?l?gation Paris Michel-Ange).

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

Journal Reference:

R. Ligneul, G. Sescousse, G. Barbalat, P. Domenech, J.-C. Dreher. Shifted risk preferences in pathological gambling. Psychological Medicine, 2012; 43 (05): 1059 DOI: 10.1017/S0033291712001900

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/mind_brain/consumer_behavior/~3/6ThD_ZBimlQ/130429102400.htm

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Preschools see sharp drop in funding: study

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enrollment in preschools stalled over the past year as states recovering from the recent recession struggle to fund early education for the nation's youngest students, researchers said.

In a report to be released later on Monday, education experts pointed to a record drop in state funding to serve the nation's 3- and 4-year-olds, citing a drop of more than half a billion dollars in the 2011-2012 school year from the year before.

Although a record high 1.3 million children attended state-run preschools in 2011-2012, it was the first year enrollment stagnated when taking the population growth into account, it showed. (for a graphic about the report, see http://link.reuters.com/duc77t)

The findings from Rutgers University's National Institute for Early Education Research come as the Obama administration is pushing its proposal to expand access to early learning.

President Barack Obama's plan calls for a federal-state plan to enroll 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families in preschools while providing additional grants to states to expand access to other middle class families.

Early education is one area that both Democrats and Republicans generally support, although clashes arise over government's role and funding.

Monday's report highlights the disparities not only in access to available preschool programs across various states but also in their quality.

"Not only are we stalled, but it really matters what your zip code is," said Steven Barnett, who directs the Rutgers institute.

Overall, state funding per child fell by more than $400 to $3,841 per child on average in 2011-2012, the first year such funding dropped to below $4,000 per student, the report said.

While most U.S. schools begin offering education for students at age 5 for kindergarten, preschool programs vary widely state-by-state.

Most states offer some sort of preschool program for 4-year-olds from families with qualifying low incomes, according to the institute, and some also serve 3-year-olds.

Ten states do not offer preschool, also known as pre-kindergarten or pre-K: Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

QUALITY CONCERNS

Even among those with programs, few states offer so-called "universal preschool" for all children. Parents whose incomes are too high to qualify for state-run programs must pay out-of-pocket for private ones.

Under Obama's plan, the federal government would spend $75 billion over 10 years to widen access to state programs for lower income families. It also seeks to encourage states to broaden access so middle class families could opt in, calling for $750 million in such grants under his 2014 budget proposal.

Despite the president's push, his plan has moved little in Congress, where lawmakers have been focused on immigration, the budget and other issues.

Advocates of early childhood education say reaching 3- and 4-year-olds can help boost students' development long-term. But conservatives and other critics have questioned the federal government's effectiveness in early childhood work, questioning another the federally funded program for low-income 3- to 5-year-olds, Head Start.

Additional funds could help boost cash-strapped states that have cut back on preschool funding since federal stimulus monies ran out, the report said.

"As states emerge from the recession, pre-K continues to suffer," researches wrote, adding that the number of needy families has continued to rise.

Lack of funding has taken a toll on states' abilities to monitor programs and hurt the quality of such early childhood education, they added.

Few states met the institute's 10 benchmarks to assess quality such as teacher training, learning standards and class size, in large part due to funding cuts, the report said.

States that fared the best include Alabama, Alaska, North Carolina and Rhode Island, it said, while California, Florida, Ohio, Texas and Vermont met the fewest quality standards.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/preschools-see-sharp-drop-funding-study-140408946.html

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Leadership emerges spontaneously during games

Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
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Contact: Matthew Swayne
mls29@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

