Asus Dual-band Wireless AC1200 USB Adapter (USB-AC53)

Asus' Dual-band AC1200 USB Adapter may be the chicest wireless adapter around. It's got the same diamond-patterned d?cor as Asus' RT-AC66U Dual Band 3x3 802.11AC Gigabit Router. Blue LEDs shine from inside the device when it's connected to a laptop and wireless network, giving this piece of networking hardware a jewelry-like look.? Not only is it pretty, but it's also got very good throughput at 5GHz and it comes with a decent wireless utility. However, perplexingly poor performance in 2.4 GHz mode makes the adapter fall far short of greatness.

Specs
The USB-AC53 is a selectable dual-band adapter capable of theoretical speeds of up to 867 Mbps at 5GHz and 300 Mbps at the 2.4 band. It features two embedded patch antennas called PIFA (Planar Inverted-F Antenna). The device ships with a netclip for clipping to a laptop screen, USB extension cable, and cradle accessory? providing some flexibility in placement of the adapter.

An accompanying disc contains the driver and utility. This utility provides a site survey, details on wireless networking in your location, and a WPS wizard.

The Asus adapter supports 64- and 128-bit WEP security, WPA/WPA2-PSK, and well as WPS. It only supports Windows.?

Unfortunately, the device also only supports USB 2.0. From my testing, USB 3.0 is the better option since its faster speed does not impede network performance. I discovered how fast a USB 3.0 11ac adapter can be when testing Edimax's AC1200 Wireless Dual-Band USB Adapter.

Setup
Setting up the adapter on a Windows 7 laptop was a fairly simple affair. You run the setup executable from the disc. You can choose to install only the driver or the driver and wireless utility. Typically, I am leery about running third-party wireless utilities over Windows' native wireless management because I have found that can cause some issues with managing the Windows' client's wireless connection. Asus software, however, did not give any issues after install. I did find it strange that software that runs exclusively on Windows could not be verified by Windows during install, though.

The utility performs a wireless site survey so it shows all nearby wireless network. It displays whether the adapter is connected to a network or not, as well as each network's channel, security, encryption level, the MAC address of each access point, and displays signal strength. Signal strength is displayed the same way as in Windows; represented by up to five bars?the more the bars, the stronger the signal. I prefer getting an actual RSSI number for signal strength, but that is usually found in dedicated wireless management and troubleshooting software such as inSSIDer.

Performance
Asus adapter provided the second-fastest performance I've tested among wireless adapters?at least in 5 GHZ mode. In 5 GHz 11ac mode testing with Edimax's 11ac router, the Asus adapter managed an impressive 148 Mbps testing 5 feet from the router. That did drop to 104 Mbps by the time I tested 30 feet away, but that is still very good throughput.

In 5GHz 802.11-N mode, the adapter averaged a very nice 130 Mbps testing 15 feet away from the router.

The only other adapter I've tested that beat that performance in 5GHz mode is the Edimax 11ac USB adapter. This is why I was puzzled why the Asus adapter gave lousy performance in 2.4GHz mode. At about 15 feet away, Ixia's IxChariot testing software only registered 15 Mbps at about 15 feet away from the router. That's the lower throughout I've seen among these new 11ac USB adapters. At 30 feet, that speed dropped to 11 Mbps. I was so confused by that slow speed that I disabled the Asus adapter, enabled my laptop's on-board wireless adapter and ran the exact same test without moving the laptop or my position. I wanted to see if something was going on with my laptop. Sure enough, at the same distance with the on-board my laptop's adapter managed about 40Mbps?average speed in my test bed.

A Fast and Slow Adapter
Obviously, the Asus adapter delivers fine speeds in 5GHZ mode. However, many users will still want to connect at the more common 2.4GHz band. 2.4 is not as broad a band as 5GHz and throughput will be slower on that band, but it shouldn't be as slow as the throughput I saw with the Asus adapter. The Asus adapter gets 2.5 out of 5 stars; the Editors' Choice for wireless USB adapters remains the Edimax AC1200 Wireless Dual-Band USB adapter.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/zrLEKKy2C_k/0,2817,2418300,00.asp

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Cern closes in on antigravity answer

30 April 2013 Last updated at 13:38 ET

Researchers at Cern in Switzerland have proved the merits of a way to test antimatter as a source of the long-postulated "anti-gravity".

