Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/06/29/slimscan-receipt-scanner-stores-in-your-wallet/
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
SlimScan receipt scanner stores in your wallet
The Planon SlimScan SS100 is a credit card sized scanner that has been designed for scanning receipts and business cards. It’s about the same size as a stack of 3 credit cards at 2.0 x 3.1 x 0.12 inch, so it stores easily in a card slot in your wallet. Images are scanned at 300 [...]
Judge bars Obamacare contraceptive requirement for a Christian-owned business
The federal judge issued the temporary injunction a day after a US appeals court ruled that the Obamacare requirement would create a religious burden for the Christian business owners.
Customers enter and exit a Hobby Lobby store in Denver in May. A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that Hobby Lobby stores have a good case that the federal health care law violates their religious beliefs in ordering them to provide birth control to employees.
Ed Andrieski/AP/File
EnlargeA federal judge in Oklahoma issued a preliminary injunction Friday blocking the Obama administration from enforcing its contraceptive mandate against the craft chain store Hobby Lobby.
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The action by US District Judge Joe Heaton came after the full Tenth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that forcing Hobby Lobby and its Christian owners to pay for certain kinds of contraceptive methods would substantially burden their religious rights.
The appeals court overturned an earlier ruling by Judge Heaton denying an injunction. The appeals court then sent the issue back to the judge.
Judge Heaton reviewed pleadings and heard oral argument via a telephone conference on Friday before issuing a two-page order.
?The court concludes plaintiffs have made a sufficient showing to warrant the issuance of a temporary restraining order in the circumstances existing here,? the judge wrote.
The health-care law with its contraceptives mandate is set to take effect on Monday, July 1, and would trigger potential multi-million dollar penalties if the company failed to comply.
Hobby Lobby has more than 500 stores and employs 13,000 workers nationwide. The injunction also applies to Mardel, Inc., which runs 35 Christian bookstores and employs 400 workers. Both companies are owned and run by the Green family, who are devout Christians.
The family believes that life begins at conception and that any interference with the implantation of a fertilized egg is intentionally causing the death of a human being.
Of 20 contraceptive methods required under Obamacare, the family objects to four, involving two versions of an IUD and two kinds of the so-called morning after pill.
Government lawyers have argued that the contraceptive mandate is no burden to the corporation?s religious rights or those of the owners because the choice to use a particular contraception method belongs to the employee, not the employer.
Lawyers for Hobby Lobby counter that the employer is being asked to subsidize an activity that violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs. They charge it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The judge scheduled a full hearing on the injunction issue for July 19 in Oklahoma City.
?Hobby Lobby and the Green family faced a terrible choice of violating their faith or paying massive fines starting this Monday morning,? said Kyle Duncan of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Hobby Lobby in the case.
?We are delighted that both the Tenth Circuit and the district court have spared them from this unjust burden on their religious freedom,? Mr. Duncan said.
The case is one of 60 lawsuits filed by individuals, companies, and organizations across the country challenging the portion of the president?s health care initiative that requires employers to provide a full range of contraceptive services to their employees.
The judge?s order came hours after the Department of Health and Human Services issued its final rules for contraception coverage, including by certain religious organizations.
In a statement, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the health-care law would guarantee millions of women access to preventative health services at no cost.
?Today?s announcement [of final rules] reinforces our commitment to respect the concerns of houses of worship and other nonprofit religious organizations that object to contraceptive coverage, while helping ensure that women get the care they need, regardless of where they work,? Secretary Sebelius said.
Under the administration?s rule, religious employers ? primarily houses of worship ? are exempt from providing contraception coverage in health plans for their employees.
The final rules also include an accommodation for other nonprofit religious organizations, such as church-affiliated hospitals and religious schools. Under the arrangement, such organizations that object to contraception coverage are to provide notice of their objection to their health insurance company. The insurer will then provide that portion of the coverage to the employee directly.
The final rules do not include an accommodation for for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby.
?Unfortunately the final rule announced today is the same old, same old,? said Eric Rassbach, also of the Becket Fund. ?This doesn?t solve the religious conscience problem because it still makes our nonprofit clients the gatekeepers to abortion and provides no protection to religious businesses.?
He added: ?The easy way to resolve this would have been to exempt sincere religious employers completely, as the Constitution requires. Instead this issue will have to be decided in court.?
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How to show true patriot love? Spend Canada Day with six former PMs
It?s Canada Day up Canada way, and what are you going do?
You could celebrate by singing some old Stompin? Tom songs and remembering the glory of his time observing this country without ever solemnizing it. You could watch this strange new show Siberia (NBC, 10 pm.), which is ?a fictionalized reality? show that is, if I?ve got this straight, a blend of Survivor, The Amazing Race and Lost. Sixteen people are dropped into the remote Siberian territory of Tunguska. They soon realize they are not in the reality show they signed up for ? or are they?
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Or you could get up early and watch a marathon of Panic Button (Space, starting at 6 a.m.), a Canadian-made, ?high-impact, bone-chilling? reality series in which participants attempt a maze that offers escalating horrors ? germs, snakes, spiders, or being buried alive.
Alright, that might not be your choice on Canada Day and nobody would question your judgment. You might be busy having that backyard barbecue with Bachman-Turner-Overdrive tunes turned up, way-loud. Whatever it takes, Canada.
Here?s a suggestion ? spend time with all six living former Prime Ministers.
Seriously. Don?t go telling me this is a dull Canadian way to mark Canada day. It is, in fact, splendidly dignified.
