There is some extremely good news for video games fans out there coming from Microsoft, as the Redmond based company is getting into the holiday season spirit early by expanding their Xbox 360 console subsidy deal. You may remember that the original reduction deal first made an appearance earlier on in the year when Microsoft announced that consumers could purchase a 4GB Xbox 360 console for $99, with a monthly charged two-year Xbox LIVE subscription from participating stores.
Although the original deal managed to wet the whistle of potential console owners, it was quite limited in the fact that it only covered the 4GB Xbox 360 model and was limited to just 16 official participating Microsoft Stores. If either of those things were holding you back then green lights should be flashing as the deal has been extended to include a 250GB Xbox 360 console for the same $99 price tag. The more adventurous among us can also opt to throw the Kinect motion detection hardware for an additional $50.
The same rules apply to the extension of the offer, anyone wanting to purchase the Xbox 360 for the $99 or $149 reduced price must also sign-up for a two-year Xbox LIVE Gold membership that comes with a recurring monthly charge of $14.99. There hasn?t been any official confirmation yet that the deal will be extended to additional retail outlets but the official holding page for the offer on the Xbox website suggests that the list will be updated and extended to give consumers additional choices.
A large number of gaming fans who actually purchase an Xbox 360 invariably go on to subscribe to Microsoft?s online LIVE service anyway, so it would seem to be a fantastic deal to be able to grab a 4GB or 250GB console for just $99. The additional $14.99 will make sure that subscribers get access to great online content as well as multiplayer gaming features that can be enjoyed by friends and family members. Microsoft is also pumping large resources into their LIVE service, meaning that additional content will become available going forward.
My only question: why anyone would choose to snap up the 4GB console for $99 when they could throw in an extra fifty bucks and get the 250GB variant with the fantastic Kinect hardware? Check out the official Xbox subsidy page for more information on participating retailers when the information becomes available.
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Puppies don't pick up on yawnsPublic release date: 23-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Joan Robinson joan.robinson@springer.com 49-622-148-78130 Springer
Dogs, like humans, show a gradual development of susceptibility to contagious yawning
Do you get tired when others yawn? Does your dog get tired when you yawn? New research from Lund University establishes that dogs catch yawns from humans. But not if the dogs are too young. The study, published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition, found that, like humans, dogs show a developmental trend in susceptibility to contagious yawning.
While dogs above seven months of age catch human yawns, younger dogs are immune to yawn contagion.
Contagious yawning is not just a sign of sleepiness or boredom. Previous research has shown contagious yawning in humans, adult chimpanzees, baboons and dogs, and suggests that it can be used as a measure of empathy. Empathy, mimicking the emotional responses of others, is difficult to measure directly, but contagious yawning allows assessment of a behavioral empathetic response, the researchers say.
While the development of contagious yawning in human children has seen much research, this is the first study to investigate its development in another species.
Elainie Alenkr Madsen, PhD, and Tomas Persson, PhD, researchers at Lund University, engaged 35 dogs in Denmark, aged between four and 14 months, in bouts of play and cuddling and observed the dogs' responses when a human repeatedly yawned or gaped or performed neither of the two expressions. Only dogs above seven months of age showed evidence of contagious yawning.
This pattern of development is consistent with that in humans, who also show a developmental increase in susceptibility to yawn contagion, with children typically beginning to yawn contagiously at the age of four, when a number of cognitive abilities, such as accurate identification of others' emotions, begin to clearly manifest. One interpretation that Madsen and Persson suggest is that the results reflect a general developmental pattern, shared by humans and other animals, in terms of affective empathy and the ability to identify others' emotions. Given that contagious yawning may be an empathetic response, the results suggest that empathy and the mimicry that may underlie it develop slowly over the first year of a dog's life.
There was some evidence that the researchers may have transferred the emotion that yawning reflects (sleepiness) to the dogs, as nearly half of the dogs responded to yawning with a reduction in arousal, to the extent that the experimenter needed to prevent a number of dogs from falling asleep.
Research with adult humans and other primates suggest that individuals are more likely to yawn contagiously to those with whom they have close emotional bonds. Madsen and Persson tested the dogs with both an unfamiliar experimenter and their owner, but found no evidence that the puppies preferentially yawned in response to the yawns of the human with whom they were emotionally close. Since this is also the case for young human children, the researchers suggest that in species that show an empathy-based social modulatory effect on contagious yawning, this behavior only emerges at later stages of development.
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Reference
Madsen EA, Persson T. Contagious yawning in domestic dog puppies (Canis lupus familiaris): the effect of ontogeny and emotional closeness on low-level imitation in dogs. Animal Cognition; DOI 10.1007/s10071-012-0568-9
The full-text article and a video are available to journalists on request.
[ | 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.
Puppies don't pick up on yawnsPublic release date: 23-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Joan Robinson joan.robinson@springer.com 49-622-148-78130 Springer
Dogs, like humans, show a gradual development of susceptibility to contagious yawning
Do you get tired when others yawn? Does your dog get tired when you yawn? New research from Lund University establishes that dogs catch yawns from humans. But not if the dogs are too young. The study, published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition, found that, like humans, dogs show a developmental trend in susceptibility to contagious yawning.
While dogs above seven months of age catch human yawns, younger dogs are immune to yawn contagion.
Contagious yawning is not just a sign of sleepiness or boredom. Previous research has shown contagious yawning in humans, adult chimpanzees, baboons and dogs, and suggests that it can be used as a measure of empathy. Empathy, mimicking the emotional responses of others, is difficult to measure directly, but contagious yawning allows assessment of a behavioral empathetic response, the researchers say.
