TRIPOLI (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and 24 wounded in clashes between militias in Libya's capital on Wednesday, highlighting the rivalries behind heavily armed groups that have plagued the country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
Loud explosions and gunfire rocked Tripoli's southern neighbourhoods - the second day of violence in the battle-scarred city.
Armed groups made up of former rebel fighters from different parts of the country have grown in power and ambition nearly two years after Gaddafi was ousted and the government has struggled to impose its authority over them.
The latest fighting started on Tuesday morning when a militia given the job of guarding a major Libyan oil field attacked the headquarters of the national body set up to guard oil facilities across the country.
The group from the western town of Zintan was disgruntled after another group was given supervision of a drill in the area, officials said.
That fighting triggered widespread resentment in Tripoli against fighters from Zintan and by Wednesday, parts of the city were caught in fighting between people from that town and other areas.
Underlining the complexity of the situation, Wednesday's violence pitted a separate group from Zintan against fighters from the Tripoli-based Supreme Security Committee (SSC).
"It seems the fighting is a continuation of what happened yesterday. It could be a revenge attack for the death of the commander," a military source said.
The SSC had lost a commander in earlier fighting on Tuesday. Other security sources said the Zintan group may have launched a revenge attack after some of their men were seized.
A doctor working at a hospital in the Abu Salim neighbourhood, scene of some of the heavier fighting, said two people had been killed and 15 wounded.
Soon after an SSC vehicle drove up to the hospital, its passengers calling for help to carry one of their men who had been shot, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
At another hospital, a doctor said eight injured people were brought in - a mix of civilians and SSC and Zintan fighters.
Separately, three explosions - believed to be car bombs - were heard in the southern desert town of Sabha on Wednesday, a local government official told Reuters.
"Three civilian cars exploded in different places around the town. One is said to have had a lot of ammunition inside," the official, who declined to be named said, adding one was close to a hotel in the centre of the town.
In the eastern city of Benghazi, a military intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Giuma Misrati, was killed near his home when a bomb exploded in his car, officials said.
Okay, I've just got to sit down and get this post done. I've been working on it for two weeks now, and I keep procrastinating it because it's just so big. But today's the day I'm going to get it posted!
At the beginning of this month we had one of the craziest, busiest weeks we've had in a long, long time. We had eight family members from two different states come to visit three weeks ago, and our days were packed with park trips, beach trips, parties, zoos, and little girls running around everywhere screaming.
On Wednesday, June 5th, Jason's sister Tiffany, our brother-in-law Jarom, and their four little girls flew in from Texas. All of Jarom and Tiffany's girls are under six years old, with the littlest being their 5 1/2 month-old daughter that we met for the first time last week. We hadn't seen them since last July, and they were so much bigger and older than last time. A year makes such a difference when they're that little!
Here's Brynn:
Skylar: Mikayla: And Aubrey: Ellie was both delighted and overwhelmed on the day that the girls got here. She was clearly very excited to have so many little people her age here, but she also didn't quite know how to deal with the energy and motion and everything that having four more girls around brought. She kept coming over and sitting in my lap, as a kind of decompression spot.
But, like I said, she was super excited. She especially loved the baby, and kept pointing her out to us and saying "Baby!" Then she would go over to Brynn, and talk to her and address her like "Baby" was her actual name. "Baby? Baby?"
We liked playing with Brynn, too. On that same Wednesday that Tiffany and everyone arrived, we had a Thomas family girl's night. All of the Thomas girls - Diana (Jason's mom), Tiffany, my sisters-in-law Shelley and Sarah, and me - went out together, and our husbands watched the little girls at home. We had chocolate fondue at The Melting Pot (mmmmm. It was delicious.) and then got hour-long massages ?at a place in Tustin. It was such a great night! The next day was Thursday, Beach Day! We spent the morning at home, and Ellie once again had so much fun playing with all her cousins. Then in the afternoon, we packed everyone up (boy, that was an event in and of itself) and drove to the same beach mentioned in this post. Ellie loved the beach (again), especially the sand this time. The first time she wanted to play in the waves a lot, and this time she mostly wanted to play with the sand.
Jason and I spent most of our time building sand castles with Ellie, Aubrey, and whichever of the other cousins wandered over. Aubrey kept thinking of "contests" that she wanted us to participate in. "Okay, now you have to build the biggest castle! And I'll be the judge." "Okay, now you have to dig a tunnel! And I'll be the judge." It was so funny, because she said that I won (over Jason) every time, even if I wasn't doing at all what the contest was supposed to be about. She would just change the contest so that whatever I did qualified.
Then she said it was boys against girls, and we had to build a tunnel (or something like that). We pointed out to her that that was slightly unfair, since Jason was the only boy building sand castles but that there were two girls (me and Aubrey). She said Jason was on a team with "Daddy" (Jarom), who was standing like five feet away and definitely not building castles. It was funny. And then later, in that same boys vs. girls contest, she announced, "Okay, okay, boys can help girls now, and girls will still help girls." Oh, Aubrey. You're a crackup.
Ellie's favorite part about the sandcastles was smashing them. We'd use the little castle molds to make a ton of towers, and she would delightedly smash all of them. I spent twenty minutes building one castle that Ellie destroyed in less than a minute. She loved it.
My own favorite activity at the beach that day was when Jason, Ellie, and I went over and sat on this little sand cliff-thing in front of the waves. The waves would come up and smash the sand we were sitting on, spraying Ellie with water (which she thought was funny) and collapsing the sand beneath us (which I thought was funny). We did that for a while, and it was really fun.