I?m talking about Beyond Politics ? Canada Day Prime Ministers Marathon (CPAC, 2 p.m.), and it?s a fascinating bunch of consecutive programs. Catherine Clark, daughter of Joe Clark, does engaging and informal chats with the six living former Prime Ministers: John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chr?tien, Paul Martin, and her dad, Joe. At times hilarious and at times poignant, these informal conversations with Canada?s former leaders are good TV.
The chat with Turner is especially compelling. I didn?t know that he was a helluva athlete or that he was born in England and his father was the theatre critic for the Manchester Guardian. Also, that he saved John Diefenbaker?s life by rescuing the man when he was drowning. In fact, I gather, hardly anybody knows that. ?Ooooh,? Clark says when Turner talks about the early death of his father. Later Turner sits there, looking chuffed, when Clark is impressed by the fact that he ran at the L.A. Coliseum in 1948 with 100,000 people watching, and he qualified for 1948 Olympics, but was injured and couldn?t compete.
Clark?s first question to Jean Chr?tien is, ?what were your mom and dad like?? As Chretien chats away, in a leisurely manner, about his family and youth, Clark says such things as, ?Oh, no kidding!? And at times, as Chr?tien is in a reverie of reminiscence about his mom teaching him how to knit, or such, Clark can barely get in a question. When she talks to Joe Clark, she beings with, ?It?s great to have you here, Dad,? but declares that it?s nerve-racking to interview him. Joe Clark is eloquent about Alberta and chuckles a good deal telling tales of his childhood. One thing that emerges is Clark?s brief flirtation with sports writing, a prospect that horrified his parents. Also, he was almost expelled from college.
The point, always in these chats, is to get beyond the fixed image of a former Prime Minister that the public may have imagined. Mostly, it works. Mind you, Martin seems a tad more reluctant than most to allow much probing. But there is a great story about his mom expressing to Mackenzie King her skepticism about King?s greatness as a politician.
I?m not going to give everything away here. You can watch the interviews with Mulroney and Campbell and figure out your own take-away from the encounters. All I?m saying is this ? in the rivers of babble that flow on this day about what it means to be Canadian, there is only one truth: We can do whatever we want to celebrate. And that?s the whole point of being Canadian. Dull, dignified or mad. That?s us. Me, I?ve seen the chats with the six living former Prime Ministers. I?m going the BTO route and cranking up Stayed Awake All Night.
Canada Day live from Parliament Hill (CBC, 11:30 a.m.) is hosted by soprano Measha Bruggergosman and features performances by Carly Rae Jepsen, Metric, country star Terri Clark, Radio Radio, Marie-Mai, and a special performance by Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Chris Hadfield. There are some speeches, too.
All times ET. Check local listings.
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Gay marriages resume in California after five-year hiatus
By Dan Levine
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Same-sex couples - some in shorts and jeans, some in their work clothes - rushed to be wed in California on Friday after a court abruptly ended the state's five-year ban on gay marriage in the wake of landmark rulings at the U.S. Supreme Court.
On a balcony overlooking the grand staircase at San Francisco City Hall, an ornate space that has long been a magnet for weddings, the couple whose case sparked this week's Supreme Court decision exchanged vows. The ceremony was officiated by state Attorney General Kamala Harris, and the ring bearer was the couple's 18-year-old son.
"This is the first day of the rest of our lives together, said Kristin Perry, who with her fianc?e, Sandy Stier, filed the lawsuit against Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
Stier turned to the horde of reporters and well-wishers crowding the room, smiled and said: "Thank you so much for coming to our wedding."
At the city clerk's office, other couples waited for their marriage licenses. Two men - one in jeans and the other wearing a pair of shorts - exchanged vows after Stier and Perry.
Four hundred miles to the south, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, a second couple who were plaintiffs in the case, wed at City Hall in Los Angeles.
"You are just as in love today as you were when you met 12 years ago," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who conducted the ceremony, told the two men, who wore suits with boutonnieres.
The California marriages capped a historic week for gay rights in the United States. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued two key rulings - one that extended federal benefits to married gay couples and another that allowed a federal court's order striking down the California marriage ban to stand.
TAKEN BY SURPRISE
On Friday, a panel of three federal appellate court judges responded by formally lifting an injunction against the marriages. That move took brides, grooms and public officials by surprise. They had expected the judges to wait for a more formal ruling from the Supreme Court due in about three weeks.
Within minutes, couples were descending upon San Francisco City Hall, and California Governor Jerry Brown had ordered county clerks throughout the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Cassie Coleman and Rosa Sanchez were at work when the ruling came down. They agreed via text message to meet at City Hall, and called their mothers to ask permission. They got some roses - red and pink.
"That was it," Sanchez said. "We just jumped in."
The impromptu weddings and the jubilant participation by public officials prompted angry responses from some opponents of gay marriage.
"This outrage tops off a chronic pattern of lawlessness, throughout this case, by judges and politicians hell-bent on thwarting the vote of the people to redefine marriage by any means, even outright corruption," said Andy Pugno, general counsel for the ProtectMarriage.com Coalition.
But he did not, however, actively threaten to fight on.
"It remains to be seen whether the fight can go on, but either way, it's a disgraceful day for California," he said.
John Eastman, a constitutional law professor at Chapman University who was a key backer of the ban, said the appellate court judges should have waited for a 25-day "reconsideration" period to elapse, in which opponents would have had one last chance to ask the Supreme Court to change its mind.