Antimatter particles are the "mirror image" of normal matter, but with opposite electric charge.

How antimatter responds to gravity remains a mystery, however; it may "fall up" rather than down.

Now researchers reporting in Nature Communications have made strides toward finally resolving that notion.

Antimatter presents one of the biggest mysteries in physics, in that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created at the Universe's beginning.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

It's the first time that anyone has even been able to talk about doing this?

End Quote Jeffrey Hangst Alpha experiment spokesperson

Yet when the two meet, they destroy each other in what is called annihilation, turning into pure light.

Why the Universe we see today is made overwhelmingly of matter, with only tiny amounts of antimatter, has prompted a number of studies to try to find some difference between the two.

Tests at Cern's LHCb experiment and elsewhere, for example, have been looking for evidence that exotic particles decay more often into matter than antimatter.

Last week, the LHCb team reported a slight difference in the decay of particles called Bs mesons - but still not nearly enough to explain the matter mystery.

One significant difference between the two may be the way they interact with gravity - antimatter may be repelled by matter, rather than attracted to it.

But it is a difference that no one has been able to test - until the advent of Cern's Alpha experiment.

Getting annihilated

Alpha is an acronym for Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus - an experiment designed to build and trap antimatter "atoms".

Just as hydrogen is made of a proton and an electron, antihydrogen is an atom made of their antimatter counterparts antiprotons and positrons.

The trick is not just in making it, but in making it hang around long enough to study it - before it bumps into any matter an annihilates.

In 2010 the Alpha team did just that, and in 2011 they showed they could keep antihydrogen atoms trapped for 1,000 seconds.

The team has now gone back to their existing data on 434 antihydrogen atoms, with the antigravity question in mind.

"In the course of all the experiments, we release (the antihydrogen atoms) and look for their annihilation," said Jeffrey Hangst, spokesperson for the experiment.

"We've gone through those data to see if we can see any influence of gravity on the positions at which they annihilate - looking for atoms to fall for the short amount of time they exist before they hit the wall," he told BBC News.

The team has made a statistical study of which antihydrogen atoms went where - up or down - and they are able to put a first set of constraints on how the anti-atoms respond to gravity.

The best limits they can suggest is that they are less than 110 times more susceptible to gravity than normal atoms, and less than 65 times that strength, but in the opposite direction: antigravity. In short, the question remains unanswered - so far.

"It's not a very interesting band yet but it's the first time that anyone has even been able to talk about doing this," said Prof Hangst.

"We actually have a machine that can address this question, that's what's exciting for us here, and we know how to get from here to the interesting regime."

The Alpha experiment's main task is to study the energy levels within antihydrogen, to spot any differences between it and the hydrogen that physicists know to extraordinary precision.

Prof Hangst said the antigravity measurement was just an "interesting sideshow" for the experiment.

"We have a lot of options for studying antimatter and this is a new one that has a future."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22355187#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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New Android apps worth downloading: Kindle update, Notif, Iron Man 3 - The Official Game

Amazon?s Kindle app update adds features for navigating through your e-books, as well as new books for purchase. Up next is Notif, which specializes in custom notifications in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Finally, we've got Iron Man 3, an endless runner in the vein of Temple Run 2 with great graphics and much bashing of Marvel villains.

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Also on Android Apps

Instead of celebrating Earth Day once a year, adopt an eco-friendly consciousness. Zinio ?s digital newsstand saves 104 thousand trees per month, and here?s how you can get involved.

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Kindle update (Free)

What?s it about? Amazon?s Kindle turns Android devices into e-readers with which you to purchase books to read and send them to your device.

What?s cool? You can download books and sync the books you purchase on Amazon.com with the app automatically, and it tracks the things you read across multiple devices, which allows you to keep track of where you are in any e-book on whatever device you?re using. The app?s latest update simplifies browsing through your books and new titles, and provides new samples you can download for free.

Who?s it for? If you like reading books on your Android devices, Kindle is a great app to have.

What?s it like? Try Barnes & Noble?s e-book competitor, Nook, and Ebook Reader from ebooks.com.

What?s it about? Notif adds notifications to your device in the pull-down menu at the top of your screen, allowing you to leave custom notes and lists.