While the development of contagious yawning in human children has seen much research, this is the first study to investigate its development in another species.
Elainie Alenkr Madsen, PhD, and Tomas Persson, PhD, researchers at Lund University, engaged 35 dogs in Denmark, aged between four and 14 months, in bouts of play and cuddling and observed the dogs' responses when a human repeatedly yawned or gaped or performed neither of the two expressions. Only dogs above seven months of age showed evidence of contagious yawning.
This pattern of development is consistent with that in humans, who also show a developmental increase in susceptibility to yawn contagion, with children typically beginning to yawn contagiously at the age of four, when a number of cognitive abilities, such as accurate identification of others' emotions, begin to clearly manifest. One interpretation that Madsen and Persson suggest is that the results reflect a general developmental pattern, shared by humans and other animals, in terms of affective empathy and the ability to identify others' emotions. Given that contagious yawning may be an empathetic response, the results suggest that empathy and the mimicry that may underlie it develop slowly over the first year of a dog's life.
There was some evidence that the researchers may have transferred the emotion that yawning reflects (sleepiness) to the dogs, as nearly half of the dogs responded to yawning with a reduction in arousal, to the extent that the experimenter needed to prevent a number of dogs from falling asleep.
Research with adult humans and other primates suggest that individuals are more likely to yawn contagiously to those with whom they have close emotional bonds. Madsen and Persson tested the dogs with both an unfamiliar experimenter and their owner, but found no evidence that the puppies preferentially yawned in response to the yawns of the human with whom they were emotionally close. Since this is also the case for young human children, the researchers suggest that in species that show an empathy-based social modulatory effect on contagious yawning, this behavior only emerges at later stages of development.
###
Reference
Madsen EA, Persson T. Contagious yawning in domestic dog puppies (Canis lupus familiaris): the effect of ontogeny and emotional closeness on low-level imitation in dogs. Animal Cognition; DOI 10.1007/s10071-012-0568-9
The full-text article and a video are available to journalists on request.
[ | 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.
Few have worked as closely with Cam Newton as Warren Moon, and the Hall of Fame quarterback is still defending last year?s pupil, even while acknowledging his need to improve.
Moon thinks placing too much of the blame for the Panthers? 1-5 start (and the firing of general manager Marty Hurney) at the second-year quarterback?s feet is wrong, and any suggestion he?s a bust is ridiculous.
?I think a lot of this is because so many people want to say ?I told you so? about him, but couldn?t because he was so good last year,? Moon told Yahoo?s Mike Silver in a wide-ranging interview. ?I think people are overreacting. How can he be a bust? He just had one of the great years a rookie has ever had, and now he can?t play? Come on.?
Moon acknowledged he?d like to see Newton adopt a more even-keeled approach, something he?s done more of in recent weeks. But as he did prior to the draft?last year, Moon thinks there?s an undertone of racism to some of the criticism.
?I don?t understand it,? Moon said. ?I heard somebody compare him to Vince Young. It?s the same old crap ? it?s always a comparison of one black to another black. I get tired of it. I get tired of defending it.
?If you want to compare him to someone because of his demeanor, compare him to Jay Cutler. There are a lot of guys who whine and moan. Cam?s not biting anybody?s head off or pushing his linemen. He?s just disgruntled, and not handling losing well, because, think about it, he basically didn?t lose in college.
?I don?t think Cam?s as bad as Cutler, because Cutler looks like he doesn?t give a damn sometimes, or he?s yelling and cussing at someone. Cam, he just looks down when they?re losing.?
Moon also doesn?t think the Panthers coaches are putting Newton in good positions to succeed by ignoring the run game with the talent they have, and leaning too heavily on the read-option principles he ran in college.
?I don?t know why they got away from what they were doing last year,? Moon said. ?They were running more of a pro-style offense, and now they?re going more to the read-option, the stuff he did in college. I think some of it is coaching. I think some of it is they don?t have enough good players yet. And there?s no question he?s not playing as well as last year.
?That offense doesn?t allow you to be an NFL-type quarterback. It?s a lot of tricks, sticking the ball into a running back?s stomach, trying to freeze the defense. Even though he can do that and had success with it in college, I don?t think it serves him well in the long run. You can?t keep going back and forth. I think he?s a little bit confused with the footwork, and I think that?s one of the problems with his accuracy ? his feet are crossed up. Why this change? I think it?s backfiring. I think they?re out-thinking themselves.?
Natural process activating brain's immune cells could point way to repairing damaged brain tissue
Monday, October 22, 2012
The brain's key "breeder" cells, it turns out, do more than that. They secrete substances that boost the numbers and strength of critical brain-based immune cells believed to play a vital role in brain health. This finding adds a new dimension to our understanding of how resident stem cells and stem cell transplants may improve brain function.
Many researchers believe that these cells may be able to regenerate damaged brain tissue by integrating into circuits that have been eroded by neurodegenerative disease or destroyed by injury. But new findings by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggest that another process, which has not been fully appreciated, could be a part of the equation as well. The findings appear in a study that will be published online Oct. 21 in Nature Neuroscience.
"Transplanting neural stem cells into experimental animals' brains shows signs of being able to speed recovery from stroke and possibly neurodegenerative disease as well," said Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences in the medical school and senior research scientist at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. "Why this technique works is far from clear, though, because actually neural stem cells don't engraft well."