California briefly allowed gay marriages in 2008, before the ballot initiative was enacted. It now becomes the 13th state, and the largest, to allow same-sex marriage - just in time, advocates point out, for Gay Pride weekend.
"On my way to S.F. City Hall," tweeted Harris minutes after the injunction was lifted. "Let the wedding bells ring!"
(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Dana Feldman in Los Angeles, Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Ronnie Cohen in San Francisco; writing by Sharon Bernstein; editing by Mary Milliken and Jackie Frank)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-lifts-ban-gay-marriage-california-001242022.html
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Video: Higher Gas Prices Pump Consumer Pessimism
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52339683/
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Translation App Linqapp's Developers Are Running Around Taiwan To Promote Its Startup Industry
Though Taiwan is known for its technological prowess, startup founders still face many obstacles, including the lack of early-stage funding. As a result, the developers of social translation app Lingapp had to get creative--and their solution brings new meaning to the term "bootstrapping."Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1kTQcqbD8sI/
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iOS 7 for iPad First Impressions: Messing With the Best
Since its inception, the iPad has been the gold standard for tablets. Nothing else has come close, really. A lot of credit goes to iOS, which has ceded plenty of ground to Android on phones but remains easily the friendliest tablet software. So changing up iOS 7 means changing up the very best tablet OS there is. Here's how that's working out so far.
As usual, this comes with our standard "It's Just a Beta" forewarning. iOS 7 may be enough of an overhaul to make it fair to raise more questions than usual, but this is by no means a finished product. What Apple actually releases will almost certainly be substantively different from its current form.
That said, here's what we've noticed so far:
- The "swipe from anywhere to unlock" tweak that was a nice little change for iPhone is a massive improvement for the iPad, where there is just more space. With a tablet, your hand is not always (rarely, actually) positioned to swipe a tiny bar at the bottom of the screen. Especially if you wake up your tablet from the top power button.
- The Control Center is a spot where you'll notice Apple making the UI work for both phones and tablets. On a phone, your thumb is always within reach of the bottom. But on the iPad, you can use your thumbs to drag Control Center up from anywhere along the bottom of the screen. And doing it from the corners?where your thumbs probably are anyway?puts you right in position to change brightness or volume. It feels like it just fits.
- Some gestures just don't make much sense anymore, though. The four-fingers-up to slide up the old multitasking tray, for example, is sort of confusing now. Why would sliding four fingers up make this sliding panel interface show up? It's still functional, but it loses that almost tactile feeling of sliding your fingers up and seeing a drawer pop out from the same direction.
- More concerning (and also something that can easily be fixed before the public release) is that basic navigation is, for the first time in a while, sort of muddled. For example, if you enter a folder and want to exit it and return to the home screen, all you have to do is tap anywhere outside of the folder. That makes sense, and even if you don't know that that's how it works, you'll figure it out in a hurry. That "tap anywhere to return to where you were" usage disappears, though, when you use the new multitasking. You tap outside of the multitasking panels, and nothing happens, even though you're tapping on the same wallpaper as you were when using a folder.
- iOS 7's multitasking in general makes a little less sense on a tablet than it does on a phone. For one, there is a ton of wasted space on the iPad's 4:3 display, and because the animations take longer to finish (and the panels can only move on one axis at a time), it's a little harder to manipulate.
- The whole concept of multitasking in iOS 7 is also less tablet friendly. Before, you'd just slide the drawer up, and shift over to where you're at. One full screen app to another. Now you're shot off to some intermediary environment that can be jarring visually, and if you change your mind, you can't just return to your app by tapping 90 percent of your screen; you've got to swipe back to the left (since multitasking shifts you one to the right by default) and tap the tile for where you were. Overall, it feels less restful than iPads had previously.
- Non-retina screens are not going to looks as great with iOS 7. The iPad Mini, which has a condensed but still sub-retina screen, looks mostly fine, and the thin typefaces are readable. Except, in certain instances they look sort of ugly?like in the new lighter-weight badges on apps like Mail or Newsstand. On a retina iPad or an iPhone, those look much better than the old style. But on the Mini (and presumably the iPad 2), they're pixelated and look sort of low rent. This will probably pop up in a few other places as well.
- Animations, like returning to the home screen from an app, are running very sluggishly. Everything is running sluggishly on iPad Mini and iPad 3, actually, but again, this is a beta, so wait and see. This is more slowdown than usual, though, and again, because of how big a change iOS 7 is, it bears watching.
- Parallax is there if you look for it, but it's not especially noticeable on day to day tablet use.
- Some staples of iPad gestures?five-fingered pinch, four-fingered swipe to switch apps?are slightly muddled in beta. This usually wouldn't be something to bring up about unfinished software, but seems notable given the amount of changes going on, and the importance of these gestures. By themselves, these two gestures make using an iPad a totally better than other tablets. Right now, a few of the first party apps aren't recognizing them when you're interacting with a content layer (like an email in Mail). This will hopefully be fixed, but it will a big deal if it isn't.
iOS 7 is very nice. It adds a ton of features we've wanted for a while. But there are also some drawbacks beyond the bitching you've heard about icons and color scheme. Some of those will get cleaned up, but others, especially the iPad-centric, might just be the cost of going forward.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/ios-7-for-ipad-first-impressions-messing-with-the-best-598446530
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Moroccan Topless Femen activist causes uproar in the country ...
By Youssef El Kaidi
Morocco World News
Fez, June 28, 2013
Undoubtedly, the last article on Morocco World News entitled First FEMEN Topless Woman in Morocco is one of the articles that triggered the most intense controversy and the hottest debate among readers. In less than three hours after it was published, about a hundred comments were made on Morocco World News fan page on the article.