What?s cool? Notif allows you to put notifications in the notifications shade included in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Notifications can stick around as long as you want or be timed, and they can be single text-based items, photos pulled from your gallery, or full lists (like what to buy at the grocery store). Just keep in mind that you'll need Jelly Bean for the app to work, and that there's currently a bug that deletes notifications when the app is updated. So switch off automatic updates for Notif if you're using it heavily.

Who?s it for? Anyone who could use dedicated notifications in Android instead of being housed in another app or notepad should try Notif.

What?s it like? You might also be interested in ReNotify and Tasker for more note-taking and task reminder capabilities.

What?s it about? Get psyched for the release of Iron Man 3 in theaters with an endless runner based on the Marvel character and his archenemies.

What?s cool? It doesn't really follow the story of Iron Man 3, but the latest Iron Man game from Gameloft does make use of his myriad weapons and flying ability in an endless runner format. Players controls Iron Man from a behind-the-back viewpoint and must avoid obstacles like oncoming traffic, and shoot down deadly robots with his energy beam weapons. The game features 18 suits to unlock, great graphics and high production values.

Who?s it for? Players who enjoy 3-D endless runners and are fans of the Iron Man films will be engaged by Iron Man 3.

What?s it like? Iron Man 3?s game mechanics are a lot like Temple Run 2, and The Amazing Spider-Man offers more Marvel superhero action.

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Best Educational Apps, Handpicked By Experts

Appolicious is pleased to introduce appoLearning.com, where parents, teachers and students find great education apps. Check out our introduction video here!

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Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13441-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-kindle-update-notif-iron-man-3-the-official-game

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Online poker is back: Legal website launches in NV

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Poker devotees will soon be able to skip the smoky casino and legally gamble their dollars away on the couch ? at least in the state of Nevada.

A Las Vegas-based social gambling company is expected to launch the first legal, real-money poker website in the United States on Tuesday morning.

The site, run by Ultimate Gaming, will accept wagers only from players in Nevada for now, but likely represents the shape of things to come for gamblers across the country.

Internet poker, never fully legal, has been strictly outlawed since 2011, when the Department of Justice seized the domain names of the largest offshore sites catering to U.S. customers and blacked them out.

This crackdown, dubbed "black Friday," left poker fanatics with two options: They could either get dressed and visit a visit a card room, or break the law and log into an offshore site.

More recently, the federal government softened its stance on Internet betting, and three states ? New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada? have legalized some form of online wagering within their borders.

With Tuesday's launch, Nevada wins the race to bring Texas Hold 'em back to the Internet.

"There was black Friday, and now we're going to have 'trusting Tuesday,'" said Ultimate Gaming CEO Tobin Prior. "Players won't have to worry if their money is safe. They are going to be able to play with people they can trust and know the highest regulatory standards have been applied."

The site, UltimatePoker.com, will look familiar to anyone who participated in the poker craze of the 2000s. Only the account setup and login process have changed. Instead of checking a box certifying they are older than 18, players will have to endure a lengthy account setup process involving a Social Security number and a Nevada address. Only those older than 21 will be allowed to play.

Ultimate Gaming and the two dozen other companies still fine-tuning their Nevada poker sites hope they will win the trust not only of players, but of regulators and politicians.

"It's an opportunity to show the world how to properly run online poker," Ultimate Gaming chairman Tom Breitling said.

Several cash-hungry states are weighing legislation that would allow them to tap into what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar market. Some bills would legalize only poker, as Nevada has, while others would throw open the gates to all casino games, including slots, as New Jersey and Delaware have done.

Earlier this year, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval approved legislation that gives him the ability to sign deals with other governors to facilitate interstate Internet gambling.

Online gamblers around the world currently wager an estimated $35 billion each year, according to the American Gaming Association. A fully realized U.S. online poker market could generate $4.3 billion in revenue its first year, and $9.6 billion by year five, according to London-based research firm H2 Gambling Capital.

Still, with federal efforts to legalize Internet poker stalled, it may be a while before a critical mass of states link together to lure professional players back from overseas and drive up jackpots.

Nevada, a state of just 2.8 million, attracts 47 million visitors a year? more than the population of California. But who wants to go on vacation just to fire up their laptop and play some virtual cards?

"I think the real excitement will be when we get a very populous state like a California or a New York allowing these companies to expand," ITG casino analyst Matthew Jacob said. "But these changes often take longer to occur than people assume. It requires a change in law and then it takes a while from when the law passes until the sites are up and running."