Neural stem cells can endure essentially unchanged for decades in two places in the mammalian brain, replicating just enough to meet the routine needs of those regions. In most parts of the brain, they aren't found at all.
While of critical importance to maintaining healthy brain function, true neural stem cells are rare. Far more common are their immediate progeny, which are called neural progenitor cells, or NPCs. These robust, rapidly dividing cells are poised to travel down a committed path of differentiation to yield new brain cells of several different types including neurons.
It's known that treating humans with radiation or drugs that prevent NPC replication causes memory deficits ("chemo brain") and, in children, IQ losses of up to 20 points. Conversely, studies are being initiated to see whether infusing neural stem cells into brains affected by Alzheimer's disease can enhance patients' memory function.
One category of brain cells, microglia, descends not from neural stem cells but from an immune lineage and retains several features of immune cells. "Microglia are the brain's own resident immune cells," Wyss-Coray said. Unlike most other mature brain cells, microglia can proliferate throughout adulthood, especially in response to brain injury. They can, moreover, migrate toward injury sites, secrete various "chemical signaling" substances, and gobble up bits of debris, microbial invaders or entire dead or dying neurons.
Microglia normally are distributed throughout the brain ? rather small, quiescent cells sprouting long, skinny projections that meekly but efficiently survey large areas that, taken together, cover the entire brain. But if this surveillance reveals signs of a disturbance, such as injury or infection, the microglia whirl into action. They begin proliferating and their puny bodies puff up, metamorphosing from mild-mannered Clark Kent-like reporters to buffed Supermen who fly to the scene of trouble, where they secrete substances that can throttle bad actors or call in reinforcements. Within these activated cells, internal garbage disposals called lysosomes form in large numbers and start whirring, ready to make mincemeat out of pathogens or cellular debris.
In addition to their part patrol-officer, part cleanup-crew status, microglia can also secrete substances that help neurons thrive. They also contribute to the ongoing pruning of unneeded connections between neurons that occurs throughout our lives.
But like immune cells elsewhere, said Wyss-Coray, microglia can be a force for evil if they engage in too much or inappropriate activity. They might, for instance, start to remove healthy cells (as occurs in Parkinson's) or stop cleaning up garbage strewn about the brain (for example, Alzheimer's plaque).
In a series of experiments, Wyss-Coray and his colleagues have shown that NPCs secrete substances that activate microglia. First, the researchers observed that microglia were uncharacteristically abundant and activated in the two regions in the mammalian brain where NPCs reside and new neurons are formed. Wondering whether the NPCs might be causing this increased microglial activity, the investigators incubated mouse microglia in a culture medium in which NPCs had previously been steeped. Two days later, they saw that the microglia had multiplied more, expressed different amounts of various signal molecules and featured more lysosomes. "The microglia were ready for action," said Wyss-Coray.
So they injected NPCs into an area of mice's brains where these cells are normally not found. In the same area in the opposing brain hemisphere, they injected a control solution. Again they found significant differences in microglial proliferation and activity, and more microglia in the NPC-injected side had assumed a "Superman" as opposed to a "Clark Kent" body shape. When they repeated this experiment using only the NPCs' "discarded bath water" rather than NPCs themselves, they got similar results.
Clearly NPCs were secreting something, or some things, that were spurring microglia to action.
Using sophisticated lab techniques, the team monitored purified NPCs plus several other cell types found in the brain and assessed nearly 60 different substances known to have powerful cell-to-cell signaling properties. Several such substances, it turned out, were secreted in much larger amounts by NPCs than by the other cell types: most notably, vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF ? a well-known molecule produced by many cell types throughout the body. VEGF stimulates the formation of blood vessels and exerts a beneficial effect on neurons. Conversely, drugs that block VEGF (such as Avastin) are frequently used to combat cancer because tumors require an immense blood supply in order to grow quickly.
VEGF is also known to boost microglial proliferation. Because it is produced in such volumes by NPCs, Wyss-Coray's team wanted to see if VEGF alone could mimic any of the changes wrought by NPCs or their culture-medium-borne detritus. So they injected VEGF into mice's right brain hemisphere, and saline solution into the left ? again with the same outcomes. Taking the opposite tack, the team injected NPC-saturated medium devoid of the cells, as they had done earlier. But this time they first used various laboratory techniques to deplete the fluid of the VEGF secreted by its former inhabitants. Doing this almost completely reversed its microglia-activating effects.
"All of this strongly suggests that VEGF produced by NPCs is playing a strong role in influencing microglial behavior," said Wyss-Coray. "This is important, because in all neurodegenerative diseases we know of we see microglia out of control." The new finding may open the door to reprogramming misbehaving microglia to play better with other cells.
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Stanford University Medical Center: http://med-www.stanford.edu/MedCenter/MedSchool
Thanks to Stanford University Medical Center for this article.
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Crude oil and the distillates have already started to trade lower as one can see by examining the charts on those 3 products. The lone holdout in the energy complex has been natural gas but based on the near 5% correction today and the failure to hold onto early gains this could be the beginning of the correction forecast in recent weeks.
See in the chart above the 18 day MA identified by the blue line was challenged on its lows today. I have advised traders to scale into bearish plays using the Fibonacci levels as their targets on the way down. My favored play currently is shorting NGZ12 futures while simultaneously selling just of the money puts 1:1. I think an additional 25-40 cent break could happen in the coming weeks. On that look to capitalize on shorts and then reverse in an attempt to gain on bullish exposure into the winter months.