That night (Thursday) my sisters Alyse and Sydney got into town. They live in Utah, and we hadn't seen Sydney since last August. Alyse is pregnant right now, and due the first week of this August. We were really excited to see both of them.
On Friday we all went to Irvine Park (you can see our previous Irvine Park trips here and here?and here). At Irvine Park we...
Went on the train:
Rode ponies (well, Aubrey and Mikayla did):
Played with goats in the petting zoo:
Looked at all the animals in the rest of the zoo:
Did sudden inventories of Daddy's face:
"Flew" on the bird wall:
And got really close to the free-ranging peacocks all around:
On Saturday we had Skylar's birthday party in the morning. Her birthday's not really until next month, but we wanted to celebrate it when we were all together. It was a princess-themed party, and the girls all wore princess dresses (or skirts) and princess crowns. They even had a princess bounce house!
Ellie loved the bounce house. She kept running around inside of it, bouncing off the walls and the floors and laughing and laughing and laughing.?
Right after the birthday party, Alyse had a baby shower. It was a combined baby shower with her friend Sheri, and it was at this really nice park on top of a hill. I was in charge of the decorations and the games. :) Alyse is having a boy and Sheri is having a girl. A lot of people came, and it was really fun. After the baby shower, we went back to the Thomas house and took a family picture. It was the only time all of us were together the whole week, and we only had like a ten-minute window to take the picture. But we did it! Alyse took the pictures for us, and we got some pretty cute ones. Here are some of the best: A couple hours later we tried to get a picture of all of the girls together. This was the result: The next day was Sunday, and we went to church with all of the girls. Before church, Ellie and her cousins were running around and around the house in big circles, screaming all together. They'd do a big loop around the house, yelling "Aaaaaaahhh!" and then do another loop, and another, and another, all screaming together and having the best time of their life. At one point, they had finally calmed down a little bit and stopped screaming, until Ellie walked up to Skylar and yelled "Aaaaaaahhh!" at her, and then it started all over again. We loved having Tiffany and Jarom and their girls here, and it was sad when they left on Monday. Ellie's asked for them a lot of times since, looking around and saying "Aubwey?" and "Baby?"]
On Monday after Tiffany left, Alyse, Sydney, Ellie and I went to the beach. Alyse and Sydney hadn't been in CA yet on Thursday when everyone else had gone, and they wanted to go while they were down here. So, we packed up all the beach toys and headed out. Ellie wanted to hold the beach toy bag on her lap:
She was perfectly content like this, and held the toys like that for most of the way to the beach. At the beach (we went to Huntington this time), we played in the water and made lots of sandcastles again. Ellie's favorite thing this trip was the sand crabs. The sand crabs were much bigger at Huntington than at the beach we had been to before, and Ellie was fascinated with them. We put some (with water and sand) in one of the buckets for Ellie to look at. She kept pointing at them and touching them and saying "Cab? Cab!"
On Monday night we went to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor with my Dad and stepmom Debbie. The food was good and we had a great time. Ellie didn't like the siren they had, though. It was too loud for her, and we were sitting right next to it. After they saw it was scaring her, they stopped ringing it for the rest of the time we were there, though, which was really nice of them.
Ellie, Alyse, and Sydney got balloon animals. Ellie got a turtle that she hugged really tightly to herself.
The next day (Tuesday, June 11) was Zoo Day. Jason, Ellie, Alyse, Sydney, and I went to the Santa Ana Zoo. It was fun and we saw lots of cool animals. Ellie wasn't really interested in the animals this time. She mostly just wanted to run around. Alyse and Sydney headed back to Utah the next day, Wednesday June 12th.
It was so wonderful having so much family in town and we enjoyed our time with them so much. I wish we could live right next to everyone?and see them all the time. We love our family!
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Facebook Inc is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli mobile satellite navigation start-up Waze for $800 million to $1 billion, business daily Calcalist reported on Thursday.
Due diligence is underway after a term sheet was signed, Calcalist said, adding that talks began six months ago.
Waze uses satellite signals from members' smartphones to generate maps and traffic data, which it then shares with other users, offering real-time traffic info.
Officials at Waze declined to comment on the report.
Waze and Facebook partnered in October 2012 when Waze released its updated version that allows users to share their drive with their Facebook friends.
This would be Facebook's third acquisition in Israel. It bought Snaptu in 2011 for $70 million and Face.com in 2012 for $60 million.
In the last year, Waze tripled its user base to 45 million and in March alone, 1.5 million users downloaded the free mobile navigation app, Calcalist said.
(Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by David Cowell)
Cut through the confusing world of small business finance and put yourself on an equal footing with the finance experts.
We want you to use the knowhow you find on these pages to negotiate yourself a better deal in all areas of your small business financing. Use our resources to help you plan more effectively, use them to source funding, increase your business profits, and ultimately improve your own wealth.
So you think the airscrew is strictly for planes? Guess again. Look at these mighty prop-driven machines created by some of the most talented engineers and designers the world 'round. Sure, they can't fly, but their twisted blades help them wade through water, ice, snow, mud, glide on rails, and rule the road.
Joseph Fawkes built this experimental monorail, the Aerial Swallow, in Burbank in 1910.
1911: A motor car at Brooklands race track which has been fitted with a propeller for extra speed, and three random buddies for extra company.
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
This motor sleigh driven by aeroplane propellers is the type that Irish explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton used on his Antarctic explorations.
Photo: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
The Aerowagon (or aeromotowagon) was an experimental high-speed railcar fitted with an aircraft engine and propeller traction invented by Russian engineer Valerian Abakovsky. The Aerowagon derailed at high speed its second time out, killing everyone?including Abakovsky himself?on board.