What are the underlying messages of this quick and massive reaction? The special interest readers paid to the topic of the new form of protest or what FEMEN activists call ?Topless jihad? attests to the fact that Moroccan Muslim society is hyper-sensitive towards news that touch upon drastic cultural transformations or break cultural norms.
If we go back only two decades ago, the sight of a woman roaming the street with short or tight clothes was considered an unusual act that attracts curious or angry onlookers and ignites feelings of wrath in conservative and religious people. The only place where such sight was tolerated was the university with regard to the progressive thought that characterized most student movements in the eighties and the nineties.
?It was almost unimaginable two decades ago that a woman would ?brandish? her breasts in broad daylight in defense of her rights. Indeed, from a cultural perspective, Morocco?s cultural identity has been constantly undergoing quick change in line with and under the influence of the homogenizing forces of globalization. A practice in the extreme end of the world easily travels and finds place at home.
I still remember in the nineties many intellectuals and some of my teachers lobbying against Morocco?s decision to import satellite digital receivers because they conceived them as a threat to Morocco?s specificity. Receiving numerous TV channels at home together with a set of various cultural discourses and practices from around the world was considered by the detractors of globalization as a soft invasion of privacy that would erode our specificities. Actually, any discourse is legitimized through repeated use until it gains people?s familiarity despite objection at the beginning. Topless protest, I think, would soon become a normal thing in Morocco, and so would, may be, same sex marriage and other critical issues.
Going back to people?s reactions to the article, a quick survey of the comments gives us an idea to what extent people are offended by the bare ?weapon? of FEMEN activists. About 98 per cent expressed their indignation and resentment at the way the allegedly Moroccan woman poses nakedly. Some expressed their indignation in vulgar terms describing. Other counted her ribs and said the picture can be used to ask for ?food aid to Morocco.?
Abdelkarim Cherchemi, for instance, comments: ?This picture has nothing to do with Moroccan ladies. It?s only a flagrant kind of dishonoring the country.?
Hanan Chafai said: ?I thought the idea was/is NOT to use our sexuality to get messages across! FEMEN is IGNORANT and BACKWARDS! Nothing more!! I bet that girl doesn?t even know English! If she is so courageous, why is she hiding on top of the roof! Go into the streets girl! Let?s see how important your message then still is to you!?
The few proponents, however, see that the mere act of exposing breasts in a Muslim society and shouting for freedom and more rights is a harbinger of courage and bravery for which the lady should be respected. ??Maybe every one of you has something true in what you have said but there is a respectful courage in that act that you can?t deny, being sure that she already knew how she will be considered. She is maybe wrong for misdemeanor reasons but she is still courageous and just for that respect!? said Imane Eii.
? Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed
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New maps depict impact of HIV in America
June 27, 2013 ? Today, on National HIV Testing Day, the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University launched its annual update of AIDSVu, including new interactive online maps that show the latest HIV prevalence data for 20 U.S. cities by ZIP code or census tract. AIDSVu also includes new city snapshots displaying HIV prevalence alongside various social determinants of health -- such as poverty, lack of health insurance and educational attainment.
AIDSVu -- the most detailed publicly available view of HIV prevalence in the United States -- is a compilation of interactive online maps that display HIV prevalence data at the national, state and local levels and by different demographics, including age, race and sex. The maps pinpoint areas of the country where the rates of people living with an HIV diagnosis are the highest. These areas include urban centers in the Northeast and the South, and visualize where the needs for prevention, testing, and treatment services are the most urgent.
"Our National HIV/AIDS Strategy calls for reducing new HIV infections by intensifying our efforts in HIV prevention where the epidemic is most concentrated. AIDSVu provides a roadmap to identifying those high-prevalence areas of the HIV epidemic and showing where the local testing resources are located," says Patrick S. Sullivan, PhD, DVM, professor of epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, and the principal researcher for AIDSVu. "The addition of new city data means that AIDSVu now displays data from 20 U.S. cities. This expanded city information is critical because most HIV diagnoses in the United States occur in cities."
The free, interactive online tool's new data and features include:
- National maps displaying 2010 data at the state-and county-level, the most recent national HIV prevalence data available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- Interactive maps of HIV prevalence data by census tract for Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
- New ZIP code level maps for five U.S. cities -- Memphis, Orlando, San Diego, Tampa and Virginia Beach; and updated ZIP code maps for Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles County, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Juan and Washington, D.C.
- HIV prevalence maps alongside social determinants of health -- poverty, lack of health insurance, median household income, educational attainment and income inequality -- in side-by-side map views for 20 cities, in addition to the existing state views.
AIDSVu maps illustrate the geographic variations in the HIV epidemic across the United States:
- The national map shows significantly higher rates of people living with HIV in the Northeast and the South than in much of the rest of the country. AIDSVu's city maps demonstrate that, in many cities, there is a pattern of heavily impacted urban cores with relatively lower impact in areas further from city centers.
- The data on AIDSVu's maps can be viewed by race/ethnicity. AIDSVu shows that HIV disproportionately affects black and Hispanic/Latino Americans, and that these disparities exist in both major metropolitan areas and rural areas.
