Honda sees sharp drop in profit on Thai floods

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2011, file photo vehicles at Honda auto factory are submerged in floodwaters at the Rojana industrial district in Ayutthaya, central Thailand. Battered by the strong yen and supply disruptions from Thailand's floods, Honda said Tuesday Jan. 31, 2012, that its net earnings in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) and projected a sharply lower full-year profit. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2011, file photo vehicles at Honda auto factory are submerged in floodwaters at the Rojana industrial district in Ayutthaya, central Thailand. Battered by the strong yen and supply disruptions from Thailand's floods, Honda said Tuesday Jan. 31, 2012, that its net earnings in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) and projected a sharply lower full-year profit. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 27, 2011 file photo, a worker talks on his mobile phone next to lines of Honda cars that were damaged by the flood before the destruction demonstration at Honda automobile plant in Ayutthaya province, central Thailand. Battered by the strong yen and supply disruptions from Thailand's floods, Honda said Tuesday Jan. 31, 2012, that its net earnings in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) and projected a sharply lower full-year profit. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong, File)

Honda Motor Co. Senior Managing officer and Director Fumihiko Ike speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Honda said Tuesday its net profit in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) due to the strong yen and supply chain disruptions from flooding in Thailand. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A woman walks past in front of Honda Motor's showroom in Tokyo,Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday its net profit in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) due to the strong yen and supply chain disruptions from flooding in Thailand. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A woman inspects cars displayed in front of the Honda Motor Co. headquarters in Tokyo Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Honda said Tuesday its net profit in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) due to the strong yen and supply chain disruptions from flooding in Thailand. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

TOKYO (AP) ? Battered by the strong yen and supply disruptions from Thailand's floods, Honda said Tuesday that its net earnings in the October-December quarter tumbled 41 percent to 47.6 billion yen ($625 million) and projected a sharply lower full-year profit.

It's been a tough year for the Japanese automobile and motorcycle maker. Honda had just begun to recover from the March earthquake and tsunami, which damaged some of its suppliers, when Thailand's worst floods in 50 years swamped its vehicle assembly plant in Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok.

That disaster dealt such a blow to Honda that it scrapped its earnings forecast when it last reported earnings results in October.

Now Honda predicts its net profit for the fiscal year through March would drop nearly 60 percent to 215 billion yen.

Honda Motor Co., which makes the Accord sedan and Odyssey minivan, stopped making cars at its Thai plant in October, and said in a statement Tuesday that it was making progress draining the factory and cleaning up equipment, and expected production to resume there at the end of March.

The flooding also disrupted the output at many Honda suppliers in Thailand, forcing it to reduce production as far away as the U.S. and Canada. Honda said production in neighboring Asian countries interrupted by the problems in Thailand was expected to return to normal by April.

All told, the problems related to flooding in Thailand have cost the company 260,000 vehicles in lost production worldwide, according to Tomohiro Okada, a company spokesman.

The company said it is working with the local industrial park to build water protection walls around the plant and will make requests of the Thai government to take steps to prevent the risk of flooding in the future. The Thai plant makes the Jazz, Civic, Accord, CR-V sports utility vehicle and other vehicles.

The Thai flooding affected many other Japanese companies, reflecting the increasingly interconnected nature of today's global economy. Toshiba Corp. on Tuesday cited the disaster as one reason behind the 10.6 billion yen net loss it reported for the most recent quarter.

A bright spot for Honda was its motorcycle business, which is booming in emerging markets. Motorcycle sales rose 6.3 percent during the quarter from the same quarter a year ago to nearly 3.1 million units.

Quarterly sales slid 8 percent during the fiscal third quarter to 1.942 trillion yen. The company projects full-year sales will decline 12.2 percent to 7.85 trillion yen.

The strong yen, which erodes exporters' foreign earned income when repatriated, also ate into the company's income.

Global vehicle sales in the quarter declined 2.9 percent from a year ago to 830,000 units, the company said. Vehicle sales in Japan rose 16 percent and North America increased 2 percent from the same quarter a year ago, while unit sales in Europe, Asia and other regions fell.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-31-AS-Japan-Earns-Honda/id-a19c1ec7d3894d85975a3049b69c04b3

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Body clock receptor linked to diabetes in new genetic study

ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2012) ? A study recently published in Nature Genetics has found new evidence for a link between the body clock hormone melatonin and type 2 diabetes. The study found that people who carry rare genetic mutations in the receptor for melatonin have a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The findings should help scientists to more accurately assess personal diabetes risk and could lead to the development of personalised treatments.

Previous research has found that people who work night shifts have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Studies have also found that if volunteers have their sleep disrupted repeatedly for three days, they temporarily develop symptoms of diabetes.

The body's sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the hormone melatonin, which has effects including drowsiness and lowering body temperature. In 2008, a genetic study led by Imperial College London discovered that people with common variations in the gene for MT2, a receptor for melatonin, have a slightly higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The new study reveals that carrying any of four rare mutations in the MT2 gene increases a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes six times. The release of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels, is known to be regulated by melatonin. The researchers suggest that mutations in the MT2 gene may disrupt the link between the body clock and insulin release, leading to abnormal control of blood sugar.

Professor Philippe Froguel, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "Blood sugar control is one of the many processes regulated by the body's biological clock. This study adds to our understanding of how the gene that carries the blueprint for a key component in the clock can influence people's risk of diabetes.

"We found very rare variants of the MT2 gene that have a much larger effect than more common variants discovered before. Although each mutation is rare, they are common in the sense that everyone has a lot of very rare mutations in their DNA. Cataloguing these mutations will enable us to much more accurately assess a person's risk of disease based on their genetics."

In the study, the Imperial team and their collaborators at several institutions in the UK and France examined the MT2 gene in 7,632 people to look for more unusual variants that have a bigger effect on disease risk. They found 40 variants associated with type 2 diabetes, four of which were very rare and rendered the receptor completely incapable of responding to melatonin. The scientists then confirmed the link with these four variants in an additional sample of 11,854 people.