The Bennie railplane?named for inventor George Bennie?being demonstrated at Glasgow, Scotland in the 1930s. It consists of self-propelled passenger cars driven by air screws, suspended from a steel girder.
Photo: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
The 1932 Helicron in the Lane Motor Museum, Nashville, TN. It is currently equipped with a Citroen GS engine with the propeller coupled directly to the crankshaft. The Helicron passed the French safety inspection in 2000 and is approved for use on their roads.
The 1938 Schl?rwagen was built on the chassis of the rear-engine Mercedes 170H. The Russians took the Schl?rwagen as war booty and conducted tests as a propeller-driven vehicle.
LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar edged up against the yen on Monday and stocks held near last week's multi-year highs thanks to a brighter outlook for the U.S. economy generated by last week's strong employment data. Stock index futures pointed to a mixed day ahead for Wall Street, though this follows steep gains on Friday in the wake of the payrolls report that took the Dow and S&P 500 indexes to new closing highs. <.n/>
Buffett says U.S. economy gradually improving
(Reuters) - Warren Buffett said on Monday the U.S. economy is gradually improving, helped by the efforts of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to stimulate it. Speaking on CNBC television, Buffett said the economy is benefiting from improvement in areas that had not previously performed well, particularly homebuilding.
Dreamliner grounding cost Qatar Airways $200 million in revenue: CEO
DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar Airways had to forego $200 million in lost revenue up until April 2013 because of the grounding of Boeing's 787 planes, the airline's Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said on Monday. The airline has said it will receive compensation from Boeing for the grounding of its 787 Dreamliners after U.S. regulators ordered the grounding of the plane on safety concerns.
Some Verizon investors OK with paying premium for Vodafone stake
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Some shareholders of Verizon Communications Inc say they could be happy for the company to pay up to $130 billion for Vodafone Group Plc's stake in their U.S. wireless venture. Reuters reported last week that Verizon had hired advisers to prepare a $100 billion cash-and-stock bid for Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, though several major Vodafone investors have said that figure is inadequate.
EU regulator takes aim at Google over Apple mobile patent lawsuit
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said it believed Motorola Mobility, a unit of Google , was abusing its market position by seeking and enforcing an injunction against Apple in Germany over patents essential to mobile phone standards. The Commission said in a statement it had informed Motorola Mobility of its preliminary view in a charge sheet known as a statement of objections.
Opel expects cheaper car deals after taking finance in-house
RUESSELSHEIM, Germany (Reuters) - General Motors' lossmaking European carmaker Opel expects to boost the proportion of cars sold on financing with the offer of cheaper loans and leasing deals now that it has taken its German banking license back in-house, it said on Monday. Last month the U.S. group's financing subsidiary GM Financial Company Inc launched its new 'Opel Financial Services' brand, having bought back the European and other international operations of its former financial services affiliate Ally Financial , which held the German banking license.
Assured says to be paid $358 million as it settles UBS suit
(Reuters) - Bond insurer Assured Guaranty Ltd said it reached a settlement with UBS AG in a lawsuit that accused the bank of falsely representing the quality of the loans underlying $1.49 billion of mortgage-backed securities. UBS will pay Assured $358 million in an initial cash payment, the bond insurer said. The two companies have also entered into loss-sharing agreement on future claims, which will take effect from the third-quarter.
Onex to buy Nielsen Holdings' expositions business for $950 million
(Reuters) - Canadian private equity firm Onex Corp said it will buy TV ratings company Nielsen Holdings NV's expositions business for $950 million in cash. Nielsen Expositions produces more than 65 business-to-business trade shows and conferences in the United States every year.
Lufthansa says former CEO will no longer run for chairman
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa's former chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber has withdrawn as a candidate to become chairman of Germany's largest airline following protests from shareholders, the company said on Monday. Daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said proxy advisory firm ISS had recommended shareholders vote against Mayrhuber because he has amassed too many supervisory board positions.
Euro zone business downturn points to deeper recession in second-quarter: PMI
LONDON (Reuters) - The euro zone's business downturn dragged on in April, suggesting the region may be falling deeper into recession this quarter, business surveys showed on Monday. The purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) also showed that Germany is now suffering a contraction in business activity that has long dogged France, Italy and Spain.
The online Aladdin's cave and AMA forum Reddit has revealed a revamped privacy policy intended to make clear exactly how it deals with users' data. Legalese is notably absent, with credit for that going to Lauren Gelman, a legal consultant who's previously worked with the likes of the EFF -- a member, like Reddit, of the Internet Defense League. Essentially, the new policy is geared towards allowing "your participation to remain as anonymous as you choose," with the website stating that any of your data won't be shared without consent, unless the law requires it. Even then, you will be notified, with the only exception being a court order that prevents it. Reddit also notes that deleting your account will remove your username from posts and comments, but they will remain on the site. As only the last edit performed stays on the servers, however, you could trek back through your history and strip everything out to finalize your departure. There's much more in the announcement post and full policy document over at the source links, in case you wanna have a read before it all kicks in on May 15th.
May 1 (Reuters) - Post position for Saturday's 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs after Wednesday's draw (listed as barrier, HORSE, jockey, trainer) 1. BLACK ONYX, Joe Bravo, Kelly Breen 2. OXBOW, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas 3. REVOLUTIONARY, Calvin Borel, Todd Pletcher 4. GOLDEN SOUL, Robby Albarado, Dallas Stewart 5. NORMANDY INVASION, Javier Castellano, Chad Brown 6. MYLUTE, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss 7. GIANT FINISH, Jose Espinoza, Tony Dutrow 8. GOLDENCENTS, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill 9. OVERANALYZE, Rafael Bejarano, Todd Pletcher 10. PALACE MALICE, Mike Smith, Todd Pletcher 11. ...