Video game and augmented-reality game players can spontaneously build virtual teams and leadership structures without special tools or guidance, according to researchers.
Players in a game that mixed real and online worlds organized and operated in teams that resembled a military organization with only rudimentary online tools available and almost no military background, said Tamara Peyton, doctoral student in information sciences and technology, Penn State.
"The fact that they formed teams and interacted as well as they did may mean that game designers should resist over-designing the leadership structures," said Peyton. "If you don't design the leadership structures well, you shouldn't design them at all and, instead, let the players figure it out."
Peyton, who worked with Alyson Young, graduate student in information systems, and Wayne Lutters, associate professor of information systems, both at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said that the players quickly adopted a leadership structure that resembled the U.S. military's leadership hierarchy.
"One of the surprising things is that although the people in the game were not related in any way to the military, many of the teams organized along military lines, from designations to filing situation reports," said Peyton.
The researchers, who presented their findings at the 2013 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris today (April 29), examined 54,000 posts of 2,500 players who took part in the I Love Bees game. Microsoft released the game in 2004 as part of a viral marketing campaign to promote the release of the company's Halo 2 video game. The object of the I Love Bees game was to decode messages from a beekeeper's website that was supposedly hacked by aliens. The coded messages revealed geographic coordinates of real pay telephones situated throughout the United States. Players then waited at those payphones for calls that contained more clues.
Because the game did not have a leadership infrastructure, players established their own websites and online forums on other websites to discuss structure, strategy and tactics.
A group of gamers from Washington, D.C., one of the most successful groups in the game, established an organization with a general and groups of lieutenants and privates. The numbers of members in each rank were roughly proportional to the amount of soldiers who fill out ranks in the U.S. military, Peyton said.
The players assigned their own ranks, rather than have ranks dictated to them. The general oversaw the strategy, while lieutenants mostly handled specific tactics for accomplishing the strategy. The privates carried out orders from the lieutenants.
As the game progressed, members researched military terminology and frequently used terms, such as armies, platoons and companies, in their message board posts. Peyton said that the increased militarization after 9/11 may have influenced this choice in terminology.
"The concept of militarization is more of a part of the collective imagination now, post 9/11," Peyton said.
Peyton said the study also shows the power of games to inspire people to work.
"These people did all of this work with no tangible reward, no promise of a free game, or anything," said Peyton. "The strict line between work and leisure is disappearing."
###
The National Science Foundation supported this work.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Leadership emerges spontaneously during games Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Matthew Swayne
mls29@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

Video game and augmented-reality game players can spontaneously build virtual teams and leadership structures without special tools or guidance, according to researchers.
Players in a game that mixed real and online worlds organized and operated in teams that resembled a military organization with only rudimentary online tools available and almost no military background, said Tamara Peyton, doctoral student in information sciences and technology, Penn State.
"The fact that they formed teams and interacted as well as they did may mean that game designers should resist over-designing the leadership structures," said Peyton. "If you don't design the leadership structures well, you shouldn't design them at all and, instead, let the players figure it out."
Peyton, who worked with Alyson Young, graduate student in information systems, and Wayne Lutters, associate professor of information systems, both at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said that the players quickly adopted a leadership structure that resembled the U.S. military's leadership hierarchy.
"One of the surprising things is that although the people in the game were not related in any way to the military, many of the teams organized along military lines, from designations to filing situation reports," said Peyton.
The researchers, who presented their findings at the 2013 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris today (April 29), examined 54,000 posts of 2,500 players who took part in the I Love Bees game. Microsoft released the game in 2004 as part of a viral marketing campaign to promote the release of the company's Halo 2 video game. The object of the I Love Bees game was to decode messages from a beekeeper's website that was supposedly hacked by aliens. The coded messages revealed geographic coordinates of real pay telephones situated throughout the United States. Players then waited at those payphones for calls that contained more clues.
Because the game did not have a leadership infrastructure, players established their own websites and online forums on other websites to discuss structure, strategy and tactics.
A group of gamers from Washington, D.C., one of the most successful groups in the game, established an organization with a general and groups of lieutenants and privates. The numbers of members in each rank were roughly proportional to the amount of soldiers who fill out ranks in the U.S. military, Peyton said.
The players assigned their own ranks, rather than have ranks dictated to them. The general oversaw the strategy, while lieutenants mostly handled specific tactics for accomplishing the strategy. The privates carried out orders from the lieutenants.
As the game progressed, members researched military terminology and frequently used terms, such as armies, platoons and companies, in their message board posts. Peyton said that the increased militarization after 9/11 may have influenced this choice in terminology.
"The concept of militarization is more of a part of the collective imagination now, post 9/11," Peyton said.
Peyton said the study also shows the power of games to inspire people to work.
"These people did all of this work with no tangible reward, no promise of a free game, or anything," said Peyton. "The strict line between work and leisure is disappearing."
###
The National Science Foundation supported this work.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/ps-les042513.php
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Rambler Takes Home The Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon Grand Prize, Learn To Drive And Radical Are Runners Up