Professor Froguel and his team analysed each mutation by testing what effect they have on the MT2 receptor in human cells in the lab. The mutations that completely prevented the receptor from working proved to have a very big effect on diabetes risk, suggesting that there is a direct link between MT2 and the disease.

The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the National Institute for Health Research and the Medical Research Council in the UK and the Agence National de la Recherche, the Contrat de Projets Etat-R?gion Nord-Pas-De-Calais, the Soci?t? Francophone du Diab?te, the Fondation Recherche M?dicale and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Imperial College London, via AlphaGalileo.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Am?lie Bonnefond, Nathalie Cl?ment, Katherine Fawcett, Lo?c Yengo, Emmanuel Vaillant, Jean-Luc Guillaume, Aur?lie Dechaume, Felicity Payne, Ronan Roussel, S?bastien Czernichow, Serge Hercberg, Samy Hadjadj, Beverley Balkau, Michel Marre, Olivier Lantieri, Claudia Langenberg, Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Guillaume Charpentier, Martine Vaxillaire, Ghislain Rocheleau, Nicholas J Wareham, Robert Sladek, Mark I McCarthy, Christian Dina, In?s Barroso, Ralf Jockers, Philippe Froguel. Rare MTNR1B variants impairing melatonin receptor 1B function contribute to type 2 diabetes. Nature Genetics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/ng.1053

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/~3/zIiEzhAwqCs/120129151052.htm

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Andy Plesser: Yahoo! Readies Bill Maher Special, Doubles Down on Comedy Slate (video)

Next month, Yahoo! will host a free one-hour comedy special with Bill Maher as part of extensive slate of comedy programming, says Yahoo! video chief Erin McPherson in this interview with Beet.TV

Maher's performance will be streamed live from the San Jose Performing Arts Center on February 23.? More on Yahoo's plans with new comedy programming was reported last month by the Hollywood Reporter.

We spoke with McPherson at the reception for the International Academy of Web Television awards earlier his month at CES.

?

Follow Andy Plesser on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Beet_TV

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-plesser/yahoo-readies-bill-maher_b_1240650.html

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Jury finds Afghan family guilty in honor killings

Mohammad Shafia, centre, Tooba Yahya, right, and Hamed Shafia, left, arrive at the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ontario, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. A jury took 15 hours to find Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case so shocking it has riveted Canadians from coast to coast. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Mohammad Shafia, centre, Tooba Yahya, right, and Hamed Shafia, left, arrive at the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ontario, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. A jury took 15 hours to find Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case so shocking it has riveted Canadians from coast to coast. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Mohammad Shafia, center, Tooba Yahya, right, and Hamed Shafia, left, arrive at the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ontario, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. A jury took 15 hours to find each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case so shocking it has riveted Canadians from coast to coast. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Tooba Yahya is led away from the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ontario, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, after being found guilty of first degree murder. A jury took 15 hours to find Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case so shocking it has riveted Canadians from coast to coast. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Mohammad Shafia, front,Tooba Yahya, center and Hamed Shafia arrive at the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ont., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. A jury took 15 hours to find Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder of Mohammad Shafia's three daughters and childless first wife. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Mohammad Shafia reacts as he his led away from the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ont., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, after being found guilty of first degree murder of his three daughters and childless first wife. A jury took 15 hours to find Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case so shocking it has riveted Canadians from coast to coast. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

KINGSTON, Ontario (AP) ? A jury on Sunday found three members of an Afghan family guilty of killing three teenage sisters and another woman in what the judge described as "cold-blooded, shameful murders" resulting from a "twisted concept of honor," ending a case that shocked and riveted Canadians.

Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and using the Internet.

The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia's childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.

Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said the evidence clearly supported the conviction.

"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honorless crime," Maranger said. "The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor ... that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

In a statement following the verdict, Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson called honor killings a practice that is "barbaric and unacceptable in Canada."

Defense lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father's first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn't call police from the scene.

After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, "We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust."

His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother."

Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, "I did not drown my sisters anywhere."

Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, but said his client will appeal and he believes the other two defendants will as well.

But prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis welcomed the verdict.

"This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances," Laarhuis said outside court.

"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," he said to cheers of approval from onlookers.

The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.

Shafia's first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.

The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father, the court was told.

The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar's room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was becoming almost impossible to control: skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.

Shafia's first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and "made life a torture," while his second wife called her a servant.

The prosecution presented wire taps and mobile phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honor killing allegation. The wiretaps, which capture Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves, were a focal point of the trial.

"There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this," Shafia said on one recording. "Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows ... nothing is more dear to me than my honor."

Defense lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts do the accused say they drowned the victims.

Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.

"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-29-CN-Canada-Honor-Killing/id-68aad2c2f7dc45ea84364cfc8cbba084

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Obama to senators: Change the way you do business

President Barack Obama waves as he walks off of Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Barack Obama waves as he walks off of Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Barack Obama greets supporters after his speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is pressing his case for changes in how the Senate does business, hoping to ease the partisan gridlock, and he wants to bar lawmakers from profiting from their service.

In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said many people he met during his five-state tour after his State of the Union address were optimistic but remained unsure "that the right thing will get done in Washington this year, or next year, or the year after that."

"And frankly, when you look at some of the things that go on in this town, who could blame them for being a little cynical?" Obama said.

The president reiterated his calls for government reform made in Tuesday's address, saying he wants the Senate to pass a rule that requires a yes-or-no vote for judicial and public service nominations after 90 days. Many of the nominees, he said, carry bipartisan support but get held up in Congress for political reasons.

Obama noted that "a senator from Utah" said he would hold up nominations because he opposed the recess appointment of the head of the new consumer protection agency and three members of the National Labor Relations Board. Obama put the officials in their post during the Senate's holiday break; many Republicans have called that move unconstitutional. Obama said the American people deserve "better than gridlock and games."

"One senator gumming up the works for the whole country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned," the president said.