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (AP) ? An early morning fire swept through a two-story wood frame house in eastern New York on Thursday, killing four people, including three children, authorities said.
A fourth child was injured and taken to a burn unit at Westchester Medical Center.
The fire in Schenectady, just west of the capital of Albany, broke out shortly after 4 a.m. It was the third fire of the night in the city of about 66,000 people and struck shortly after firefighters fought another blaze about a half-mile away.
The investigation will look for any connections between the two nearby fires, but Fire Chief Michael Della Rocco said they are believed to be unrelated.
Two adults and four children lived in the upstairs unit, Della Rocco said. The father was killed along with three of his children. Della Rocco said they haven't been able to locate the mother, who was not in the house at the time of the fire.
The building burned quickly and completely largely because it was made in a late 19th- and early 20th-century building style known as "balloon construction" in which studs run from the ground to the roof without the fire-breaks required by modern codes, Della Rocco said.
The house, gray with maroon trim, was tucked closely between two other two-story homes on a residential street where many of the houses are two-family. The second-floor was gutted and the roof gone. The fire curled siding on the house next door, separated by a narrow alley barely the width of a car and filled with charred debris.
City fire investigators were working with state and federal agencies to try to determine the cause. Della Rocco said the building will be condemned and demolished.
Krystal Ashline knew the family and said the children ranged in age from about 11 months to 7 years.
"The kids were great kids," she said. "My kids played with them. He was a really good father. He was the one who mainly took care of the kids.
"It's a tragedy," she said. "It just broke my heart."
Shane Conway, who lives on the first floor of the house, told The Daily Gazette that he awoke around 4:30 a.m. to the shouts of his stepfather's girlfriend.
"I got up, got everyone out, made sure my son got out," Conway told the newspaper.
Three children and four adults escaped the first-floor dwelling.
James Moloney, who also lives downstairs, said he could hear what he thought were smoke detector alarms.
"I wanted to go back in to see if I could get any of them, but you can't," Moloney told the newspaper. "It was fully engulfed."
Annette Singh said the neighborhood is a mix of people from Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad. She said people generally help each other out there.
But Ashline said the street is plagued by drugs and crime, including shootings and assaults.
(Reuters) - IT services company CGI Group Inc reported a second-quarter profit above analysts' estimates, partly helped by its acquisition of Logica Plc in August, sending its shares up more than 15 percent on Tuesday.
Excluding Logica integration costs, Canada's largest IT services provider earned 56 Canadian cents per share on an adjusted basis, above the 50 Canadian cents analysts had expected.
The company completed the $2.64 billion acquisition of larger Anglo-Dutch rival Logica in August.
"Now people have more confidence in CGI and their ability to pull off Logica's integration," Morningstar analyst Swami Shanmugasundaram told Reuters.
Second-quarter revenue more than doubled to C$2.53 billion ($2.53 billion). Analysts were looking for C$2.56 billion on average, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Founded in 1976 and headquartered in Montreal, CGI is the fifth largest independent information technology and business process services firm in the world.
It competes with companies such as IBM Corp and Accenture Plc to provide services including business and IT consulting, systems integration, application development and maintenance and infrastructure management.
Clients range from businesses such as Vodafone Plc to to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Revenue from CGI's Nordics, Southern Europe and South America (NSESA) division rose to C$511.2 million from C$10 million a year earlier due to the acquisition.
Logica's market is concentrated in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Brazil, while CGI had operations in Spain and Portugal. Sweden and Finland accounted for 73 percent of CGI's revenue from the NSESA region year-to-date.
The company also increased its annual savings target from the acquisition to C$375 million from C$300 million, and said it expects to generate the savings by the end of fiscal 2014, a year earlier than originally planned.
"The successful cost saving program should get CGI closer to C$3 per share in earnings about one year ahead of schedule," National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson said in a note to clients on Tuesday.
CGI's second-quarter net earnings rose to C$114.2 million, or 36 Canadian cents per share, from C$105.7 million, or 40 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.
The stock was up 14 percent at C$30.89 at mid day on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Shounak Dasgupta and Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Sreejiraj Eluvangal)
New plant protein discoveries could ease global food and fuel demandsPublic release date: 1-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kim McDonald kmcdonald@ucsd.edu 858-534-7572 University of California - San Diego
New discoveries of the way plants transport important substances across their biological membranes to resist toxic metals and pests, increase salt and drought tolerance, control water loss and store sugar can have profound implications for increasing the supply of food and energy for our rapidly growing global population.
That's the conclusion of 12 leading plant biologists from around the world whose laboratories recently discovered important properties of plant transport proteins that, collectively, could have a profound impact on global agriculture. They report in the May 2nd issue of the journal Nature that the application of their findings could help the world meet its increasing demand for food and fuel as the global population grows from seven billion people to an estimated nine billion by 2050.
"These membrane transporters are a class of specialized proteins that plants use to take up nutrients from the soil, transport sugar and resist toxic substances like salt and aluminum," said Julian Schroeder, a professor of biology at UC San Diego who brought together 11 other scientists from Australia, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, the U.S. and the U.K. to collaborate on a paper describing how their discoveries collectively could be used to enhance sustainable food and fuel production.
Schroeder, who is also co-director of a new research entity at UC San Diego called Food and Fuel for the 21st Century, which is designed to apply basic research on plants to sustainable food and biofuel production, said many of the recent discoveries in his and other laboratories around the world had previously been "under the radar"known only to a small group of plant biologistsbut that by disseminating these findings widely, the biologists hoped to educate policy makers and speed the eventual application of their discoveries to global agriculture.