The past 24 hours have just flown by for the hundreds of hackers here at the Disrupt NY Hackathon, but the sun is finally up and it’s time to pass judgment on their caffeine-fueled projects. As it turns out, there’s a ton of them here — with 164 registered projects this is our biggest Hackathon yet, and each presenter only had 60 seconds to wow our judges (not to mention the rest of the audience). As you might guess there was no shortage of amazing projects that came together in a single day, but our judges could only choose one team to take home our $5,000 grand prize. Anyway, that’s enough out of me — meet our newest Hackathon winner! Winner: Rambler Rambler, created by William Hockey, Zach Perret and Michael Kelly, is a web app that lets users view their credit and debit card transactions on a map. During the dev process, the team tapped the Foursquare API for locations and the Plaid API to access user spending data. Runner-up #1: Learn To Drive Learn To Drive, created by Jared Zoneraich, Jemma Issroff, Kenny Song, and Nicholas Joseph, is an app for the GM vehicle platform that acts as a virtual driving instructor by speaking driving instructions aloud and display driving statistics like miles driven, hours driven, and hours driven at night. Runner-up #2: Radical Radical, created by Sam Saccone, Carl Sednaoui, and Jeff Escalante, allows users to create attractive calendars and embed on webpages with a single line of code. These three teams will also demo their projects on the main Disrupt stage on Wednesday afternoon, but that’s not to say everyone else is going home empty-handed. Hackathon sponsors Appery.io, AT&T, CrunchBase, General Motors, Microsoft Bizspark, Microsoft Skydrive, NewAer, Pearson, Samsung, Twilio, Visa, Wrigley and Yammer have also graciously doled out prizes of their own for the most innovative and interesting uses of their APIs and services. And just who decided the fate of these sleep-deprived hackers? Our panel of judges includes Mahaya CEO Tarikh Korula, Path101 co-founder Charlie O?Donnell, founder/CEO of The Muse Kathryn Minshew, bit.ly chief?scientist?Hilary Mason, FuturePerfect Ventures founding partner Jalak Jobanputra, and TechStars NYC Managing Director David Tisch.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Ugb3ZVF49D4/

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Friday, April 26, 2013

Catholic World News - Catholic Culture

CWN - April 25, 2013

Access to the web site of the Southern Baptist Convention has been blocked on US military bases, because of an official judgment that the site carries "hostile content," Fox News has reported.

It was not clear how many military bases had blocked the Southern Baptist site. A member of the military reported that he had been unable to reach the site, and had been warned that his attempt to access material from the Southern Baptist Convention had been recorded.

The Southern Baptist Convention represents the largest single Protestant group in the US, and generally takes conservative positions on issues such as homosexuality and abortion.

The report of blocking of the Southern Baptist site comes shortly after a report that a Pentagon official had classified Catholicism as a form of extremism.

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Source: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=17699

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Mammal and bug food co-op in the High Arctic

Apr. 24, 2013 ? Who would have thought that two very different species, a small insect and a furry alpine mammal, would develop a shared food arrangement in the far North?

University of Alberta researchers were certainly surprised when they discovered the unusual response of pikas to patches of vegetation that had previously been grazed on by caterpillars from a species normally found in the high Arctic.

U of A biology researcher Isabel C. Barrio analyzed how two herbivores, caterpillars and pikas, competed for scarce vegetation in alpine areas of the southwest Yukon. The caterpillars come out of their winter cocoons and start consuming vegetation soon after the snow melts in June. Weeks later, the pika starts gathering and storing food in its winter den. For the experiment, Barrio altered the numbers of caterpillars grazing on small plots of land surrounding pika dens.

"What we found was that the pikas preferred the patches first grazed on by caterpillars," said Barrio. "We think the caterpillar's waste acted as a natural fertilizer, making the vegetation richer and more attractive to the pika."

U of A biology professor David Hik, who supervised the research, says the results are the opposite of what the team expected to find.

"Normally you'd expect that increased grazing by the caterpillars would have a negative effect on the pika," said Hik. "But the very territorial little pika actually preferred the vegetation first consumed by the caterpillars."