- AIDSVu also provides downloadable and printable resources -- including slide sets of the various map views available on the site -- to help those who work in HIV prevention and treatment educate others about the U.S. epidemic.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Emory Health Sciences.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/gExrqg0VsxY/130627142555.htm
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Bing Translator comes to Twitter's official Windows Phone app
It's not every day we see Windows Phone being used to launch a major new feature, but Twitter has done just that. An update to its official app has just enabled automatic translation if you happen to be reading a person's tweet that isn't in English. The tweet isn't translated in your actual timeline; instead you have to manually click through, but that's nothing to complain about. Microsoft's Bing Platform, also released yesterday, is likely being used as the backend, so this feature could very well come to Twitter's official apps on Android and iOS (not to mention a whole range of other apps) in the near future.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Via: The Nokia Blog
Source: Twitter (Windows Phone Store)
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WSJ outs Apple's iTunes Radio terms, says many are 'more generous' than Pandora's
According to a document obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Apple will pay 0.13 cents and 15 percent of advertising revenue to major labels for every song played on iTunes Radio in its first year, climbing to .14 cents and 19 percent in year two. In comparison, Pandora currently pays 0.12 cents per song, and WSJ added that Apple is offering publishers more than double Pandora's rate for royalties. There are some exclusions to Apple's offering, however: it won't need to pay for songs streamed for 20 seconds or less, those that are already in your iTunes library or certain promoted tracks. For its part, Pandora said that comparing the two is unfair, since varying features between the services could trigger royalty payments differently. It also addressed recent controversy about those royalties in a detailed blog post (see the More Coverage link after the break). In addition, insiders say that Apple's primary aim is to encourage listeners to buy more tracks on iTunes, in turn boosting hardware sales. Still, the new service will no doubt reap the benefits of Apples new iAd mobile advertising platform, so it's likely that Cupertino will have its cake and eat it, too.
Source: WSJ Digits
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/5KlwxaSRvcQ/
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Gay rights clash: Obama, African host are at odds
President Barack Obama listens as Senegalese President Macky Sall speaks during a news conference at the Presidential Palace, in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama listens as Senegalese President Macky Sall speaks during a news conference at the Presidential Palace, in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama and Senegalese President Macky Sall leave after a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Dakar, Senegal Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the Presidential Palace, in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama looks out of the "door of no return" during a tour of Goree Island, Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Goree Island, Senegal. Goree Island is the site of the former slave house and embarkation point built by the Dutch in 1776, from which slaves were brought to the Americas. The "door of no return" was the entrance to the slave ships. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama gestures during a news conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the Presidential Palace in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania on a week long trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) ? Laying bare a clash of cultures, President Barack Obama on Thursday urged African leaders to extend equal rights to gays and lesbians but was bluntly rebuked by Senegal's president, who said his country "still isn't ready" to decriminalize homosexuality.
Obama opened his weeklong trip to Africa one day after the U.S. Supreme Court expanded federal benefits for married gay couples. In his first in-person comments on the ruling, Obama said the court's decision marked a "proud day for America." He pressed for similar recognition for gays in Africa, wading into a sensitive area in a region where dozens of countries outlaw homosexuality and a few punish violations with death.
"When it comes to how the state treats people, how the law treats people, I believe that everybody has to be treated equally," Obama said during a news conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the grand presidential palace in Dakar.
But Sall gave no ground. Senegal is "very tolerant," he assured Obama, but is "still not ready to decriminalize homosexuality." Sall said countries make decisions on complex issues in their own time, noting that Senegal has outlawed capital punishment while other countries have not ? a pointed jab at the U.S., where the death penalty is legal in many states.
Obama's trip, which also includes stops in South Africa and Tanzania, marks the most extensive visit to Africa by the first black U.S. president since he took office. Many Africans have expressed disappointment over Obama's lack of direct engagement with affairs on their continent ? particularly given that his father was Kenyan and he has many relatives living in Africa ? yet he was still enthusiastically welcomed.
Thousands of people gathered on the roadways near the presidential palace as Obama's motorcade sped through the coastal city, many in the crowds wearing white to symbolize peace. Some waved homemade signs welcoming Obama, while those gathered near the palace entrance sang and played drums, the rhythmic beats audible from inside the gates.
At Goree Island, the former slave trading post Obama visited later Thursday, local residents waited under scorching sun for hours to catch a glimpse of the president. They sang a song about his return to his ancestral homeland and broke into jubilant cheers as Obama and first lady Michelle Obama walked over to shake hands.
Looming over the festive atmosphere were concerns over former South African leader Nelson Mandela. Obama is due to arrive in South Africa on Friday, though Mandela's precarious condition adds some uncertainty to the agenda.
Obama spoke reverently about the impact that Mandela's struggle against apartheid had on his own activism, as well as about the 94-year-old's influence in Africa and around the world.
"If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," said Obama, who has sometimes been linked to Mandela given their shared status as their nations' first black presidents.
Mandela's democratic influence in Africa is at the core of Obama's trip. The three countries he will visit were selected as a signal of U.S. support for African nations that have embraced democracy in a region where the legacy of corruption and authoritarianism have been difficult to overcome.
Sall, for example, won the presidency in Senegal last year by ousting an incumbent president who attempted to change the constitution to make it easier for him to be re-elected and for his son to succeed him.
Africa's democratic movements have not been accompanied in most places by equal rights for gays and lesbians. A report Monday by Amnesty International said 38 African countries criminalize homosexuality. In four of those ? Mauritania, northern Nigeria, southern Somalia and Sudan ? the punishment is death.