While Obama did not name the lawmaker, Utah GOP. Sen Mike Lee said Thursday that because of the president's "blatant and egregious disregard both for proper constitutional procedures and the Senate's unquestioned role in such appointments, I find myself duty-bound to resist the consideration and approval of additional nominations until the president takes steps to remedy the situation."

Obama said he also wants Congress to pass legislation to ban insider trading by lawmakers and prohibit lawmakers from owning securities in companies that have business before their committees.

In addition, the president is seeking to prohibit people who "bundle" campaign contributions from other donors for members of Congress from lobbying Congress. Obama urged the public to contact their member of Congress and tell them "that it's time to end the gridlock and start tackling the issues that really matter."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., delivering the GOP address, said Obama's address to Congress lacked much discussion of the president's achievements "because there isn't much."

"This president didn't talk about his record for one simple reason," Rubio said. "He doesn't want you to know about it. But you do know about it, because you feel the failure of his leadership every single day of your life."

Rubio accused the president of driving up the national debt, failing to reduce high unemployment across the country and offering divisive economic policies.

The Florida senator said there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor but the best way to solve the problem is by embracing the American free enterprise system. Rubio said he hopes 2012 "will be the beginning of our work toward a new and prosperous American century."

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-28-Obama/id-2dba09403d564c59bbfec3fae31af81a

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Graphene Membranes Superpermeable to Water

Water is formed from hydrogen and oxygen. It is not inert, it decomposes and reforms constantly. So, no, water molecules are not at least 4.5 billion years old.

The hydrogen and oxygen atoms that make up water, or at least most of them, may well be much older than that. Particularly the hydrogen, which may be over 13 billion years old.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/E21m-Z9ngQ4/graphene-membranes-superpermeable-to-water

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Valve ventures into mobile with Steam on iOS and Android (Digital Trends)

Launched earlier this week and announced on the Steam site, Valve has started a closed beta for Steam Mobile on the iPhone and Android phones. The mobile application brings a vast amount of core functions found within the PC and Mac version of the Steam software, the most notable being the ability to make purchases through the application. This will allow any mobile Steam user to take advantage of the frequent sales?that cut popular games up to 90 percent off. Assuming the user agrees to notifications from the application, Steam will also be able to feed mobile alerts to the user when a game on a user?s wishlist goes on sale. The interface offers the familiar Steam categories of new, featured, popular and specials. In addition, there?s a search interface allowing the user to find games by price, title or genre.?

After a user logs into the mobile application, they have the ability to chat with Steam friends, peruse friend activity, read gaming news, check out profiles and groups in addition to looking at screenshots and other gaming media. Within the chat interface, friends are split up into?categories?such as?recent chats, in-game, online and offline. However, group chat is?unavailable?through this version of the mobile interface. There?s also no obvious link between the mobile device and a PC at home that would allow a user to queue up Steam downloads while away from the computer.?

While all of Steam?s features aren?t included within the application,?Valve president Gabe Newell?believes?that this application represents a good start.?Newell?stated ?Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale ? these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone.? Newell did not indicate if the Steam platform would start to sell mobile games.

While Steam is moving forward with mobile,?Electronic Arts still hasn?t rolled out a mobile counterpart to the Origin download service. Origin also lags behind Steam in terms of the amount of games offer for sale on the service. While Steam offers more than 1,800 titles for sale, Electronic Arts lists less than 10 percent of that figure. Electronic Arts did announce an additional 11 third-party publishers have been added to the Origin service recently, but did not indicate how many games would be added over the coming months. ?

As reported at CES 2012, Valve is still prepping Steam?s ?Big Picture? user interface designed to bring the Steam experience to the television screen. This will allow users to hook a computer to the television and play games on a much larger screen, similar to user experience of console owners.?Newell hasn?t indicated if Valve will release a set-top box to offer this feature to consumers that don?t have a computer hooked into their main television in the living room. Some analysts have also speculated that the??Big Picture? mode could utilize cloud streaming technology similar to OnLive and be delivered through an application on gaming consoles or through?Internet-connected televisions. However, Valve has said repeatedly that??Big Picture? mode will include controller support.?

While the mobile application is currently in a closed beta, Steam users can download the mobile application onto the iOS platform and log into the application to declare interest in joining the beta. Valve plans to roll out new invites slowly while the application is still being tested over the next few weeks.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20120126/tc_digitaltrends/valveventuresintomobilewithsteamoniosandandroid

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The Disappearing Actinides, and Other Frustrations from the Bottom Row of the Periodic Table of the Elements

I bought three copies of Sam Kean?s The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. I left the first one in the seat-back pocket of Delta flight 188 from Beijing to Detroit. The second one is sandwiched between ROCK and GEM and The Poisoner?s Handbook on an end table in my living room. The third is a Kindle edition that I purchased so that I could quickly search the text.

When I started reading my first copy of The Disappearing Spoon at 2 am local time in a Beijing hotel room, I was fascinated. I followed Kean readily into the introduction, beginning what I could only imagine would be a tantalizing journey through the periodic table.

I signed on for the prerequisite section ORIENTATION: COLUMN BY COLUMN, ROW BY ROW. We thought back to our first encounters with the periodic table, commiserated about high school exams, and pictured the blank table as a castle. We quickly moved on through our tour?mercury, bromine, top to bottom, east to west, periodic trends! And then, the F-shell elements! Lanthanides, lanthanides, lanthanides, atomic structure, Goeppert-Mayer, the end?! Where are the actinides, my beloved actinides?

It?s ok, I thought, it?s cool. A small oversight. I?m sure he?ll mention the actinides in the text. He must, I mean, really, how can you write about elemental hard-hitters like Marie Curie and Glenn Seaborg without mentioning the actinides? Kean will undoubtedly affirm the four years that I?ve spent in graduate school double-gloving over plastic sleeves, wearing a dosimeter, and stepping onto a hand-and-foot monitor for the sake of better understanding those pesky actinides, right?!