The researchers say it's highly unusual that two distant herbivore species -- an insect in its larval stage and a mammal -- react positively to one another when it comes to the all-consuming survival issue of finding food.

These caterpillars stay in their crawling larval stage for up to 14 years, sheltering in a cocoon during the long winters before finally becoming Arctic woolly bear moths for the final 24 hours of their lives.

The pika does not hibernate and gathers a food supply in its den. Its food-gathering territory surrounds the den and covers an area of around 700 square metres.

The researchers say they'll continue their work on the caterpillar-pika relationship to explore the long-term implications for increased insect populations and competition for scarce food resources in northern mountain environments.

Barrio was the lead author on the collaborative research project, which was published April 24 in the journal Biology Letters.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alberta, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. The original article was written by Brian Murphy.

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

Journal Reference:

I. C. Barrio, D. S. Hik, K. Peck, C. G. Bueno. After the frass: foraging pikas select patches previously grazed by caterpillars. Biology Letters, 2013; 9 (3): 20130090 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.0090

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/apG4-pzYpt8/130424161114.htm

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Intel's Haswell-powered 'North Cape' reappears, promises 10 hours of battery life in tablet-mode (hands-on)

We've just spotted a familiar friend at Intel's Innovation Future Showcase in London -- its Haswell-powered North Cape laptop / tablet hybrid. As a quick reminder, alongside that fourth-generation Intel Core processor there's a 13-inch 1080p display that detaches from the keyboard, and now we've been given a few important updates on the reference device, battery performance on Haswell and how Intel's reference design will transfer between tablet and Ultrabook mode. All that and more after the break.

Gallery: Intel 'North Cape' reference design hands-on

Filed under: Laptops, Intel

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/25/intel-haswell-north-cape-hands-on-battery-life/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Palestinian Christians battle Israel barrier route

BEIT JALA, West Bank (AP) ? Palestinians in this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed ? pressing Israel to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their picturesque valley.

Since Vatican properties are affected, residents have appealed to the Roman Catholic Church to use more of its significant influence in the Holy Land to reroute the barrier, even as local Catholic leaders hold a special protest Mass in threatened orchards each week.

The Vatican has called on Israel not to seize the lands, but local Palestinian Catholics want the new pontiff to lean more heavily on Israel.

"We have hope in the new pope, as he is close to the poor and the oppressed," said the Rev. Ibrahim Shomali, the Palestinian priest who has been leading the protests.

Israel has been building the barrier since 2002 in response to a wave of suicide bombings early last decade that killed hundreds of people. Israel says the barrier is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers.

Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab because it zigzags through the West Bank. When complete, nearly 10 percent of the West Bank, including many Israeli settlements, would lie on Israel's side, according to the United Nations. Roughly two-thirds of the 700 kilometer (450-mile) structure has been built.

Beit Jala is a postcard-pretty Christian town of 16,000 in the overwhelmingly Muslim West Bank. The likeness of the Palestinian patron, Saint George, is carved into building facades. Groceries sell beer and butchers sell pork, items banned under Islamic law. A bowling alley faces an Israeli military base.

Yet the village feels hemmed in. It abuts the biblical town of Bethlehem on one side. On another, barbed wire separates Beit Jala from the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo. Part of the separation barrier seals in another side, protecting a nearby road used by Jewish settlers. Residents say the planned stretch of construction will close off one of the village's last remaining open spaces.

"They are crowding us inside a ghetto," sighed Issa Khalilieh, whose family lost 12 acres (five hectares) in years of Israeli confiscations, and is poised to lose another three acres (one hectare) to the barrier.

An Israeli defense official said Jerusalem would remain "open and vulnerable" if the section isn't built. He noted that during the height of violence a decade ago, militants fired at nearby Gilo from Beit Jala. Although the fighting has quieted, he said Palestinians now use the valley to sneak into Israel to work. The official spoke anonymously under ministry policy.

In the Beit Jala area, Israel's Defense Ministry plans to seize some 790 acres (320 hectares) of the Cremisan Valley, said lawyer Ghaith Nasser. Israel's Defense Ministry would not confirm how much land they intend to seize.