To discuss in more detail this chart or any other you can reach me at:
mbradbard@rcmam.com or 954-929-9997
Risk Disclaimer: The opinions contained herein are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific investment advice or recommendations and are not tailored to any specific?s investor?s needs or investment goals.? You should fully understand the risks associated with trading futures, options and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions (?Forex?) before making any trades. Trading futures, options, and Forex involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change without notice.? Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
CALGARY/TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada could still approve the C$5.17 billion ($5.22 billion) acquisition of Progress Energy Resources Corp by Malaysian state oil company Petronas, the country's finance minister said on Sunday, despite blocking the bid late last week.
While observers predict a chaotic market reaction following the federal government's statement late on Friday that the deal did not provide the "net benefit" required from foreign buyers under the Investment Canada Act, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Canadian television that negotiations continue.
"I'm not involved in those discussions directly. The minister of industry is," Flaherty said in an interview on CTV's "Question Period". "I'm sure they'll continue to work on it. There's another period of time during which they can continue to have discussions and try to satisfy the concerns that the Department of Industry has."
The government's Friday announcement, minutes before a deadline, was a blow to Petronas, whose domestic oil supplies are shrinking and which has been seeking to boost its resources beyond Malaysia and volatile areas such as Sudan.
It also raises doubts over Chinese oil group CNOOC's C$15.1 billion offer for oil producer Nexen and could weigh on other Canadian firms hoping for foreign investment to tap their vast energy reserves.
"We're going to see sell-offs all around and gore on the floor for Progress and Nexen," said Chris Damas, an independent analyst with BCMI Research.
Along with Progress and Nexen, some analysts believe that mid-sized energy companies operating, like Progress, in the Montney shale-gas region of northeastern British Columbia are most likely to be hit by selling pressure when the Toronto Stock Exchange opens on Monday.
"The intermediate (oil exploration and production) group is significantly impacted by the Progress/Petronas decision, reflective of a high weighting to gas-focused Montney producers," Greg Pardy, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said in a research note.
"We expect the group to be under considerable pressure during Monday's trading session and believe that as of Friday's close, about 15 to 20 percent of a (merger and acquisition) premium is currently 'baked in' to the Montney stocks."
Canada's tar sands are the world's third-largest crude oil reserve, behind only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, while the country's vast shale oil and gas deposits are still in the early stages of development.
The government has said the oil sands alone will require C$650 billion in investment over the next decade, much of which will have to come from foreign sources.
However, the willingness of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government to stomach foreign ownership of the country's strategic resources has been an open question since it blocked BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for Potash Corp , the world's largest fertilizer maker, in 2010.
At that time, the government pledged to clarify what constituted a net benefit under the Investment Canada Act but has yet to do so. Observers are saying that after the Petronas decision, the Conservatives must offer clear guidelines on the rules for overseas investors.
"The next message they have to send out is that 'We are still open for business, but here are the terms in which we are open for business. We'd love to work with you and take on foreign capital' and we haven't seen that yet," said Martin Pelletier, a portfolio manager with Trivest Wealth Counsel. "Hopefully we'll get some clarity on that in the next month or so with the Nexen-CNOOC deal."
($1 = $0.99 Canadian)
(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Jones in Calgary and David Ljunggren and Randall Palmer in Ottawa; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Marguerita Choy)
I am trying to create a pdf of an ahnentafel report in Family Tree Maker and having trouble gettting it to work. The main program that I use is Family Tree Maker 2006, because overall it works the best, but I also have Family Tree Maker 2011 on my computer. Right now neither of them is capable of creating a pdf of an ahnentafel report.
I can view ahnentafel reports in FTM 2006, but when I try to create a pdf the program freezes and crashes.
If I use FTM 2011, I can get into the screen where I can tell the program to generate an ahnentafel report, but I can't actually see one because the program either infinitly says its loading and does nothing (for hours) or freezes and crashes.
The point of creating a pdf is so that I can email what I have found to relatives who do not have Family Tree Maker so that they can see what I found. It doesn't matter if I can open and view an ahnentafel in FTM 2006, because they live in a different state and cannot see what is on my computer.
On his show, Comedian Rodney Perry covers arts and entertainment, everything from comedy and politics to music and acting, with his signature comedic slant.
MashUp Radio is a 30-minute podcast that discusses the fusion of technology, life, culture and science. Host Peter Biddle, engineer and executive for Intel?s Atom Software, dishes up a thought-provoking discussion.
Deepak Chopra Radio provides an online forum for compelling and thought provoking conversations on success, love, sexuality and relationships, well-being and spirituality.
The Bottom Line Sports Show is hosted by former NBA stars Penny Hardaway, Charles Oakley, Mateen Cleaves. Tune in to get the inside scoop on what's happening in sports today.
Joy Keys provides her listeners with insight to improve their lives mentally, physically, monetarily and emotionally. Past guests on the show have included Meshell Nedegeocello, Blair Underwood, in addition to an impressive list of CEOs, humanitarians and authors.
Hits Radio covers basketball, sports culture and entertainment with past guests including Jason Kidd, Robin Lundberg and Chris Herren.
Listeners get an earful on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds. Whether it?s the current political cocktail or the latest must-read award-winning book, Halli tackles all topics and likes to stir ? and sometimes shakes ? things up.