Wrong. Rather than acknowledge the actinides as an independent collection of elements with intriguing properties that have been used to do very big things although they are very much still full of mystery, Kean lumps them together with the lanthanides. He uses the word ?actinide? exactly twice, but it is only used in conjunction with the word ?lanthanide? when pointing out the two rows at the bottom of the periodic table. Sure, he briefly mentions individual actinide elements?thorium, uranium, and plutonium mostly?in later chapters with some assessment of how they were discovered and how they?ve been used, but he never even dips his toes into the still relatively uncharted waters of the bottom row.

Maybe, though, it?s not his fault.

According to Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who teaches a graduate level course on the chemistry of lanthanides and actinides, the treatment of the actinide elements in The Disappearing Spoon is comparable to the level of recognition that they receive in introductory level college chemistry courses.

?[Kean?s] book is symptomatic of how we educate people, even a chemistry major,? says Albrecht-Schmitt. ?In a freshman chemistry course sequence, students learn nothing about actinides, and all they are told about lanthanides is that they are similar to one another.?

In light of worldwide emphasis on the future of energy, crippling incidents like Fukushima, and policies that leave the U.S. wondering what to do with decades worth of waste, the lack of attention given to the bottom row of the periodic table is a bit troubling.

?It?s mind-boggling,? says Albrecht-Schmitt, ?that nearly 20 percent of the world?s energy is generated by uranium, but we don?t teach anything about uranium in freshman chemistry.?

The Reappearing Actinides: An Introduction

The modern study of actinides began more than 70 years ago reaching a climax during the Manhattan Project. In that time, they?ve played a vital role in weapons development, nuclear energy, and space exploration.

The most basic definition of the actinide series, comprised of elements 89 through 103, is that it results from the sequential filling of the 5f electron shell. All fifteen elements in the series are radioactive and have half-lives ranging from fractions of seconds to billions of years.

The radioactivity of the actinide elements is caused by their nuclear instability. In order to become more stable, the nucleus of an actinide element undergoes radioactive decay, releasing gamma rays, alpha particles, beta particles, or neutrons. This process of decay produces new daughter elements, which may be stable or radioactive. For example, the transformation of U-235 used in nuclear reactors results in the formation of radioactive, long-lived Np-237 through a process of neutron capture, gamma emission, and beta decay.

Understanding what may seem like the tiniest details about the actinides has important implications for environmental remediation of radioactive contaminants. Unlike the lanthanides, which occur primarily in the +3 oxidation state, the actinides generally have a large range of oxidation states?from +3 to +7. This becomes the most important distinction, a reason why the actinides must be studied independently of the lanthanides, in consideration of the environmental mobility of actinides.

If you would like to know more about what?s happening on the bottom row of the periodic table, check out recent research highlighted in Actinide Research Quarterly, a publication of the G. T. Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=9bfee9f1460faf2b1684cc7bbed0ab2d

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Business, social media to prevent babies with HIV (AP)

DAVOS, Switzerland ? Business and social media leaders teamed up Friday to tackle the transmission of HIV from mothers to babies, saying the medicine and the money are largely in place, and with the right organizational skills they can eliminate HIV-infected births by 2015.

John Megrue, CEO of Apax Partners U.S., will chair a business group that includes bankers and consulting experts and will help coordinate work being done by several governments and other international donors, as well as filling in gaps in the funding.

Women need to receive antiretroviral drugs to prevent the virus being passed to their unborn babies.

"There are no technological issues around it. There are no medical issues around it. It does not exist in the wealthy part of the world," Megrue said. "But there are still almost 400,000 children a year born ? primarily in sub-Saharan Africa ? with HIV."

Ambassador Eric Goosby, a top U.S. AIDS official, said that although the group set a goal of zero transmission by 2015, in reality about 13 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers will unavoidably be born with the virus.

Randi Zuckerberg, who founded RtoZ Studios after leaving the Facebook company that her brother Mark started, will lend the power of social media to increase awareness about the issue, by pulling in 1,000 influential Twitter and Facebook users in an expansion of an earlier social media effort to raise $200 million to fight malaria.

"I'm calling this a social good broadcast experiment," she said. "The long-term vision is for this to be a group of thousands or millions of people who can all broadcast in a coordinated manner where there is a global crisis."

Other business leaders involved in the project include Dominic Barton, managing director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and Cynthia Carroll, CEO of the mining company Anglo American PLC.

"AIDS," Carroll said, "should not be a disease of children."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/aids/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_he_me/eu_davos_forum_aids

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Scientists say Facebook's roots go way, way?back

Coren Apicella

A woman from Tanzania's Hadzabe tribe studies a social-networking chart.

By Alan Boyle

Hunter-gatherers exhibit many of the "friending" habits familiar to Facebook users, suggesting that the patterns for social networking were set early in the history of our species.

At least that's the conclusion from a group of researchers who mapped the connections among members of the Hadza ethnic group in Tanzania's Lake Eyasi region. The results were published in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

---

"The astonishing thing is that ancient human social networks so very much resemble what we see today," senior author Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist at Harvard Medical School, said in a university news release. Researchers from Harvard, the University of California at San Diego and Cambridge University worked together to document the Hadza's social networks.

"From the time we were around campfires and had words floating through the air, to today when we have digital packets floating through the ether, we've made networks of basically the same kind," Christakis said.

Another co-author of the study, UCSD's James Fowler, said the results suggest that the structure of today's social networks go back to a time before the invention of agriculture, tens of thousands of years ago.

For decades, social scientists have puzzled over the origins of cooperative and altruistic behavior that benefits the group at the expense of the individual. That seems to run counter to a basic "tooth and claw" view of evolution, in which each individual fights for survival, or at least the survival of its gene pool. One of the leading hypotheses is that a system to reward cooperation and punish non-cooperators ("free riders") grew out of a sense of genetic kinship between related individuals. But how far back did such a system arise?

Harvard Medical School researcher Coren Apicella discusses the Hadza social network.