Discrimination against gays is the norm. In Uganda, evictions of homosexuals by landlords occur regularly, says the Amnesty report. Vigilante groups in several countries have posted the names of homosexuals online or denounced them on the radio, forcing them to go into hiding to avoid mob violence. In Senegal, suspected homosexuals who were buried in Muslim cemeteries were disinterred in several towns and villages, and their corpses were dragged through the streets.
On another subject, Obama was pressed in his news conference about the status of former government contractor Edward Snowden, who has acknowledged leaking highly classified documents detailing sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs. The Chinese government let Snowden leave Hong Kong, where he had been hiding, to travel to Russia, where he is now believed to be holed up in the transit zone at Moscow's airport.
Obama dismissed the notion of deploying U.S. military resources to detain Snowden, saying "I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker."
On still another topic, the president had harsh words for the Supreme Court on its ruling this week that overturned key elements of the Voting Rights Act. Obama declared the decision "a mistake."
"I might not be here as president had it not been for those who courageously helped to pass the Voting Rights Act," Obama said.
The president is being accompanied throughout his trip by wife, daughters Malia and Sasha, and mother-in-law Marian Robinson. Following the president's meetings with Sall, the family boarded a ferry bound for Goree Island, which by some accounts was the center of the Atlantic slave trade.
The Obamas were given a tour of the salmon-colored House of Slaves where Africans were held before being sold into slavery. The president then peered out into the vast Atlantic through the Door of No Return, where shackled men, women and children left Africa, inching across a plank to the hull of a waiting ship.
"Obviously, for an African-American, an African-American president, to be able to visit this site, I think, gives me even greater motivation in terms of human rights around the world," Obama said after his tour.
The president's stop on Goree Island was the first of two visits on the trip highlighting racial change in Africa. The second is scheduled for Sunday at South Africa's Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.
___
Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler, Rukmini Callimachi and Robbie Corey-Boulet in Dakar contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Cloning mice: For the first time, a donor mouse has been cloned using a drop of peripheral blood from its tail
June 26, 2013 ? From obesity to substance abuse, from anxiety to cancer, genetically modified mice are used extensively in research as models of human disease. Researchers often spend years developing a strain of mouse with the exact genetic mutations necessary to model a particular human disorder. But what if that mouse, due to the mutations themselves or a simple twist of fate, was infertile?
Currently, two methods exist for perpetuating a valuable strain of mouse. If at least one of the remaining mice is male and possesses healthy germ cells, the best option is intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), an in vitro fertilization procedure in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg.
However, if the remaining mice cannot produce healthy germ cells, or if they are female, researchers must turn to cloning. Somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) produces cloned animals by replacing an oocyte's nucleus with that of an adult somatic cell. An early version of this process was used to produce Dolly the sheep in 1996.
Since then, SCNT techniques have continued to advance. Earlier this year, researchers at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, even devised a technique to avoid the diminishing returns of recloning the same cell; success rates increased from the standard three percent in first-generation clones to ten percent in first-generation and 14 percent in higher-generation clones.
The type of somatic cell used for this process is critical and depends largely on its efficiency in producing live clones, as well as its ease of access and readiness for experimental use. While cumulus cells, which surround oocytes in the ovarian follicle and after ovulation, are currently the preferred cell type, Drs. Satoshi Kamimura, Atsuo Ogura, and colleagues at the RIKEN BioResource Center in Tsukuba, Japan, questioned whether white blood cells (a.k.a., leukocytes) collected from an easily accessed site, such as a tail, would be effective donor cells. Such cells would allow for repeated sampling with minimal risk to the donor mouse.
There are five different types of white blood cells and, as expected, the researchers found that lymphocytes were the type that performed the most poorly: only 1.7 percent of embryos developed into offspring. The physically largest white blood cells, and thus the easiest to filter from the blood sample, were granulocytes and monocytes. The nuclei of these cells performed better, with 2.1 percent of the embryos surviving to term, compared to 2.7 percent for the preferred cell type, cumulus cells.
The granulocytes' performance was poorer than expected due to a much higher rate of fragmentation in early embryos (22.6 percent): twofold higher than that of lymphocyte cloning and fivefold higher than cumulus cell cloning. The researchers were unable to determine what could be causing the fragmentation and intend to perform further studies to improve the performance of granulocyte donor cells.
Although the blood cells tested did not surpass the success rate of cumulus cells in this study, the researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, that mice can be cloned using the nuclei of peripheral blood cells. These cells may be used for cloning immediately after collection with minimal risk to the donor, helping to generate genetic copies of mouse strains that cannot be preserved by other assisted reproduction techniques.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/GDH_lb66SVk/130626153920.htm
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Cells 're-grown' after spinal injury
25 June 2013
Last updated at 21:46 ET
US scientists say they have made progress in repairing spinal cord injuries in paralysed rats.
Rats regained some bladder control after surgery to transplant nerve cells into the spinal cord, combined with injections of a cocktail of chemicals.
The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could raise hopes for one day treating paralysed patients.
But UK experts say it will take several years of research before human clinical trials can be considered.
Scientists have tried for decades to use transplants of nerve cells to restore function in paralysed animals by bridging the gap in the broken spinal cord.
However, coaxing the cells to grow and form new connections has proved elusive.
One problem is the growth of scar tissue as the body's responds to injury, which seems to block cell regeneration.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Dr Jerry Silver Case Western Reserve Medical School, Cleveland, OhioIf we can show in a larger animal that our technique works and does no additional harm I see no reason why we couldn't move rapidly in humans?
US scientists carried out complex surgery to transplant nerves from the rodents' ribs into the gap in the middle of their spinal cord.