Some one-third of the land is Vatican-owned, with a monastery surrounded by pines, playground and vineyard that monks have used to make wine since 1882. Nearby is a convent where nuns run a school for 600 Palestinian students. Some 60 families own the rest, a series of terraced olive and apricot orchards plunging into the valley. Residents go there to relax, barbecue and pray.

If the route goes as planned, the monastery and orchards will be on Israel's side of the barrier. The convent and school will be on the Palestinian side, surrounded by high concrete walls, lawyers said.

Since January 2012, about two dozen people have gathered in the groves every Friday to pray to save their lands. George Abu Eid, whose family's five acres (two hectares) of olive and lemon orchards are threatened, said activists hope to build international support.

On a recent windy Friday, some two dozen worshippers gathered in a circle around Rev. Shomali, who used a cloth-covered table as a makeshift altar, held down with a crucifix. Palestinians and European Christian volunteers sang hymns. One woman read part of a Bible passage. Rev. Shomali reminded the congregation that Christians are obligated to help the oppressed.

Rev. Shomali's protest Mass isn't sanctioned by the church. Instead, he said he was making an honest Christian act of standing with people defending their land. He said the village plans to send a delegation to the Vatican to plead their case.

Residents have been challenging the project in court for years, and construction remains on hold pending a ruling. A Catholic legal aid group is assisting the court battle, and the Latin Patriarchate, which oversees local Catholic affairs, said it sympathizes with the residents. The Vatican signed an October letter that condemned the barrier's route and called on Israel to keep the Cremisan valley attached to Beit Jala.

Rev. Shomali and residents said the letter wasn't enough. They want the Vatican to either join their legal case or publically condemn Israel.

"If the church stands with us, we would have our land. Israel is scared of the church and her voice," said Rev. Shomali.

Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said the government is in "direct dialogue" with the Vatican and affected monks and nuns in the area to try come to an amicable decision.

"We have been trying to make our case and reach an agreement on what would be possible," he said.

A senior church official confirmed discussions were underway with Israel. He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future state.

For years, they have staged marches in villages affected by the barrier, sometimes succeeding in altering the route of the barrier. An Israeli-Palestinian documentary on the fight of residents in the village of Bilin to reroute the barrier was nominated for an Oscar this year.

The route of the barrier has drawn accusations that Israel is using the structure to incorporate some Jewish settlements, how home to more than 500,000 Israelis, into its future borders.

"The barrier has a route that ... is clearly not defined by what Israel calls security reasons," said Aviv Tatarsky of Ir Amim, an advocacy group that monitors the route of the barrier around Jerusalem. "The planned route goes way into the West Bank to put the settlement blocs within its area."

Israeli governments have said that they intend to keep the main settlement blocs close to the old 1949 cease-fire line along the West Bank under a peace treaty, offering the Palestinians Israeli land in exchange, but negotiations have failed to produce an agreement.

___

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/palestinian-christians-battle-israel-barrier-route-185408315.html

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Ukky iPhone app journals your child's life, gives your Facebook followers a break

Look, we've all been there -- that moment when palm meets face after viewing the umpteenth image of your best friend's child. As cute as Louie is, there's a finite quantity of JPEGs that one can stand if you aren't Louie's creator. Of course, scaling back the number of offspring photos uploaded to public social networks wasn't the intention of those who crafted Ukky, but it's a side effect that the childless among us will no doubt appreciate. Showcased this week at The Next Web Conference, Ukky is a (gorgeous) iPhone app that's designed to journal the life of your youngster, and your interactions along the way. The word itself is Dutch for "little one" (or so I'm told), and it effectively brings the world of Path to a different niche.

Gallery: Ukky iPhone app demo

Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile

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Source: Ukky

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/_vzjYs6KB2M/

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Maker Mama: Austin Treehouse | Sustainable Home Improvement

Earlier this month I was invited up to Austin for a tour of Treehouse, a home improvement store dedicated to sustainable living. I drooled over their website and immediately made plans to go.

I've never heard about a home improvement store dedicated to sustainability, and was excited to meet with local bloggers to learn more.

I have a big heart for green living (although I'm far from perfect at it), and to find a store that not only seeks to provide products that are good for you and your home, but that also holds itself accountable was like heaven on Earth to me.?