To investigate that question, researchers spent two months interviewing more than 200 adult members of the Hadza group who still live in a traditional, nomadic, pre-agricultural setting. To chart the social connections, the researchers asked the adults to identify the individuals they'd like to live with in their next encampment. They also looked into gift-giving connections by giving their experimental subjects three straws of honey ? one of the Hadza's best-loved treats ? and asking them to assign them secretly to anyone else in the camp. That exercise produced a complex web of 1,263 "campmate ties" and 426 "gift ties."

Separately, the researchers gave the Hadza additional honey straws that they could either keep for themselves or donate for group distribution. That was used as a measure of cooperation vs. non-cooperation.

When the researchers analyzed all the linkages, they found that cooperators tended to group themselves together into one set of social clusters, while non-cooperators were in separate clusters. Even when other factors were taken into account, such as connections between kin and geographical proximity, the cooperation vs. non-cooperation distinction was significant. That finding suggested that even in pre-agricultural societies, social networking strengthened the connections between people inclined toward different kinds of behavior.

"If you can get cooperators to cluster together in social space, cooperation can evolve," said Coren Apicella, a postdoctoral researcher specializing in health-care policy at Harvard Medical School and the Nature paper's first author. "Social networks allow this to happen."

The researchers said the dynamics of the Hadza social networks ? including the kinds of ties that bind a group's most popular members and the reciprocal connections within the group?? were indistinguishable from previously gathered data about social networks in modern communities.

"We turned the data over lots of different ways," Fowler said in the news release. "We looked at over a dozen measures that social network analysts use to compare networks, and pretty much, the Hadza are like us."

Beyond the Facebook angle, the rise of relationships between cooperative individuals has larger implications for the study of human evolution. "This suggests that social networks may have co-evolved with the widespread cooperation in humans that we observe today," the researchers wrote.

Update for 2:15 p.m. ET: In a Nature commentary, University of British Columbia anthropologist Joseph Henrich said that the study provided a "glimpse into the social dynamics of one of the few remaining populations of nomadic hunter-gatherers" ? and pointed up the parallels between modern-day social networking and the kind of society in which our distant ancestors lived.

One of the more interesting findings was that non-cooperators preferred to associate with other non-cooperators, rather than with the givers in the Hadza group, Henrich told me. That could be because people tend to make those they associate with more similar to themselves ? sort of like a curmudgeonly married couple. Or it could be because non-cooperative types avoid the cooperators in the first place ? sort of like the high-school kids who shun the goody-goodies and form their own clique of bad boys and girls.

Henrich said the cooperation vs. non-cooperation distinction was surprisingly strong. "In fact, the gift-network results indicate that this extends to friends of friends: if your friend's friend is highly cooperative, you are likely to cooperate more, too."

He said the findings support the principle of homophily in social relations: "People tend to pick people like themselves." But does the cooperation connection apply to modern-day social networks as well? If you're a giving person, do you tend to friend other givers online? "We don't know," Henrich told me. That's a topic for further research.

Update for 10:35 p.m. ET: In a follow-up phone interview, Fowler told me the results that he and his colleagues are reporting add a new twist to the old nature vs. nurture debate. People aren't shaped merely by genetics and their physical environment, he said.

"Social networks were actually just as important as the other two," he said. There may even be a genetic component to the associations you make. Along with Christakis and UCSD's Christopher Dawes,?Fowler conducted research suggesting that genetic factors?affect social behaviors.?Previous studies have also shown that social networking among hunter-gatherer societies like the Hadza are not governed strictly by kin-based relationships.

"What's new here is that we've specifically tied this idea of cooperation to ties between non-kin," Fowler said.

Fowler acknowledged that studying hunter-gatherer societies are not a foolproof way to trace the evolutionary roots of the behaviors we see in modern-day society, including Facebook friending and Twitter tweeting. "This isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all of determining what we were like hundreds of thousands of years ago," he said. But considering that scientists can't interview?Stone Age social networkers, Fowler believes this is one of the best methods available to anthropologists.

More social-network science:

---

In addition to Apicella, Christakis and Fowler, authors of "Social Networks and Cooperation in Hunter-Gatherers" include Cambridge University's Frank Marlowe.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10234789-facebooks-roots-go-way-way-back

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Youths overrun bombed north Nigeria police station

A police officer walks past an engine block of last Friday suicide bomber's vehicle by the wall of the state police headquarters in Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Police said Tuesday that members of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram dressed in uniforms resembling those of soldiers and police officers when they launched their attack Friday in Kano. At least 185 people died in the attacks. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

A police officer walks past an engine block of last Friday suicide bomber's vehicle by the wall of the state police headquarters in Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Police said Tuesday that members of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram dressed in uniforms resembling those of soldiers and police officers when they launched their attack Friday in Kano. At least 185 people died in the attacks. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Police officers walk past the ruins of a market outside the state police headquarters in Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Police said Tuesday that members of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram dressed in uniforms resembling those of soldiers and police officers when they launched their attack Friday in Kano. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

A police officer walks past the ruins of a market outside the state police headquarters in Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Police said Tuesday that members of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram dressed in uniforms resembling those of soldiers and police officers when they launched their attack Friday in Kano. At least 185 people (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

People look at a bullet casing sitting in a pool of blood and bullet holes in a house at the center of a gun battle early Tuesday morning in the city of Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Witnesses at the house said security forces surrounded it and forced their way inside shooting, killing a man and a pregnant woman while searching for members of a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. Police declined to immediately comment about the shooting.(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

People stand outside a house following a gun battle early Tuesday morning in the city of Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Witnesses at the house said security forces surrounded it and forced their way inside shooting, killing a man and a pregnant woman while searching for members of a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. Police declined to immediately comment about the shooting.(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

KANO, Nigeria (AP) ? Jubilant youths overran a blood-splattered police station on Wednesday after it was attacked by a radical Islamist sect, revealing a streak of popular discontent with a government that many say has failed them in Africa's most populous nation.