Award-winning World Footprints is a leading voice in socially responsible travel and lifestyle. Hosts Ian & Tonya celebrate culture and heritage and bring a unique voice to the world of travel.
Football Reporters Online is a group of veteran football experts in the fields of coaching, scouting, talent evaluation, and writing/broadcasting/media placement. Combined, the group brings well over 100 years of expertise in sports.
Host John Martin interviews the nation's leading entrepreneurs and small biz experts to educate small business owners on how to be successful. Past guests have included Emeril Lagasse and Guy Kawasaki.
The Movie Geeks share their passion for the art through interviews with the stars of and creative minds behind your favorite flicks and pay tribute to big-screen legends. From James Cameron and Francis Ford Coppola to Ellen Burstyn and Robert Duvall, The Geeks have got'em all.
Sylvia Global presents global conversations pertaining to women, wealth, business, faith and philanthropy. Sylvia has interviewed an eclectic mix from CEOs and musicians to fashion designers and philanthropists including Randolph Duke and Ne-Yo.
Seasoned entertainment reporter Robin Milling gets up close and personal with the world's most compelling celebs. From Michael Douglas to Katie Holmes to Kevin Kline to Ashley Judd to America Ferrera, she sits down in person each week with each and every A-lister.
Mr. Media host Bob Andelman goes one-on-one with the hottest, most influential minds from the worlds of film, TV, music, comedy, journalism and literature. That means A-listers like Kirk Douglas, Christian Slater, Kathy Ireland, Rick Fox, Chris Hansen and Jackie Collins.
Paula Begoun, best-selling author of Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, separates fact from fiction on achieving a radiant, youthful complexion at any age. She?s regularly joined by health and beauty experts who offer the latest on keeping your skin in tip-top shape.
What do you plan after you graduate? Today, we face great problems when we want an appropriate job. The competition for many jobs has been increased over the year. In fact, there are many competitors to get the jobs. You should carefully consider your career options and also you must carefully in selecting a field in high demand. Of course the important think is you should select a career that suitable with your personality, interest and also needs. Everyone have a dream to have perfect career with perfect job. When a person have perfect career it will also influenced with their futures. Psychology careers are giving big influences for your career.
A good place to start is to spend some time exploring a few of the many career specialty areas within psychology. There are many psychology careers you should consider as follow:
Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology If you are interesting to helping people I think this is suitable for you. Clinical psychology is including substance abuse treatment, child mental health and health psychology.
Forensic psychology
Forensic psychology In forensic psychology involves applying criminal investigation and the law.
School psychology
School psychology For you who are interest in school psychology for child development and education, the purpose of school psychology is to collaborate with parents, teachers and students to promote a healthy learning environment that focuses on the needs of children.
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology careers area is to working out as human factor consultants, it is including study internal mental processes such as attention, memory and problem solving.
Mammals, plants, even fungi are emblazoned on humans who fight for their emblem?s survival
By Mark Fischetti
Charitable donations to help protect an endangered species are one thing. But would you don a piece of permanent body art to save a mammal, plant or even a fungi? Three years ago, 100 men and women in the U.K.?average people, not scientists?did just that. Each of them went under the needle to get a tattoo of a species they vowed to help protect. A traveling exhibition that lauds these inked advocates will soon come to a close, but the project may spawn broader outreach efforts.
The project, called extInked, was conceived by the Ultimate Holding Company in Manchester, England?a collective of freelance artists who try to use art to spur discussion of uncomfortable social issues. In 2009 the collective worked with conservationists to identify 100 rare and endangered species in Britain, and then brought in artists to ink 100 volunteers in a three-day public marathon. Mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, invertebrates, plants and four species of fungi were colored onto the necks, arms, legs and backs of obliging ?ambassadors.?
? View a slide show depicting eight volunteers and their tattooed species
Since then, the volunteers have given talks at meetings, distributed literature, raised funds with conservation groups, appeared at exhibitions and taken on other activist roles related to their adopted species. ?The ambassadors have brought together the art world, the ecology world, the science world and the tattoo world,? says Kate Houlton, a project manager at Ultimate Holding. ?The project has been a creative way to encourage conversation.? People from as far afield as Canada, Brazil and South Korea have taken up causes after seeing or reading about the tattooed ambassadors, Houlton says.
The exhibition, which features professional photographs of all 100 volunteers and their tattoos as well as information about their species, is making its final stop at the Rugby Art Gallery & Museum in Rugby, England. That show is set to close on November 10, but other galleries are now interested in resuming the tour, Houlton says. Ultimate Holding is also seeking collaborating organizations in other countries that could kick off similar projects.
The extInked project might be inspiring independent efforts, too. One group in California?s Bay Area, called Tatzoo, has held several boot camps to train volunteers to become conservation leaders for local fauna and flora. Graduates receive a certificate and a tattoo of the endangered species of their choice.
? View a slide show depicting eight volunteers and their tattooed species
Domestic violence and abuse can happen to anyone, yet the problem is often overlooked, excused, or denied. This is especially true when the abuse is psychological, rather than physical. Noticing and acknowledging the signs of an abusive relationship is the first step to ending it. No one should live in fear of the person they love. If you recognize yourself or someone you know in the following warning signs and descriptions of abuse, reach out. There is help available.
In One Billion Hungry, Gordon Conway is unwilling to rule out any options for meeting the world's food needs
IF YOU wanted someone to come up with a grand plan to feed the world, you might be hard pressed to find a person with better credentials than Gordon Conway. Trained in the UK as an agricultural ecologist in the heyday of the green revolution, he has worked on food and economic development from Wales to the West Indies, Delhi to DC. He has worked for NGOs and the World Bank, been vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex and president of the Rockefeller Foundation.