At first glance, Treehouse may look like any other home improvement store--but there's no second-guessing once you take a closer look (inside or out--they have giant rain barrels and solar panels out front). I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they're housed in a former Borders bookstore (bittersweet memories). I love?when companies repurpose old buildings.?

After an amazing story about his passion for healthy homes, cofounder Jason Ballard led us on a tour around the store showcasing the high quality products handpicked by the Treehouse team. Each item goes through the Treehouse product filter and must meet health, performance, sustainability, and corporate responsibility requirements to earn their place in the store.?

I must have thrown a couple dozen questions at Jason throughout the tour and he didn't bat an eye. He had straight answers for every question and was friendly in sharing his wealth of information--this guy knew his stuff.?

One of the most shocking things I learned? Our homes are the number-one offender to the health of our world--there's no escaping the toxins we escape to each day--unless we make our homes smarter. Treehouse's mission is to help us do just that.?

Some of Treehouse's top products include rain barrels (they actually sold the last ones that night--definitely high demand in South Texas), VOC-free paints (including milk paint--I also loved their clay plaster), and LED lightbulbs. In fact, Treehouse is the very first home store to sell the brand new omnidirectional LED lightbulb by Switch, how awesome is that?

And what home improvement store do you know that hunts down salvaged items to share with its customers? I didn't think so.?

Treehouse also goes beyond your typical home improvement items, with awesome sustainable gift ideas for kids as well as home goods like locally sourced beeswax candles and eco-friendly cleaning supplies. I could have wondered the aisles for hours (and brought home one of everything).?

They even have a garden section with native plants only, and homestead products like chicken feed and homebrewing kits! If I could marry a store, this would be the one.

I'm totally pining over it even thinking about it--I feel like prank calling just to hear Treehouse's voice--I'm that obsessed with this store. Now when are they moving to San Antonio? This is my new secret mission. I'll be there at the ribbon-cutting!?

But seriously. I'm in love with this store because it's doing something that no other home improvement store has yet done. People come first, and the products on their shelves are their to make every life better. They have a dream and a vision, and it is good. 'Nough said. Forget Ikea*, who wants to take a trip to Treehouse with me??

Want to help Treehouse make it big and (hopefully) one day open a store near you? Go ~~stalk~~?like them on Facebook or Twitter. And make a few prank calls to their store. Okay, not that last one. But really, let's help them make it to the big time--it's about time for a store like Treehouse!

*Austin has the closest Ikea store for we San Antonians, but Treehouse is even closer!

This is not a sponsored post--I'm writing about Treehouse because I'm in love.?

Source: http://www.makermama.com/2013/04/treehouse-sustainable-home-improvement.html

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Science Study Shows Monkeys Pick Up Social Cues

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A study published in Science showed that monkeys conditioned to eat a certain color corn switched to a disliked color when other monkeys were eating it.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/science/science-study-shows-monkeys-pick-up-social-cues.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Outside the camps, Syrian refugees face further hardship

About six weeks after the United Nations logged the one-millionth Syrian refugee, that figure has already climbed by 10 percent to more than 1.16 million registered refugees. Including those awaiting registration, the UN is now tracking more than 1.38 million Syrian refugees.

And most regional governments estimate that the actual number of refugees hosted by Syria?s neighbors is much higher. The Lebanese government estimates that it has 1 million Syrians, both refugees and migrant workers, living in the country ? more than double the 431,110 refugees recorded by the UN.

For the last two months, Syrians have been pouring out of the country at a rate of about 8,000 people per day, compared to 2,000 per day in December. If current trends continue, the number of refugees could triple by year?s end, according to UN officials.

Though much attention has been focused on Syrian refugees living in camps along the border, 74 percent live outside camps, spread out among the host population. Lebanon's Syrian refugee population, the second largest, is equivalent to about 10 percent of its own population, but the government has not yet established official camps.

RECOMMENDED: Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.

Outside camps, Syrians struggle to find work in countries already suffering high unemployment rates and rising housing costs, amid myriad other problems. These challenges are likely to prove a serious impediment to the professional and economic growth of a generation of Syrians.