Suspected members of Boko Haram surrounded the police station Tuesday night in Kano, ordered civilians to get off the street, began chanting "God is great" and threw homemade bombs into the station while spraying it with assault rifles, witnesses said. The attack followed coordinated assaults on Friday that killed at least 185 people in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city.

Associated Press journalists on Wednesday saw that youths had overrun the bombed-out station in the Sheka neighborhood of this sprawling city in northern Nigeria.

Doors to jail cells stood open. Blood coated the floor of the local commander's private bathroom. Investigative files that had apparently been rifled through were spilled on the floors. Cheering youths outside waved an officer's uniform and jumped up and down on top of a burned-out police truck, with one wearing a police ballistic helmet, smiling.

Others in the crowd said in the local Hausa language they would kill any police officer who returned. Some ominously asked journalists visiting the site if they were Christians.

"We are not satisfied with what is happening now," said 26-year-old Abubakar Muawuya. Our leaders "have to call this Boko Haram and sit down with them."

Kano state police spokesman Magaji Musa Majiya did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though it followed the pattern of others carried out by Boko Haram, including the use of improvised explosives.

The sect, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in Hausa, has claimed responsibility for Friday coordinated attacks in Kano.

Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law and avenge the deaths of Muslims in communal violence across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people split largely into a Christian south and Muslim north.

While the sect has begun targeting Christians in the north, most of those killed Friday appeared to be Muslim, officials said.

Nigeria's weak and corruption-riddled central government has been unable to stop Boko Haram's increasingly bloody attacks.

Nigeria is an oil-rich nation but most Nigerians don't see the benefits and earn less than $2 a day. They have to contend with a rotting infrastructure like bad roads and a lack of electrical power, and seeming government indifference to the problems. The level of anger is high as democracy in a nation with a history of military rule has failed to markedly improve people's lives.

When President Goodluck Jonathan on Jan. 1 ended a fuel subsidy that kept prices at the pump low, unions launched a nationwide strike and streets of cities filled with protesters, forcing the president to partially reinstate the subsidy.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-25-AF-Nigeria-Violence/id-f1085306f5b14515ac8a80c97155e004

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Dr. Drew gets juiced up on 'Lifechangers'

The CW

Dr. Drew has an adverse reaction to Go-Go Juice.

By Randee Dawn

Dr. Drew Pinsky of "Dr. Drew's Lifechangers" is pretty unflappable -- and why not? He's had years of experience dealing with celebrities and their sometimes off-the-wall addictions, and is usually the composed, cool-headed center of rationality.

But you haven't seen Dr. Drew until you've seen him try some of Honey Boo Boo Child's Go-Go Juice, as he does in the clip below, from "Lifechangers."

"It tastes like apple juice!" says Child, whose birth name is Alana, and who stars in "Toddlers & Tiaras."

OK, he doesn't exactly get down on the floor and spin around (as the pageant princess has been known to do). But having had a small sip of the "energy drink and caffeine drink" combo Alana's mom put together, he starts immediately stumbling over his words.

"I'm kind of starting to sweat a little bit ... I can't speak, my tongue is getting thick ... I can't talk because I've got this Go-Go juice making my mouth thick," he said.

"I'm having trouble, I'm starting to lose it," he added, spitting a little out.

Talk about a life-changer!

Honey Boo Boo Child, her mother and the Go-Go Juice make an appearance on "Dr. Drew's Lifechangers" on Feb. 2 on The CW. Want more "Toddlers & Tiaras"? The season finale airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. on TLC.

What do you think about giving a young child an energy/caffeine drink combo? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

Related content:

Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10215721-dr-drew-chokes-up-over-go-go-juice-on-lifechangers

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Mighty mesh

Monday, January 23, 2012

New research at Harvard explains how bacterial biofilms expand to form slimy mats on teeth, pipes, surgical instruments, and crops.

Through experiment and mathematical analysis, researchers have shown that the extracellular matrix (ECM), a mesh of proteins and sugars that can form outside bacterial cells, creates osmotic pressure that forces biofilms to swell and spread.

The ECM mechanism is so powerful that it can increase the radius of some biofilms five-fold within 24 hours.

The results have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Biofilms, large colonies of bacteria that adhere to surfaces, can be harmful in a wide range of settings, resulting in tooth decay, hospital infections, agricultural damage, and corrosion. Finding ways to control or eliminate biofilms is a priority for many industries.

In order for a biofilm to grow, a group of bacterial cells must first adhere to a surface and then proliferate and spread. When a vast number of cells are present, this can translate into the creation of a filmy surface spanning several meters.

"Our work challenges the common picture of biofilms as sedentary communities by showing how cells in a biofilm cooperate to colonize surfaces," says lead author Agnese Seminara, a research associate at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Several types of biofilms have been characterized based on composition and antibiotic resistance, but until now it has not been clear what roles the whip-like flagella and the ECM play in the outward movement of cells.

While the presence of a flagellum has traditionally been associated with greater movement capability, the new research has found that a flagellum actually confers little advantage in the formation of biofilms. In the Harvard study, mutant bacteria lacking flagella were able to spread at almost the same rate as the wild-type (natural) ones. Mutants that could not secrete the ECM, however, showed stunted growth.

The team of physicists, mathematicians, chemists, and biologists examined the formation of biofilms in Bacillus subtilis, a type of rod-shaped bacteria often found in soil. Their focus on this particular species was led by Roberto Kolter, Professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, an expert on biofilms and the genomics of B. subtilis.

"This project establishes a link between the phenotype, the physically observable traits of biofilm growth, and the genetic underpinning that allows spreading to happen in B. subtilis," notes co-principal investigator Michael Brenner, the Glover Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics at SEAS.

The researchers had speculated about a possible connection between the biofilm's quest for nutrition and the process of spreading. Because biofilms absorb nutrients through their exposed surface area, they can only swell vertically to a certain point before the surface-area-to-volume ratio makes it impossible to adequately nourish every cell. At this point, the biofilm must begin to spread outward so that the surface area increases along with the number of cells.