It's not a bad r?sum?, and this book, praised on the back cover by both Bill Gates and Kofi Annan, looks like that grand plan. Yet the trouble with Conway's prescription is that he fails to make the hard choices. He wants everything: big farms and small farms, global markets and local control, "designer crops" and agroecology, free trade and "a major focus on getting poor rural people out of poverty".
Of course, everyone should put their shoulder to the wheel to double global food production by 2050, and he insists this is doable. He quotes US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying: "The question is not whether we can end hunger, it's whether we will." His eclecticism about how that could be achieved makes for a compelling read - only it doesn't explain away the contradictions.
Seed companies across the world are continually promising new water-efficient, salt-tolerant and climate-resilient crops, and as a techno-optimist, Conway believes in the power of such scientific innovations to deliver a new, more environmentally aware, green revolution for a resource-constrained century.
He also understands that, for the foreseeable future, it is the hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers across the world who will continue to supply most of our food - something he recognises is no bad thing. After all, contrary to popular perception, smallholders are "in many respects highly efficient [and] produce more per hectare than large farms".
So he wants researchers to redouble their efforts to help smallholders grow their businesses to feed the world. Hooray. We hear too much self-serving propaganda about how only agribusiness can stop hunger, and peasant farmers should get out of the way.
But then, disappointingly, he drops the ball by arguing that a smallholder renaissance can go hand in hand with greater power for global markets. Surely, one of the lessons of recent land-grabbing across Africa is that when the big boys move in, it is the smallholders who lose out.
Conway's faith in markets seems not so much optimism as foolhardiness. As the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) reported four years ago, "opening agricultural markets to international competition before basic institutions and infrastructure are in place can undermine the agricultural sector, with long-term negative impacts for poverty, food security and the environment". Bob Watson, IAASTD chair and until a few months ago the UK government's chief scientific adviser on agriculture, has said such a move would "mean the Earth's haves and have-nots splitting further apart".
Every page of Conway's book underlines that he does not want that to happen. He seeks to put the poor first. But he does not confront the possibility that, when it comes to feeding the world, unfettered international capital and commodity markets might be part of the problem, not part of the solution. Just as big pharma is great at delivering drugs for the rich world and lousy at fighting malaria and other poor-world diseases, so big farming may be great at filling granaries but lousy at filling empty stomachs.
By failing to take a stand in a critical debate, he risks making more likely the outcome he least wants.
Fred Pearce is the author of The Land Grabbers (Eden Project Books/Beacon Press, 2012)
Book information One Billion Hungry: Can we feed the world? by Gordon Conway Cornell University Press $24.95
At a moment when outdoor music and arts festivals have achieved unprecedented popularity ? witness the apparently effortless doubling of this year?s Coachella to two sold-out weekends ? Live Oak Campground, lying just over the pass from Santa Barbara on Highway 154, represents one of the state?s prize locations. And on Halloween Eve weekend, October 26-28, a bold crew of multitasking adventurers will attempt to tame the competing interests of sensation seekers and the community of Santa Ynez, within whose jurisdiction the electronic music and art event known as Lunacy will take?place.
Paul?Wellman
Lunacy producers Synaptic Productions are Rhymo Moray, Stanley Cui, Satory Palmer, and Ryan?Williams.
Last spring, years after the departure of the Do Lab?s extremely popular Lightning in a Bottle event, a group of relatively untried producers, promoters, technicians, and visionaries committed to programming Lucidity, a weekend-long festival that pitted itself against the first weekend of Coachella. In the face of both a sold-out crowd and torrential rain, the Synaptic crew of Satory Palmer, Stanley Cui, Ryan Williams, Ryan Moray, and Eliot Winder held strong and delivered a memorable weekend that left both the participants and ? perhaps more importantly ? the neighbors ready for more. As Palmer told me when I met with the Lucidity principals a couple of weeks ago, they?re ?not interested in getting run out of?town.?
This is no small matter when you are rolling up on one of the Santa Ynez Valley?s prime camping spots with two full Funktion One sound systems in tow. These state-of-the-art outdoor speakers are the weapons of choice for electronic dance music deejays the world over, battle-tested and proven in fields and on stages everywhere from Ibiza to Prague. For Lucidity, the Synaptic team unleashed two of these bass-breathing monsters amid nature?s own sound-and-light show of thunder and lightning. Ryan ?Rhymo? Moray freely admits that at points during that initial weekend last spring, ?the electrical grid was in question,? but, given the enormous capacity and efficiency of these towers of sound, neither the attendees? sonic experience nor the neighbors? ability to sleep were ever in doubt. ?None of us had done this before,? said Williams, ?but we surrounded ourselves with the kind of staff who fix problems ? not necessarily professional forklift drivers or sound guys, but rather smart people willing and able to stay with a situation and make it?work.?
This renaissance DIY work ethic also characterizes the programming at the upcoming Lunacy Music & Arts Festival, the lineup for which represents a significant departure from both Lucidity and Lightning in a Bottle, which focus more tightly on the kind of deejays who are regulars at Burning Man. ?We?re opening up the space to other arts for Lunacy,? said Palmer. ?We want to include more live music than in the past, so we are dedicating one of the Funktion One setups to expressing that.? ?It?s open source in that way,? Rhymo added, ?we are offering an olive branch to creative people from every area and?approach.?