They also used a special "glue" that boosts cell growth together with a chemical that breaks down scar tissue in an attempt to encourage the nerve cells to regenerate and connect up.
The researchers found for the first time that injured nerve cells could re-grow for "remarkably long distances" (about 2cm).
They said that while the rats did not regain the ability to walk, they did recover some bladder function.
Lead author Dr Jerry Silver of Case Western Reserve Medical School, Cleveland, Ohio, said: "Although animals did not regain the ability to walk, they did recover a remarkable measure of urinary control."
Co-author Dr Yu-Shang Lee of the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, added: "This is the first time that significant bladder function has been restored via nerve regeneration after a devastating cord injury."
The findings may help future efforts to restore other functions lost after spinal cord injury.
They also raise hope that similar strategies could one day be used to restore bladder function in people with severe spinal cord injuries.
Dr Silver said further animal experiments will be needed to see if the technique could work in humans.
He told BBC News: "If we can show in a larger animal that our technique works and does no additional harm I see no reason why we couldn't move rapidly in humans."
'Remarkable advance'Commenting on the study, Dr Elizabeth Bradbury of King's College London said several challenges must be overcome before the therapy can be trialled in patients.
"There are a number of challenges before this therapy can be brought to the clinic," she said.
"Nevertheless this is a remarkable advance which offers great hope for the future of restoring bladder function to spinal injured patients and if these challenges can be met we could be reaching clinical trials within three to five years."
Dr John Williams, head of neuroscience and mental health at the Wellcome Trust, said the implications for people are not yet clear.
"This is one of a number of ways that one can approach restoration of bladder function in paralysed patients, but careful studies will be needed to optimise which of the technologies under investigation might be of most benefit to patients."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23051516#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Mundo
If Kang and Kodos are really serious about enslaving the Earth, they're going to need a bigger invasion fleet than three clones of Portugues elecetronica artist Paulo Z? Pimenta and a couple of orbiting potatoes. Just sayin'
Check out the rest of PZ Pimenta's work over at Meifumado.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-weirdest-thing-on-the-internet-tonight-mundo-535844626
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Supreme Court sends affirmative action case back to lower court
The first of three widely followed Supreme Court cases this week is out, and court ruled in a 7-1 vote against a lower court?s decision about the University of Texas? affirmative action policy.
With Justice Elena Kagan recused, the court sent the case back to a federal appeals court for review. The Obama administration had argued in favor of the University of Texas? system, which allows for race as part of its admissions criteria.
Link: Read The Supreme Court Decision
By sending the case of Fisher v. University of Texas back to a lower court, the Supreme Court didn?t make a sweeping ruling on the constitutionality of affirmative action.
Instead, Justice Kennedy said the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals made errors when it upheld the university?s program. The lower court, Kennedy said, should have examined the university program more closely to a ?demanding burden of strict scrutiny.?
Now, the Fisher case heads back to the lower court and it could return to the Supreme Court at some point after a decision is rendered.
But the Supreme Court is also hearing another case about affirmative action in its next term, which starts in October 2013.
Link: Timeline of Affirmative Action Cases
The Supreme Court also said it will announce more decisions on Tuesday, and that that session isn?t the final one of the term, meaning there will be two additional decision days this week.
Abigail Fisher was denied admission to the University of Texas in 2008. She alleges that she wasn?t admitted, as a Caucasian, because the University of Texas uses race as a factor in university admissions in a way that the court allowed in 2003 in the case of Grutter v Bollinger.
The state of Texas uses a Top 10 Percent plan, which guarantees admission to school for students who are in the top 10 percent of their graduating class. Fisher wasn?t in the top 10 percent of her class. The school used different criteria, including race, to fill the remaining openings at the University of Texas.
The Fisher case was argued last October and was the last one from that session that hadn?t seen a public ruling by the court.
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Also ReadSource: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-sends-affirmative-action-case-lower-court-153206940.html
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In multiple sclerosis animal study, absence of gene leads to earlier, more severe disease
June 24, 2013 ? Scientists led by a UCSF neurology researcher are reporting that they have identified the likely genetic mechanism that causes some patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to quickly progress to a debilitating stage of the disease while other patients progress much more slowly.
The team found that the absence of the gene Tob1 in CD4+ T cells, a type of immune cell, was the key to early onset of more serious disease in an animal model of MS.
Senior author Sergio Baranzini, PhD, a UCSF associate professor of neurology, said the finding may ultimately lead to the development of a test that predicts the course of MS in individual patients. Such a test could help physicians tailor personalized treatments, he said.
The study, done in collaboration with UCSF neurology researchers Scott Zamvil, MD, and Jorge Oksenberg, PhD, was published on June 24, 2013 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
MS is an inflammatory disease in which the protective myelin sheathing that coats nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord is damaged and ultimately stripped away -- a process known as demyelination. During the highly variable course of the disease, a wide range of cognitive, debilitating and painful neurological symptoms can result.
In previously published work, Baranzini and his research team found that patients at an early stage of MS known as clinically isolated syndrome who expressed low amounts of Tob1 were more likely to exhibit further signs of disease activity -- a condition known as relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis -- earlier than those who expressed normal levels of the gene.
The current study, according to Baranzini, had two goals: to recapitulate in an animal model what the researchers had observed in humans, and uncover the potential mechanism by which it occurs.
The authors were successful on both counts. They found that when an MS-like disease was induced in mice genetically engineered to be deficient in Tob1, the mice had significantly earlier onset compared with wild-type mice, and developed a more aggressive form of the disease.