"Of the present global population of seven billion people, almost one billion are undernourished and lack sufficient protein and carbohydrates in their diets," the biologists write in their paper. "An additional billion people are malnourished because their diets lack required micronutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamin A. These dietary deficiencies have an enormous negative impact on global health resulting in increased susceptibility to infection and diseases, as well as increasing the risk of significant mental impairment. During the next four decades, an expected additional two billion humans will require nutritious food. Along with growing urbanization, increased demand for protein in developing countries coupled with impending climate change and population growth will impose further pressures on agricultural production."
"Simply increasing inorganic fertilizer use and water supply or applying organic farming systems to agriculture will be unable to satisfy the joint requirements of increased yield and environmental sustainability," the scientists added. "Increasing food production on limited land resources will rely on innovative agronomic practices coupled to the genetic improvement of crops."
One of Schroeder's research advances led to the discovery of a sodium transporter that plays a key role in protecting plants from salt stress, which causes major crop losses in irrigated fields, such as those in the California central valley. Agricultural scientists in Australia, headed by co-author Rana Munns and her colleagues, have now utilized this type of sodium transporter in breeding research to engineer wheat plants that are more tolerant to salt in the soil, boosting wheat yields by a whopping 25 percent in field trials. This recent development could be used to improve the salt tolerance of crops, so they can be grown on previously productive farmland with soil that now lies fallow.
Another recent discovery, headed by co-authors Emanuel Delhaize in Australia and Leon Kochian at Cornell University, opens up the potential to grow crops on the 30 percent of the earth's acidic soils that are now unusable for agricultural production, but that otherwise could be ideal for agriculture.
"When soils are acidic, aluminum ions are freed in the soil, resulting in toxicity to the plant," the scientists write. "Once in the soil solution, aluminum damages the root tips of susceptible plants and inhibits root growth, which impairs the uptake of water and nutrients."
From their recent findings, the plant biologists now understand how transport proteins control processes that allow roots to tolerate toxic aluminum. By engineering crops to convert aluminum ions into a non-toxic form, they said, agricultural scientists can now turn these unusable or low-yielding acidic soils into astonishingly productive farmland to grow crops for food and biofuels.
Other recent transport protein developments described by the biologists have been shown to increase the storage of iron and zinc in food crops to improve their nutritive qualities. "Over two billion people suffer from iron and zinc deficiencies because their plant-based diets are not a sufficiently rich source of these essential elements," the biologists write.
The scientists also discovered transporters in plants and symbiotic soil fungi that allow crops to acquire phosphatean element essential for plant growth and crop yieldmore efficiently and to increase the uptake of nitrogen fertilizers, which are costly to produce. "Nitrogen fertilizer production consumes one percent of global energy usage and poses the highest input cost for many crops," the scientists write. "Nevertheless, only 20 to 30 of the phosphate and 30 to 50 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer applied are utilized by plants. The remainder can lead to production of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, or to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems through water run-off."
The biologists said crops could be made more efficient in using water through discoveries in plant transport proteins that regulate the "stomatal pores" in the epidermis of leaves, where plants lose more than 90 percent of their water through transpiration. Two other major goals in agriculture are increasing the carbohydrate content and pest-resistance of crops. A recent discovery of protein transporters that move sugar throughout the plant has been used to develop rice plants that confer pest resistance to crops, the biologists said, providing a novel way to simplify the engineering of crops with high yields and pest resistance, which could lead to reduced use of pesticides in the field.
"Just as our cell phones will need more advanced technology to carry more information, plants need better or new transporters to make them work harder on existing agricultural land," said Dale Sanders, director of the John Innes Centre in the U.K. and a corresponding co-author of the paper. "Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are the current solution, but we can make plants better at finding and carrying their own chemical elements."
These recent developments in understanding the biology of plant transporters are leading to improved varieties less susceptible to adverse environments and for improving human health. Says Schroeder, "More fundamental knowledge and basic discovery research is needed and would enable us to further and fully exploit these advances and pursue new promising avenues of plant improvement in light of food and energy demands and the need for sustainable yield gains."
###
In addition to Schroeder and Sanders, the co-authors of the paper are Emmanuel Delhaize of CSIRO in Canberra, Australia; Wolf Frommer of the Carnegie Institution of Science; Mary Lou Guerinot of Dartmouth College; Maria Harrison of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, NY; Luis Herrera-Estrella of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute in Iraputo, Mexico; Tomoaki Horie of Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan; Leon Kochian of Cornell University; Rana Munns of the University of Western Australia in Perth; Naoko Nishizawa of Ishikawa Prefectural University in Japan; and Yi-Fang Tsay of the National Academy of Science of Taiwan.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New plant protein discoveries could ease global food and fuel demandsPublic release date: 1-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kim McDonald kmcdonald@ucsd.edu 858-534-7572 University of California - San Diego
New discoveries of the way plants transport important substances across their biological membranes to resist toxic metals and pests, increase salt and drought tolerance, control water loss and store sugar can have profound implications for increasing the supply of food and energy for our rapidly growing global population.
That's the conclusion of 12 leading plant biologists from around the world whose laboratories recently discovered important properties of plant transport proteins that, collectively, could have a profound impact on global agriculture. They report in the May 2nd issue of the journal Nature that the application of their findings could help the world meet its increasing demand for food and fuel as the global population grows from seven billion people to an estimated nine billion by 2050.
"These membrane transporters are a class of specialized proteins that plants use to take up nutrients from the soil, transport sugar and resist toxic substances like salt and aluminum," said Julian Schroeder, a professor of biology at UC San Diego who brought together 11 other scientists from Australia, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, the U.S. and the U.K. to collaborate on a paper describing how their discoveries collectively could be used to enhance sustainable food and fuel production.