What does this all mean in terms of who will be appearing? Let?s start with the headliners, who are impressive. EOTO, the electronic duo of Michael Travis and Jason Hann, are a perfect example of the new music that?s bringing together an ultrawide swath of progressive listeners and groovers from across the spectrum, from jam band fans to devotees of moontribe-style trance. Hann and Travis, who were once in the rhythm section of jam legends the String Cheese Incident, weave together live instruments, dubstep electronics, and inspired improvisation, creating a seamless groove that?s been road-tested 200 nights a year in front of giant?crowds.
Lunacy?Festival
Where: Live Oak Campground, 4650 Highway 154, Santa Ynez,?CA
Cost: $75 -?$155
Age limit:?18+
Full event?details
Less well-known but equally advanced in his mastery of 21st-century sonic mayhem is Bay Area deejay Adam Ohana, who performs and produces under the name An-Ten-Nae. He?ll bring his block-rocking bass bombs to the scene with what is sure to be one of the weekend?s more exciting sets. Expect low-end explorations ? la Bassnectar with a good measure of crunk thrown in for maximum bounce and?elevation.
As for the live-ness, fans of such top Santa Barbara acts as Howlin? Woods, Whiskey Piss, Rainbow Girls, Saint Anne?s Place, and Boombox Orchestra will get a chance to catch their favorites under the stars and hear them bringing their music to a new audience through a crystal clear sound?system.
And, as if that weren?t enough, there?s guaranteed to be plenty of spinning, stilt-walking, body painting, and hula-hooping when this crowd gets together. Expect major efforts from such festival art stars as Gerard Minakawa of Bamboo DNA, trippy installations like the Turquoise Portal and the Peace Wall, and dynamic performance art from Wandering Marionettes, the Fairy Hoopers, and Faeryn Fire. The organizers of Lunacy look forward to working with classical musicians and ballet performers in the future, explaining that they see their mission as ?incubating an audience of people who are open to celebration, regardless of their chosen style or?media.?
4?1?1
Lunacy Music & Arts Festival takes place Friday-Sunday, October 26-28, at Live Oak Campground. For tickets and information, visit lunacyfestival.com.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2012) ? Jupiter, the mythical god of sky and thunder, would certainly be pleased at all the changes afoot at his namesake planet. As the planet gets peppered continually with small space rocks, wide belts of the atmosphere are changing color, hotspots are vanishing and reappearing, and clouds are gathering over one part of Jupiter, while dissipating over another. The results were presented today (Oct. 17) by Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting in Reno, Nev.
"The changes we're seeing in Jupiter are global in scale," Orton said. "We've seen some of these before, but never with modern instrumentation to clue us in on what's going on. Other changes haven't been seen in decades, and some regions have never been in the state they're appearing in now. At the same time, we've never seen so many things striking Jupiter. Right now, we're trying to figure out why this is all happening."
Orton and colleagues Leigh Fletcher of the University of Oxford, England; Padma Yanamandra-Fisher of the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.; Thomas Greathouse of Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio; and Takuyo Fujiyoshi of the Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Hilo, Hawaii, have been taking images and maps of Jupiter at infrared wavelengths from 2009 to 2012 and comparing them with high-quality visible images from the increasingly active amateur astronomy community. Following the fading and return of a prominent brown-colored belt just south of the equator, called the South Equatorial Belt, from 2009 to 2011, the team studied a similar fading and darkening that occurred at a band just north of the equator, known as the North Equatorial Belt. This belt grew whiter in 2011 to an extent not seen in more than a century. In March of this year, that northern band started to darken again.
The team obtained new data from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea that matched up that activity with infrared observations. Those data showed a simultaneous thickening of the deeper cloud decks, but not necessarily the upper cloud deck, unlike the South Equatorial Belt, where both levels of clouds thickened and then cleared up. The infrared data also resolved brown, elongated features in the whitened area called "brown barges" as distinct features and revealed them to be regions clearer of clouds and probably characterized by downwelling, dry air.
The team was also looking out for a series of blue-gray features along the southern edge of the North Equatorial Belt. Those features appear to be the clearest and driest regions on the planet and show up as apparent hotspots in the infrared view, because they reveal the radiation emerging from a very deep layer of Jupiter's atmosphere. (NASA's Galileo spacecraft sent a probe into one of these hotspots in 1995.) Those hotspots disappeared from 2010 to 2011, but had reestablished themselves by June of this year, coincident with the whitening and re-darkening of the North Equatorial Belt.
While Jupiter's own atmosphere has been churning through change, a number of objects have hurtled into Jupiter's atmosphere, creating fireballs visible to amateur Jupiter watchers on Earth. Three of these objects -- probably less than 45 feet (15 meters) in diameter -- have been observed since 2010. The latest of these hit Jupiter on Sept. 10, 2012, although Orton and colleagues' infrared investigations of these events showed this one did not cause lasting changes in the atmosphere, unlike those in 1994 or 2009.
"It does appear that Jupiter is taking an unusual beating over the last few years, but we expect that this apparent increase has more to do with an increasing cadre of skilled amateur astronomers training their telescopes on Jupiter and helping scientists keep a closer eye on our biggest planet," Orton said. "It is precisely this coordination between the amateur-astronomy community that we want to foster."
The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA.
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More than 56 million Social Security recipients will see their monthly payments go up by 1.7 percent next year.