Subsequent experiments revealed the probable cause: the absence of Tob1 in just CD4+ T cells. The scientists demonstrated this by transferring T cells lacking the Tob1 gene into mice that had no immune systems but had normal Tob1 in all other cells. They found that the mice developed earlier and more severe disease than mice that had normal Tob1 expression in all cells including CD4+.
"This shows that Tob1 only needs to be absent in this one type of immune cell in order to reproduce our initial observations in mice lacking Tob1 in all of their cells," said Baranzini.
The researchers also found the likely mechanism of disease progression in the Tob1-deficient mice: higher levels of Th1 and Th17 cells, which cause an inflammatory response against myelin, and lower levels of Treg cells, which normally regulate inflammatory responses. The inflammation results in demyelination.
The research is significant for humans, said Baranzini, because the presence or absence of Tob1 in CD4+ cells could eventually serve as a prognostic biomarker that could help clinicians predict the course and severity of MS in individual patients. "This would be useful and important," he said, "because physicians could decide to switch or modify therapies if they know whether the patient is likely to have an aggressive course of disease, or a more benign course."
Ultimately, predicted Baranzini, "This may become an example of personalized medicine. When the patient comes to the clinic, we will be able to tailor the therapy based on what the tests tell us. We're now laying the groundwork for this to happen."
Co-authors of the study are Ulf Schulze-Topphoff, PhD, of UCSF; Simona Casazza, PhD, of UCSF at the time of the study; Michel Varrin-Doyer, PhD; and Kara Pekarek of UCSF; Raymond A. Sobel, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and Stephen L. Hauser, MD, of UCSF.
The study was supported by funds from the National Institutes of Health (R01 grants NS26799, NS049477, AI073737, AI059709 and NS063008), the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Robert Tillman Family Fund, the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation and the Maisin Foundation.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/b9pqL_poK-s/130624093411.htm
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iPhone 5S chipset up close reveals possible A7 model numbers, possibly a new manufacturer
Adding to the component leaks pertaining to the iPhone 5S, we may have our first close-up look at the possibly A7 chipset inside it. According to MacRumors, model numbers printed on it may indicate a switch in supplier as well.
Aside from the photos featuring a possible dual-LED flash, the most interesting photo MacRumors managed to snag was a close-up of the actual chipset of the prototype. While it doesn't have a clear A7 marking, it does indeed carry a simliar model number scheme to what Apple currently uses.
The chip in question is shown with a model number of A0698. Its predecessor, the A6 chip carries a model number of A0598. The tradition with chipsets over the past few years have been for the second digit to be a new family of processors while the first digit will distinguish between chips in a certain family. For example, an A6X chip carries A5598 model number.
More interesting yet is the K1A0062 marking. Typically Samsung manufactured chipsets are branded with an "N" marking. It has been rumored that Apple would perhaps switch to TSMC over Samsung but we weren't sure as to when.
Given these are very early prototypes that MacRumors thinks were produced in December 2012, a lot has probably changed. For now, this does look like a legitimate Apple chipset that could make an appearance in the iPhone 5S come this fall.
Source: MacRumors
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/KNVEu0q4MsQ/story01.htm
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Monday, June 24, 2013
Congo delays end to Rwandan refugee status
GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Congo's government said it will not immediately apply a cessation clause ending refugee status for more than 120,000 Rwandans who fled to Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and are still there.
Rwanda has accepted Congo's arguments in favor of a phased approach to the refugees' repatriation, Congolese interior minister Richard Muyej said Saturday. Rwanda had in 2011 asked Congo to apply a cessation clause on June 30, 2013.
"We thought we should do this in stages to give a chance to all the refugees to go home" Muyej said after a meeting between officials from each country in Rwanda's capital, Kigali. "Happily we had a convivial meeting and have now agreed on this approach."
The Rwandan government has repeatedly said that since peace has now returned to the country its citizens no longer need to live in exile.
Refugee issues have soured relations between the two countries for nearly two decades.
Rwanda has often accused Congo, and the international community, of protecting Rwandan refugees who took part in the genocide and allowing them to rearm on Congolese soil. Rebels in Congo have also claimed they are fighting for their compatriots' right to return from exile in Rwanda.
Muyej said it was important to agree on refugee issues so these would no longer be excuses for conflict.
Julien Paluku, governor of North Kivu province where most of the Rwandan refugees have settled told the Associated Press that the two countries have agreed on the next steps to resolve the issues.
Rwandan refugees will first be identified, registered and asked if they want to return. A follow up meeting will be held in October after which a repatriation plan will be drawn up and the parties will consider whether to apply a cessation clause.
Rwanda's minister for refugees Seraphine Munkatabana said her government understands there are preliminary steps to be taken by October to allow the cessation clause to be activated, according to U.N. Radio Okapi in Congo.
Refugees who do not want to return will have a choice between applying for a residence permit, or for Congolese nationality, which may be granted on a case-by-case basis but not collectively, Paluku added.
Congolese refugees in Rwanda are also welcome to come back, Paluku said. "The areas they will return to (mainly in North Kivu) are now largely secure," he said.
When asked if the refugees would be able to return to their homesteads and farm their land, he said:
"People cannot come back and claim what they did not have before, but the government must ensure they get back what is rightfully theirs."
Land disputes are among the reasons why there are more than two million internally displaced people within Congo as well as an estimated 72,000 Congolese refugees in Rwanda.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congo-delays-end-rwandan-refugee-status-105208009.html
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