Schroeder, who is also co-director of a new research entity at UC San Diego called Food and Fuel for the 21st Century, which is designed to apply basic research on plants to sustainable food and biofuel production, said many of the recent discoveries in his and other laboratories around the world had previously been "under the radar"known only to a small group of plant biologistsbut that by disseminating these findings widely, the biologists hoped to educate policy makers and speed the eventual application of their discoveries to global agriculture.
"Of the present global population of seven billion people, almost one billion are undernourished and lack sufficient protein and carbohydrates in their diets," the biologists write in their paper. "An additional billion people are malnourished because their diets lack required micronutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamin A. These dietary deficiencies have an enormous negative impact on global health resulting in increased susceptibility to infection and diseases, as well as increasing the risk of significant mental impairment. During the next four decades, an expected additional two billion humans will require nutritious food. Along with growing urbanization, increased demand for protein in developing countries coupled with impending climate change and population growth will impose further pressures on agricultural production."
"Simply increasing inorganic fertilizer use and water supply or applying organic farming systems to agriculture will be unable to satisfy the joint requirements of increased yield and environmental sustainability," the scientists added. "Increasing food production on limited land resources will rely on innovative agronomic practices coupled to the genetic improvement of crops."
One of Schroeder's research advances led to the discovery of a sodium transporter that plays a key role in protecting plants from salt stress, which causes major crop losses in irrigated fields, such as those in the California central valley. Agricultural scientists in Australia, headed by co-author Rana Munns and her colleagues, have now utilized this type of sodium transporter in breeding research to engineer wheat plants that are more tolerant to salt in the soil, boosting wheat yields by a whopping 25 percent in field trials. This recent development could be used to improve the salt tolerance of crops, so they can be grown on previously productive farmland with soil that now lies fallow.
Another recent discovery, headed by co-authors Emanuel Delhaize in Australia and Leon Kochian at Cornell University, opens up the potential to grow crops on the 30 percent of the earth's acidic soils that are now unusable for agricultural production, but that otherwise could be ideal for agriculture.
"When soils are acidic, aluminum ions are freed in the soil, resulting in toxicity to the plant," the scientists write. "Once in the soil solution, aluminum damages the root tips of susceptible plants and inhibits root growth, which impairs the uptake of water and nutrients."
From their recent findings, the plant biologists now understand how transport proteins control processes that allow roots to tolerate toxic aluminum. By engineering crops to convert aluminum ions into a non-toxic form, they said, agricultural scientists can now turn these unusable or low-yielding acidic soils into astonishingly productive farmland to grow crops for food and biofuels.
Other recent transport protein developments described by the biologists have been shown to increase the storage of iron and zinc in food crops to improve their nutritive qualities. "Over two billion people suffer from iron and zinc deficiencies because their plant-based diets are not a sufficiently rich source of these essential elements," the biologists write.
The scientists also discovered transporters in plants and symbiotic soil fungi that allow crops to acquire phosphatean element essential for plant growth and crop yieldmore efficiently and to increase the uptake of nitrogen fertilizers, which are costly to produce. "Nitrogen fertilizer production consumes one percent of global energy usage and poses the highest input cost for many crops," the scientists write. "Nevertheless, only 20 to 30 of the phosphate and 30 to 50 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer applied are utilized by plants. The remainder can lead to production of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, or to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems through water run-off."
The biologists said crops could be made more efficient in using water through discoveries in plant transport proteins that regulate the "stomatal pores" in the epidermis of leaves, where plants lose more than 90 percent of their water through transpiration. Two other major goals in agriculture are increasing the carbohydrate content and pest-resistance of crops. A recent discovery of protein transporters that move sugar throughout the plant has been used to develop rice plants that confer pest resistance to crops, the biologists said, providing a novel way to simplify the engineering of crops with high yields and pest resistance, which could lead to reduced use of pesticides in the field.
"Just as our cell phones will need more advanced technology to carry more information, plants need better or new transporters to make them work harder on existing agricultural land," said Dale Sanders, director of the John Innes Centre in the U.K. and a corresponding co-author of the paper. "Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are the current solution, but we can make plants better at finding and carrying their own chemical elements."
These recent developments in understanding the biology of plant transporters are leading to improved varieties less susceptible to adverse environments and for improving human health. Says Schroeder, "More fundamental knowledge and basic discovery research is needed and would enable us to further and fully exploit these advances and pursue new promising avenues of plant improvement in light of food and energy demands and the need for sustainable yield gains."
###
In addition to Schroeder and Sanders, the co-authors of the paper are Emmanuel Delhaize of CSIRO in Canberra, Australia; Wolf Frommer of the Carnegie Institution of Science; Mary Lou Guerinot of Dartmouth College; Maria Harrison of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, NY; Luis Herrera-Estrella of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute in Iraputo, Mexico; Tomoaki Horie of Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan; Leon Kochian of Cornell University; Rana Munns of the University of Western Australia in Perth; Naoko Nishizawa of Ishikawa Prefectural University in Japan; and Yi-Fang Tsay of the National Academy of Science of Taiwan.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The next time some college football fan gripes about his favorite player going to the NFL before his senior season, we'll have a ready reply.
Three of them, actually.
Manti Te'o. Geno Smith. Matt Barkley.
The trio returned for a fourth year of college football and look what it got them.
Heartache. Embarrassment. And, certainly in the case of Barkley, a much lighter wallet than he would've had a year ago.
The first round of the NFL draft came and went.
All three were left waiting by the phone. It never rang.
That's a harsh lesson every rising junior with pro aspirations should heed. Think only of yourself.