The ECM, a complex mesh of proteins, sugars, and other components outside of the individual cells, holds the key to one aspect of this movement: it apparently increases osmotic pressure within the biofilm.

In response to the increased pressure, the biofilm immediately absorbs water from its surroundings, causing the entire mass to swell upward. The final change in the shape of the biofilm is due to a combination of this swelling and the horizontal spreading that follows.

Seminara and Brenner created a mathematical model that mirrored many of the team's physical observations. The model supported the experimental observations; by considering the relationship between swelling and spreading, they were able to find the "critical" time at which horizontal outward motion begins.

"This work is led by theoretical predictions which were tested by experiment and proved to be correct," reflects co-principal investigator David Weitz, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at SEAS and Co-Director of the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard. "The results also demonstrate how simple physical principles can provide considerable insight into the behavior of biofilms."

The motion of biofilms represents only a small part of a complex subject. Further research will investigate how biofilms adapt and possibly manipulate their environment. The ultimate goal is to alter biofilms' behavior to minimize their harmful effects.

"The natural question at this point is: do cells actively control biofilm expansion and can they direct it toward desired targets?" says Seminara. "This is a first step toward understanding the striking evolutionary success of these ubiquitous organisms, and it may open the way to unconventional methods of biofilm control."

###

Harvard University: http://www.harvard.edu

Thanks to Harvard University for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116945/Mighty_mesh

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Video: Big Week for JCP

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46102998/

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Iran's Gulf smugglers feel blowback from tensions

KHASAB, Oman (AP) ? By dawn, the unmarked speedboats from Iran pull into port. By dusk, they are racing back across the Strait of Hormuz loaded with smuggled consumer goods ranging from Chinese-made shoes to cut flowers from Holland.

Even as sanctions squeeze Iran ever tighter, there's one clandestine route that remains open for business: A short sea corridor across the Persian Gulf connecting a rocky nub of Oman and the Iranian coast about 35 miles (60 kilometers) away.

Yet even this established smugglers' path is now feeling the bite from the pressures on Iran over its nuclear program.

Business is sharply down, the middlemen and boat crews say, as the slumping Iranian currency leaves fewer customers for the smuggled wares. At the same time, the risks of interception are higher as Iranian authorities step up patrols near the strategic oil tanker lanes at the mouth of the Gulf.

The strait, which is the only access in and out of the Gulf, has been the scene of Cold War-style brinksmanship between Iran and the West after Tehran last month threatened to block the passageway for about one-sixth of the world's oil in retaliation for new U.S. sanctions.

"We used to make two or three trips across every day. Now, it's maybe one," said an Iranian middleman, who gave only his first name Agheel to protect his identity from authorities in his homeland.

He watched crews load up a pickup truck with bolts of fabric from Pakistan and table-size boxes of cut flowers from the Netherlands, before the trucks headed off through the treeless mountains to Khasab port.

The operation smuggles in merchandise to avoid Iranian tariffs and to bring in American and European products that have disappeared from Iranian markets because of international sanctions. Experts note that the consumer items post no real challenge to efforts to block material with military or nuclear uses.

"Still, it shows you can't close off all channels into Iran no matter how hard you try," said Paul Rogers, who follows security affairs at Bradford University in Britain. "People will find a way."

On this side of the Gulf, the smugglers operate under a tacit tolerance from authorities, even though Oman and the United Arab Emirates are close U.S. allies and have pledged to enforce sanctions. The port lies in a sparsely populated peninsula enclave belonging to Oman but encircled on land by the UAE, a legacy of how the area was carved up in the final days of British rule here in the last century that resulted in Oman holding joint control with Iran over the strait.

The goods are legally imported into the UAE and truck drivers take them across the border, paying the customary 50 dirham ($13.50) entry fee, according to the smugglers interviewed by The Associated Press. In Khasab, the merchandise is taken to warehouses and then piled on the docks less than 100 yards (100 meters) from the port police headquarters.

Omani authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the traffic.

The Khasab speedboats are far from the only back channel into Iran. Drug traffickers easily cross the hinterland borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and black market networks stretch across the frontiers with Iraq and Turkey. Authorities in Iraq's Kurdish region have been under pressure for years to crack down on fuel trucks heading into Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

But Khasab stands out for its openness and for lying on the highly sensitive Strait.

A shipment arranged by the Iranian smuggler Agheel this week was done with practiced efficiency.

A pickup truck backed into a wood-floored warehouse with hundreds of cases of cigarettes bundled three together and wrapped tightly in gray plastic weave ? in total 3,000 cigarettes under south Asian brands such as Ruby Menthol. The truck was soon sagging under the weight of boxes piled five high.

Agheel did some quick calculations: Each three-case load cost him about $1,200 and he could sell them to merchants in Iran for the equivalent of about $1,350 under current exchange rates. The truck pulling out of the warehouse represented a potential return of about $4,500.

"If we don't get caught," he added.

The smugglers have their ways of avoiding Iranian authorities.

Spotters off the coast ? on the island of Qeshm and near the port of Bandar Abbas ? call in coast guard movements to Khasab. The speedboat drivers keep close attention to the water conditions on the Strait and try to approach the Iranian coast just after sunset. The trip can take as little as 90 minutes in calm seas and up to four hours in rough water in the stripped down stripped-down 16-foot (five-meter) fiberglass boats.

Agheel's truck passed through the Khasab customs station at midday and then down a strip of hardscrabble road.

At the port ? almost in the shadow of a Costa cruise ship making a day stop ? dozens of boats were being packed and secured for the trip. There were no names or markings on the speedboats. But the items loaded on carried familiar logos: LG 42-inch flatscreen TVs, Discovery Channel DVDs, Panasonic microwaves, Yamaha motorcycle parts. Also in the stacks were textiles, satellite dishes and Chinese-made clothes and shoes.