?The Middle East has not been a stranger to forced displacement. What sets this emergency or crisis apart from others and makes it so dangerous is not only the sheer the number of people arriving, but also the rate at which they?re arriving,? says Reem Alsalem, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

?Perhaps the only population that has been variously associated with camps is the Palestinian refugee population. Partially, this hesitation with establishing camps is connected to that. Palestinian refugee camps have been in the region for 60 years and still there is no solution,? she says.

DESCENDING THE CAREER LADDER

Prior to the Syrian uprising, Omar Farouq enjoyed an upper-middle class lifestyle in Aleppo, where he worked as an educational consultant while also studying for certificates in English and computer science. Each month he managed to save about half of his salary.

He fled Syria months ago and now lives in Istanbul, where he says he?s grateful for a job working as a grocer in a spice shop. The work barely covers his costs.

?Now I?m lucky if I don?t go into debt each month,? says Mr. Farouq, who uses a fake name. Speaking of the difficulty to find work more suited to his abilities, he adds, ?None of my certificates matter because they aren?t valid here.?

Among the handful of Syrians who manage to find a job suited to their skills, let alone a job, many say they receive only half to a quarter the salary of locals working in comparable jobs.

Shortly after being mistaken as a protester and receiving a severe beating from Syrian Air Force intelligence, Adnan Abu Abdu moved to Turkey. He briefly studied Turkish and, with the help of his cousin, managed to land a job at an international marketing firm in Istanbul. Formerly a graphic design teacher, Mr. Abdu, who asked not to use his real name, says he is glad to have a job, but notes that Turkish employees receive about $2,000 per month for the same job for which he only receives $500.

?My boss didn?t make any excuses. He said, ?I?ll give you $500 a month. If you develop yourself you can get more,?? he recalls. ?For the longterm, I?m developing myself and the main purpose is that after the war there might be new markets between Syria and Turkey.?

For now he survives by living in a low-cost student dormitory on the edge of Istanbul.

PRICED OUT OF HOMES

According to a new report by CARE Jordan, the biggest expense for most refugees in Jordan is rent, a concern echoed by refugees throughout the region. Jordan is home to the largest population of Syrian refugees. The report found that in general, Syrians are paying above market price for low-quality homes throughout the country.

Sharing a border with Syria, Iraq, and Israel and the West Bank, Jordan has long been home to people displaced by a number of the region?s conflicts. In each conflict the surge of people has driven up housing and land prices. In some areas of Jordan, housing prices reportedly doubled amid the influx of Syrian refugees.

In Lebanon, just under 10 percent of the registered Syrian refugee population is living in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Many of the urban refugees are either independently wealthy, and can afford to rent homes or stay in hotels, or move in with relatives who were already living and working in the cities.

Rental prices are high in Beirut, even for relatively affluent Lebanese, which means that most refugees have opted to settle in rural areas closer to the border with Syria. Most live either in small encampments of makeshift shelters built from scrap wood and plastic sacking or rent homes in villages or move in with Lebanese relatives.

But the presence of urban refugees has begun to test the patience of some Lebanese who complain of rising prices of basic foods and incidents of crime.

?I used to feel sorry for them when they first appeared, but now the beggars are everywhere and it?s become too much,? says Rasha Salem, a pharmacy employee in Beirut.

There are reports that some communities have imposed nighttime curfews to curb outbreaks of theft which they blame on an influx of Syrian refugees.

INVOLUNTARY DROPOUTS

Throughout the region, one of the biggest concerns for Syrian refugee families is finding schooling for their children, who make up 48 percent of the Syrian refugee population and are unable to attend official schooling in their host countries. The longer children stay out of school, the less likely they are to eventually return, according to a March report from Save the Children.

In Jordan, CARE found that more than 60 percent of school-age children are not attending any classes, despite the availability of free schooling. For most parents, the auxiliary costs associated with schooling, such as transportation, supplies, and lunches, prove an insurmountable barrier.

?It?s a worry in its own sense, of course for the education and the future of those children, but we also think it?s a very clear of the levels of poverties that families are experiencing,? says Kate Washington, Syrian refugee response coordinator at CARE Jordan. ?One of the things that is of concern ? is the scope and scale of needs and the fact that they are increasing and we have absolutely no reason to suspect that they will stop increasing.?