If there's a chance to dramatically improve your draft position, then stay in school. If you're already projected as a first-rounder, it's time to get started on your real job. Rest assured, the school will get along just fine without you. Sure, a college degree is great to have, but you can always finish up those last few classes in the offseason.
After getting passed over Thursday night, Te'o must've been having second thoughts.
We'll never know for sure if the Notre Dame linebacker would've been a first-round pick in 2012, as many projected, going on the assumption that he wouldn't done any better in the 40-yard dash than the painfully slow time he turned in at this year's combine. But at least he wouldn't have been lugging around all that off-the-field baggage ? a ruse of a relationship with a girlfriend that wasn't ? plus a stinker of a performance against Alabama in the national championship game.
Even if the whole sordid affair with the fake girlfriend had still occurred, chances are it wouldn't have been discovered until Te'o had already signed a pro contract. The money would've already been in the bank.
Instead, he's left to wonder how much money he left on the table by returning to the Fighting Irish for what seemed a dream season until it took an oh-so-wrong turn at the end.
Ditto for Smith, who blossomed as a junior in West Virginia's wide-open offense, throwing for more than 4,300 yards with 31 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. If he had decided to go pro at that point, the last bit of tape NFL scouts would've had on him was a 70-33 rout of Clemson in the Orange Bowl, when he threw for a record six touchdowns and 401 yards to earn the MVP award.
Smith kept it going through his first give games as a senior, when he was the hands-down favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and looked every bit like a guy who would be the top pick in the draft. He and the Mountaineers were unstoppable, averaging more than 50 points a game.
Unfortunately, the season still had eight games to go.
There was another side to the mountain, and it was all downhill.
Smith still put up some dazzling numbers ? 4,205 yards passing, 42 touchdowns, just six interceptions ? but West Virginia dropped six of its last eight, including a blowout loss to Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl. Suddenly, everyone was finding flaws in Smith's game. His confidence was shaky. He setup and delivery were faulty. He was too emotional, too loose with the ball.
Heck, some pointed out that he didn't play well in poor weather ? which comes off as the ultimate bit of nitpicking.
Even so, Smith still expected to go somewhere in the first round, maybe even among the top 10 picks. That's why he turned up at Radio City Music Hall in New York with all the other projected first-rounders. For most of them, their dreams came true. All Smith could do was look on glumly as one player after another went ahead of him ? even a teammate he helped look so good, receiver Tavon Austin, selected at No. 8 by the St. Louis Rams.
Te'o stayed away from New York, allowing him to sort out whatever anger or humiliation he was feeling in private. That was the right call, showing he does have the ability to make good decisions beyond the online dating world.
On Friday ? finally! ? both Te'o and Smith heard their names. Back to back, no less. The Notre Dame star went to San Diego in the second round with the 38th overall pick; Smith was selected next by the New York Jets.
Barkley was still waiting. Amazingly, he wasn't picked in the first three rounds ? passed over through a total of 97 selections. The last four rounds will be held Saturday.
The guess here is that Te'o will turn out to be a good, solid pro, while Smith has a shot at greatness. Certainly, no other rookies will have a bigger chip on their shoulders.
When asked to analyze Te'o, former NFL coach-turned-TV analyst Jon Gruden said, "He's got a real good football aptitude. He plays faster, I think, than people give him credit. I think he's a very good, instinctive, high-effort, well-coached inside linebacker that's got to prove he can play on every down. There is no question about that. But I'm really confident that he can do it."
As for Smith: "It's very underestimated what this kid can do from a football standpoint. He does a lot above the neck as well as making plays with his arm and his mobility."
Then there's Barkley, who was being mentioned in the same breath with Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III before last year's draft.
Not anymore.
Barkley, for some reason, returned to Southern Cal for one more year. Maybe he was counting on less competition at the quarterback position in the 2013 draft (and, indeed, only one QB was taken Thursday). Maybe he truly wanted to take another shot at a national championship with a team that was pegged as the preseason No. 1.
Whatever the case, Barkley couldn't have been more wrong in his decision, at least from a financial point of view. The Trojans didn't come close to living up to the hype, barely finishing with more wins than losses (7-6). He threw twice as many interceptions and wound up spraining his shoulder in a late-season game, which raised more doubts in the eyes of the scouts.
Barkley's stock dropped so severely that, frankly, it would've been a surprise if he had been picked in the first round.
"I think Barkley's going to be a starter in the league at some point," Gruden said, not sounding nearly as upbeat as he did about the other two. "He's going to be a guy that relies on his system, complete execution around him. I think his supporting cast is going to be important to him."
Now, Barkley will tell you that he has no regrets about his decision to return to USC. He'll tell you that getting the chance to be a leader during tough times will help him down the road.
Hogwash.
Barkley blew it.
So did Te'o and Smith.
All those juniors-to-be out there better not to make the same mistake.
___
Paul Newberry in a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963
The National Rifle Association said Wednesday the group is unequivocally opposed to the newly-struck compromise plan to expand background checks ? and threatened that it may seek to penalize lawmakers who vote for what it deems ?anti-gun? measures by giving them poor grades in their rating system.
The warning to members of Congress came just hours after a compromise on expanding background checks for? gun purchasers was announced, a deal that the NRA itself participated closely in.
"Expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools," top NRA lobbyist Chris Cox wrote in a letter sent to senators Wednesday night. "Given the importance of these issues, votes on all anti-gun amendments or proposals will be considered in NRA's future candidate evaluations."
The NRA rates lawmakers based on how they vote on the group's priorities. The letter grades are highly influential and carry particular weight in rural states with a strong gun culture.