One boat driver, who gave his name only as Aziz, had a breakfast of eggs, beans and Mountain Dew as he waited for the day's shipment to be loaded for the return run to Qeshm, a long arrow-shaped island near the Iranian coast and a main waystation for the smugglers.

Months ago, he could make as many trips as possible because the merchants in Iran were demanding goods.

But now the struggling Iranian rial ? dragged down partly by U.S.-led sanctions that could target Iran's Central Bank ? has put many things out of reach for Iranians, he said.

"No one wants to buy because the (rial) rate is not stable," he said.

He also said the Iranian coastal patrols have been boosted amid the escalating tensions over the Strait.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the American military is "fully prepared" to deal with any Iranian effort to close the waterway. Next month, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard plans naval exercises in the area.

If spotted by patrols, Aziz said the two-man boat crews try to heave the goods overboard. They then must pay back the smuggling network, which can amount to thousands of dollars.

But it's worth the risk, he said.

"The situation is getting worse now," he said. "All the prices are up and Qeshm has nothing else" except smuggling.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-22-ML-Smugglers-in-the-Strait/id-e2bd6b95b8ef45589402dbff56f3a2b1

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Afghan Taliban say recruited soldier who killed French troops (Reuters)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) ? The Afghan Taliban said on Saturday they had recruited an Afghan soldier who shot dead four French soldiers in the country's east a day earlier, prompting France to threaten an early pullout from the NATO-led war.

The claim of responsibility raises serious concerns about handing control of security over to the Afghan army and police, which NATO-led forces are currently in the process of doing before all foreign combat troops leave by the end of 2014.

Using another name the Islamist group call themselves, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone: "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has recruited people in important positions. Some of them have already accomplished their missions," he said adding that the four died on the spot.

The killings in Kapisa province were the latest in a string of such attacks in which Afghan troops turn on their Western allies and mentors. While NATO has blamed Taliban infiltration in the past, it has also said stress, indiscipline and divided loyalties within the hastily traded ranks played a role.

Friday's brazen attack also comes weeks after an offer from the Taliban to open a political office in Qatar as a prelude to possible peace talks with the United States and other nations.

After the shooting -- which took the French death toll to 82 since the war began in 2001 -- President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered all French military operations on the ground to be suspended and Defense Minister Gerard Longuet jetted into Kabul on Saturday.

A regional Taliban commander added that incidents such as a video showing U.S. Marines urinating on corpses were boosting support for the group among Afghans and threatened more attacks.

"Our missions have become easier because of incidents like the video," he said.

Despite the presence of more than 100,000 foreign troops, violence across Afghanistan remains at its worst levels since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, according to the United Nations.

(Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120121/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_french_taliban

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Video: Jenna Wolfe takes the plunge

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/46091521#46091521

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Gingrich wins most delegates in South Carolina (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Newt Gingrich has won the most delegates in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary, narrowing Mitt Romney's lead in the race for delegates to the party's national convention this summer.

Gingrich, the former House speaker, has won at least 15 delegates, with 10 to be awarded. These are the first delegates Gingrich has won in a primary or caucus, though the race for delegates is still in the early stages. In all, Gingrich has 17 delegates, including endorsements from Republican National Committee members who will automatically attend the convention. Romney has 33 delegates.

It will take 1,144 delegates to win the GOP nomination.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign_delegates

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Eli Manning returns to practice after one-day bug

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning enters the practice field after leaving momentarily during NFL football practice, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, in East Rutherford, N.J. Manning missed part of the practice session with a stomach illness. The Giants travel to San Francisco to play the 49ers in the NFC championship game. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning enters the practice field after leaving momentarily during NFL football practice, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, in East Rutherford, N.J. Manning missed part of the practice session with a stomach illness. The Giants travel to San Francisco to play the 49ers in the NFC championship game. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning tosses a football during NFL football practice, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, in East Rutherford, N.J. Manning missed part of practice session with a stomach illness. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) ? New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning was back at practice Thursday after missing part of Wednesday's workout with "a stomach bug."

Neither Manning nor coach Tom Coughlin was immediately available to say how Manning felt or to discuss his status for Sunday's NFC title game against the 49ers in San Francisco.

Manning's inclusion on the Giants' injury report Wednesday marked for the first time this season that he missed any work.

The Giants seemingly were not concerned about Manning's illness. Guard and close friend Chris Snee said Manning is the one person of the team who could afford to miss a workout.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-19-FBN-Giants-Manning/id-f524786e5e364f1f827fb5cc551d5e57

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Saldana rushes to help elderly car crash victim

Step aside, Tom Cruise. Make room, J.C. Chasez. A new celeb hero has joined the inspiring ranks.

Zoe Saldana jumped to the rescue of a visibly injured elderly woman in Culver City Thursday after witnessing a particularly heinous car accident that left the driver with a scratched and bloodied face.

MORE: Zoe Saldana is just one of Bradley Cooper's many women

According to reports, without missing a beat, the 33-year-old "Avatar" star sprang from her car and, with the help of a fellow bystander, assisted the clearly shaken woman from her vehicle to the curb, where she helped her take a seat before phoning an ambulance.

Saldana then waited with the woman until paramedics and officers arrived on the scene and even went back to the victim's car at one point to collect her purse and sweater and bring it back to the jarred woman.

Later, the actress was seen speaking to police officers and fireman who responded to the scene, not leaving the unidentified woman's side until she had received the medical attention she needed.

Well, if anyone wasn't a fan of Zoe's before, we're guessing they certainly are now.

PHOTOS: Do-Gooder Gallery

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Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46065091/ns/today-entertainment/

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Apparently, Nazis Are Now Taking Their Hate to Wi-Fi In New Jersey [Video]

New Jersey police are in search of A bigot who set up a Wi-Fi network called "F*ck All Jews and N*****s" inside a community center in the town of Teaneck, 10 miles outside of New York City. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ks_v0spo2Ig/apparently-nazis-are-now-taking-their-hate-to-wi+fi-in-new-jersey

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