The increase, which starts in January, is tied to a measure of inflation released Tuesday. It shows that inflation has been relatively low over the past year, despite the recent surge in gas prices, resulting in one of the smallest increases in Social Security payments since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.
Social Security payments for retired workers average $1,237 a month, or about $14,800 a year. A 1.7 percent increase will amount to about $21 a month, or $252 a year, on average.
Social Security recipients received a 3.6 percent increase in benefits this year after getting none the previous two years.
About 8 million people who receive Supplemental Security Income will also receive the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, meaning the announcement will affect about 1 in 5 U.S. residents.
Social Security also provides benefits to millions of disabled workers, spouses, widows, widowers and children.
"The annual COLA is critically important to the financial security of the (56) million Americans receiving Social Security benefits today," said Nancy LeaMond, AARP's executive vice president. "Amid rising costs for food, utilities and health care and continued economic uncertainty, the COLA helps millions of older Americans maintain their standard of living, keeping many out of poverty."
The amount of wages subjected to Social Security taxes is going up, too. Social Security is supported by a 12.4 percent tax on wages up to $110,100. That threshold will increase to $113,700 next year, resulting in higher taxes for nearly 10 million workers and their employers, according to the Social Security Administration.
Half the tax is paid by workers and the other half is paid by employers. Congress and President Barack Obama reduced the share paid by workers from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for 2011 and 2012. The temporary cut, however, is due to expire at the end of the year.
Higher Medicare premiums Some of next year's COLA could be wiped out by higher Medicare premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments. The Medicare Part B premium, which covers doctor visits, is expected to rise by about $7 per month for 2013, according to government projections.
The premium is currently $99.90 a month for most seniors. Medicare is expected to announce the premium for 2013 in the coming weeks.
"If seniors are getting a low COLA, much of their increase will go to pay off their Medicare Part B premium," said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst at The Senior Citizens League.
AARP agreed, saying that with health care and prescription costs rising faster than inflation, retirees are struggling to make ends meet.
By law, the increase in benefits is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education.
Over the past year, housing costs have gone up 1.4 percent but home energy costs have dropped by 3.8 percent, according to the CPI-W. Medical costs, which tend to hit seniors harder than younger adults, have increased by 4.4 percent.
Gasoline prices have gone up by 6.8 percent, but much of that increase happened in the past month, so it is not fully reflected in the COLA for Social Security.
To calculate the COLA, the Social Security Administration compares the average price index for July, August and September with the price index for the same three months in the previous year. The price index for September ? the final piece of the puzzle ? was released Tuesday.
If consumer prices increase from year to year, Social Security recipients automatically get higher payments, starting the following January. If prices drop, the payments stay the same, as they did in 2010 and 2011.
Since 1975, the annual COLA has averaged 4.2 percent. Only five times has it been below 2 percent, including the two times it was zero. Before 1975, it took an act of Congress to increase Social Security payments.
Most older Americans rely on Social Security for a majority of their incomes, according to the Social Security Administration. Over the past decade, the COLA has helped increase incomes for seniors, even as incomes have dropped for younger workers.
From 2001 to 2011, the median income for all U.S. households fell by 6.6 percent, when inflation was taken into account, according to census data. But the median income for households headed by someone 65 or older rose by 13 percent.
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PARIS (Reuters) - Top Paris art galleries and the Palace of Versailles have weighed in against an unpopular push to extend wealth tax to art, complaining in a letter to the government that such a move could drive historic collections out of France.
The daily Liberation printed an excerpt from a letter it said was signed by the heads of the Louvre, Versailles, the Musee d'Orsay, the Pompidou Centre and others and sent to the culture minister and President Francois Hollande, saying the tax would crush the art world.
"There's a risk that France will contribute to the disappearance of historic collections that have been passed down through the generations," Liberation quoted the letter, written on Friday and also signed by several city mayors, as saying.
Spokespeople for the various art galleries could not be reached for comment.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault appeared to sound the death knell on Tuesday for the push for art works worth over 50,000 euros ($64,700) to be included in assets used to calculate a person's fortune, saying the Socialist government opposed it.
"Artworks will not be included in the calculation of wealth tax. That's the government's position," he told Europe 1 radio.
Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac cautioned that the proposal was not buried yet.
"We will have a frank discussion with the Socialist group. It is possible for a government to be beaten by its parliamentary majority," he told France Inter radio.
Currently, only assets like real estate or cash savings count towards wealth tax. Net assets of more than 1.3 million euros are taxed at 0.25 percent on top of income tax, and the rate doubles to 0.5 percent for assets above 3 million euros.
Left-wing lawmaker Christian Eckert's idea of including artworks has won backing from the lower house finance committee, sparking cries of indignation as the Paris art world prepares for the opening of its annual flagship art show, the FIAC.
Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said last week the government opposed the proposed amendment to the 2013 budget.
With a long tradition of public support for the arts, France has spared works of art from the wealth tax ever since former president Francois Mitterrand introduced the levy in 1982.
Mayors including Martine Aubry of Lille and Betrand Delanoe of Paris, said art collectors were vital to encourage artistic creation and preserve France's artistic wealth, Liberation said.
Hollande's first budget has already antagonised the rich by imposing a new 75 percent tax on income above 1 million euros and he has had to promise an exemption for small business owners on a new capital gains tax hike following an online protest.
($1 = 0.7730 euros)
(Reporting by Vicky Buffery; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Paul Casciato)
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Public release date: 23-Oct-2012
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