Cox was a ubiquitous presence during negotiations between Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who announced the deal Wednesday morning to expand background checks to sales at gun shows and over the Internet.
Manchin has been careful to court the group's support; both he and Toomey both have "A" ratings from the NRA.
But despite their involvement, the NRA ultimately decided to come out against it.
Earlier Wednesday, a Senate Democratic aide had said that Democratic leaders were operating under the impression that the NRA will not throw its full weight behind opposing the background check bill, something which would have relieved pressure on moderate Democrats and Republicans to vote for the legislation.
Now, they have less cover.
Separately Wednesday, Sens. Patrick Leahy and Susan Collins announced they'd reached an agreement with the NRA on gun trafficking language that will be included in the overall gun bill. Cox did not mention the gun trafficking measure in his letter.
NBC News? Luke Russert contributed to this report.
As strong and influential as our generation has been throughout time, we continue to set the pace, but not in a way many of us expected.? In the past 20 years as the divorce rate for those under 50 has plateaued or gone down (according to a Bowling Green University study); those in the 50+ plus age group has DOUBLED!? But even those who embraced this challenge learned more than they expected to.
The reasons for such dissolution are partly for the fact that as we live longer; staying in an unsatisfying relationship is no longer an option.? Many couples find it hard to rekindle what brought the two together after the children are out of the home.? And the stigma of divorce that we grew up with is no longer a valid reason to stay together.
What we didn?t figure on is the complexity of divorce after decades of marriage; nor the aspect of finding love that lasts the second time around.? According to The Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education divorcees in all age groups seem to have only a 40% success rate in finding that special someone ? ?till death do them part? in a second marriage. ?Plus the accumulation of family, friends, assets, and even health issues presents an uphill battle that most younger marriages don?t have to sift through.
Think of it; at this age we have less time to recover financially from such a split, less time to recoup losses (like a home, personal belongings, assets of all types), a greater chance to experience future health issues alone, and what about the decades of friendships and acquaintances that may lost or need to be restructured.
If you are considering divorce in your Platinum years, don?t rush into it. Get help first.
The cost may be prohibitive! Consider that decades of intertwined finances can be a legal cost that may not be an option for you.? The more you can decide on your own, the less the legal fees can be.? And if you choose to cash out and divvy up investments, IRAs, or selling assets like your home? you both can lose a lot on capital gains taxes.? You may be ?together? financially for the long haul if you need to recoup what you have lost over the past few years.
Consider counseling.? If not for the kids and your own wellbeing, remember breakups after decades is much harder and we are facing a time where no matter how much we hate our ex there are some ties we may never be able to break.? Retirement and Social Security issues may be insurmountable under some circumstances.? Don?t forget about health insurance.? This may be the most difficult part of divorce in our time.? Many insurance companies have strict rules about divorce; this is something you need to check before considering any sudden moves.
There is help out there besides marriage counseling and a divorce attorney.? There are certified divorce financial analysts who can also give you a new perspective.? And there are some who are starting ?gray divorcee? support groups and clubs.? Despite the considerations and limitations, the decision to end the marriage at our age will be more prevalent as more baby boomers come of age.
Google Play, the app store for Android phones and tablets, is not only rolling out a cleaner look, it's cleaning house, so far removing a reported 60,000 apps that were of questionable quality.
"The largest category of apps they cracked down was the MP3s and ringtones, which were heavily abused by slightly dodgy apps," Chester Wisniewski, Sophos senior security advisor, told NBC News Tuesday.
The apps "weren't technically illegal" as to violate Google Play rules, but were "heavily intrusive marketing vehicles that barely delivered on their promise," he said.
Google Play has 675,000 apps, and unlike "Uncle Apple," Wisniewski said, Google does "not prescreen apps using humans, there's an automated system" for apps to be allowed into the store.
The purging of the apps, he said, was done in February. "The fact that Google got rid of tens of thousands of apps that were duping people, upsetting users, is great. What we don't know is how have they changed their processes to make sure those apps don't come back in a week."
Problems with questionable ? and sometimes dangerous ? apps were becoming such an issue that in February 2012, Google introduced "Bouncer," a scanning service designed to identify malicious apps in Google Play.
NBC News has contacted Google for comment about the recent purge, and will update this post when we hear back.
When Bouncer was introduced, a Google Android engineering exec noted on the company's blog:
While it?s not possible to prevent bad people from building malware, the most important measurement is whether those bad applications are being installed from Android Market - and we know the rate is declining significantly.
Wisniewski said to be safe, Android users and buyers should make sure they have the latest version of Android that they can get on their devices. Phones and tablets with Android 4.0 and higher "have a whole ton of safety and security improvements on them," he said.
"There's still a whole bunch of cheaper ones out there running older OS's that are more vulnerable ? Android 2.2, or 2.1 ? really, really old versions of Android that are more vulnerable."
In the meantime, Google Play group product manager Michael Siliski shared news of the app store redesign, writing on a blog that the new look "focuses on bigger images that jump off the page. Similarly themed content is grouped together so you can hone in on a magazine to read or an app to try."
Google has also "simplified purchasing so you can breeze through checkout," he wrote.
The new look starts rolling out immediately for Android phones and tablets that use Android 2.2. and higher, and will be available around the world "in the next few weeks."
Check out Technology, GadgetBox, TODAYTech and InGame on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 1-May-2013
Share ] 
As strong and influential as our generation has been throughout time, we continue to set the pace, but not in a way many of us expected.? In the past 20 years as the divorce rate for those under 50 has plateaued or gone down (according to a Bowling Green University study); those in the 50+ plus age group has DOUBLED!? But even those who embraced this challenge learned more than they expected to.