In Istanbul, Mohammad Mawaheb Seraj now counts himself as one of the luckiest Syrian refugees. One year away from completing his bachelor?s degree in computer engineering, he got stuck in Turkey when fighting erupted in his home city of Aleppo this summer and decided to stay. After looking for menial work in malls and even as a trash sorter, he found a job as a web developer for a Japanese company through someone he met on CouchSurfing.com. He now telecommutes from Istanbul.

?I call my mother and she cries and cries and says I miss you, but don?t come back. If you stay there at least I know that if you go out of the house you won?t get shot,? he says.

Correspondent Nicholas Blanford contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

Todd Harrell Checks Into Rehab Following DUI Crash, Vehicular Homicide Charge

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/todd-harrell-checks-into-rehab-following-dui-crash-vehicular-hom/

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Researchers make a significant step forward in combating antibiotic resistance

Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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Contact: Claire Mulley
c.e.mulley@durham.ac.uk
01-913-346-077
Durham University

Researchers are 1 step closer to understanding why antibiotics are ineffective against certain types of bacteria

Antibiotic resistance is a global problem. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that for tuberculosis alone multi-drug resistance accounts for more than 150,000 deaths each year. WHO warns of "a doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics," in which antibiotic resistance will turn common infections into incurable killers and make routine surgeries a high-risk gamble.

Certain types of bacteria are a scourge of the hospital environment because they are extremely resistant to antibiotics and consequently difficult, if not impossible, to treat. This group of bacteria is classified as 'gram-negative' because their cells have a double membrane or outer layer, compared with gram-positive bacteria, which just have one outer layer.

Not only are these cells difficult to penetrate in the first instance, due to their double membrane, but they have effective 'pumps' which quickly reject anything that interferes with the activity of protein-building within the cell and the development of the protective cell wall.

This research, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, gives for the first time a clear insight into how these protein components of the pump work together to transport an antibiotic from the cell.

Examples of gram-negative bacteria include those which cause food poisoning, meningitis, gonorrhoea and respiratory problems. Since the antibiotic is an interfering agent, many of these pathogenic bacteria use the membrane pumps to transport the medication out of the cell.

The pumps are made up of three different proteins within the cell that work together to bring about the movement. Research lead, Professor Adrian Walmsley from Durham University's School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences explained:

"Patients with bacterial infections are often treated with antibiotics, but since many strains are resistant to one or more of these drugs, clinicians often try to bring such infections under control by prescribing a combination of different types of antibiotics in the hope that they will override the resistance mechanisms. This sometimes works, but other times it does not. Pumps exacerbate this situation by reducing the effective concentration of the drug inside the cell. "

"By investigating how these pumps function, we have been able to identify the molecular events that are involved in binding and transporting an antibiotic from the cell. This advance in our understanding will ultimately aid the development of 'pump blockers'. This is important because these pumps often confer resistance to multiple, structurally unrelated, drugs; which means that they could also be resistant to new drugs which have never been used before"

Dr Vassiliy Bavro from the the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham said:

"This study greatly expands our understanding of the mechanistic aspects of the pump function, and in particular challenges our previous concepts of energy requirements for pump assembly and cycling. By elucidating the intricate details of how these essential nanomachines come together, it also provides a new working model of their functional cycle in general, paving the way to development of novel approaches to disrupting their function."

Dr Ted Bianco, Acting Director of the Wellcome Trust, said:

"A world without antibiotics is a world where simple surgery becomes a life-threatening procedure, where a scratch from a rose might prove fatal, and where diseases like tuberculosis return with a ferocity not seen in Britain since the Victorian era. This is why fundamental research to understand the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance is so important. Only when we know what we're up against can researchers begin to design new antibacterial agents to help us win the war against bacterial infections."

###

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Researchers make a significant step forward in combating antibiotic resistance

Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Claire Mulley
c.e.mulley@durham.ac.uk
01-913-346-077
Durham University

Researchers are 1 step closer to understanding why antibiotics are ineffective against certain types of bacteria

This research, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, gives for the first time a clear insight into how these protein components of the pump work together to transport an antibiotic from the cell.

Dr Vassiliy Bavro from the the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham said:

Dr Ted Bianco, Acting Director of the Wellcome Trust, said:

###

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/du-rma042313.php

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