Prior says he intends to make Ultimate Poker profitable within a matter of years, in part through cross-promotion with mixed martial arts giant Ultimate Fighting Championship. The companies share a common owner: Frank Fertitta III and his brother Lorenzo, who also own Station Casinos Inc., an extensive chain that caters to locals in Las Vegas.

The Ultimate Poker logo has enjoyed prime placement in the UFC fight octagon for months. The Ultimate Poker Facebook page, which steers fans to a zero-stakes version of the site, features a mix of UFC glamour shots and stock images of guys in hoodies staring into laptop screens.

"When you look at the demographic of the UFC fan and the online poker player, it's almost a perfect overlap," Breitling said.

In the coming months, Ultimate Gaming will have to prove that its technology and 111 employees can prevent minors and out-of-state players from wagering real dollars, and guard against money laundering.

It will also have to pay 6.75 percent of its revenue in Nevada state taxes.

It's unclear how much of a boon the new market will be to the cash-strapped state. In 2012, the Pew Center on the States analyzed 13 states that had recently legalized new types of gambling, and found that more than two-thirds of "failed to live up to the initial promises or projections."

The gambling industry is hoping the return of Internet poker will revitalize interest in the game and help brick and mortar casinos capture a younger market.

The rise of Internet poker is generally credited with helping spark the poker fad of the last decade. The end of online gambling is thought to have helped quash interest in the game.

In the coming months, the industry will be watching closely to see if poker players come flocking back from their new hobbies, replacement computer games and illegal offshore gambling sites.

"This is a really huge moment for our company, the state of Nevada and the gaming community," Breitling said. "We're hoping to make poker fun again."

___

Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/online-poker-back-legal-website-launches-nv-092030823.html

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5 car bombs kill 26 in Shiite areas across Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Five car bombs exploded Monday in public areas in predominantly Shiite cities and districts in central and southern Iraq, killing 26 civilians and wounding dozens, officials said.

The blasts come amid a week-long spike in sectarian violence following clashes at a Sunni protest camp in the north of the country. No one has claimed responsibility, but coordinated bombings in civilian areas are a favorite strategy used by al-Qaida in Iraq.

Two parked car bombs went off simultaneously Monday morning in the city of Amarah near a gathering of construction workers and a market, killing 13 civilians and wounding 42, according to police.

Another police officer said a parked car bomb exploded near a restaurant in the city of Diwaniyah, killing eight civilians and wounding 25 others.

Amarah, some 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Baghdad and Diwaniyah, 30 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, are heavily Shiite and normally comparatively peaceful.

Hours later, another parked car bomb went off in the revered Shiite city of Karbala, killing two civilians and wounding 12 others, police said. Two early Islamic figures revered by Shiites are buried in the city, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad.

A parked car bomb ripped through a Shiite neighborhood in the otherwise predominantly Sunni town of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Baghdad, killing three and wounding 16, another police said.

Four medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

Sectarian violence has spiked since Tuesday, when security forces tried to make arrests at a Sunni Muslim protest camp in the northern city of Hawija. The move set off a clash that killed 23 people, including three soldiers.

The Hawija incident and a spate of follow-up battles between gunmen and security forces as well as other attacks, including Monday's, have left around 200 dead in the last week.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/5-car-bombs-kill-26-shiite-areas-across-091440443.html

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Six months after Sandy: 'Home sweet home' for some, others still adrift

John Makely / NBC News

Six months after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Jersey Shore, a heavily damaged home in Mantiloking sits untouched.

By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

BREEZY POINT, N.Y. -- The construction noises are almost constant at daytime in this coastal enclave six months after Hurricane Sandy, but for many residents whose homes were badly damaged, recovery is moving at a slow pace ? or not at all.

Many of those displaced by the so-called superstorm say they are stuck in limbo, trying to raise money to pay for repairs or replace their homes while coming to grips with new, federal flood-zone maps that many fear will make it too costly for them to return.

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?We're no better off than we were six months ago,"?said Kieran Burke, a fire marshal who lost his home to a massive fire that erupted at the height of the storm. ... I'd like to have an idea when I can tell my wife our children can go home.?

Burke?s dilemma is not unique to hard-hit Breezy Point, where more than 75 percent of the homes were either consumed by fire or suffered flood damage.

Some 39,000 people in New Jersey remain displaced by the storm, Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday. The number of New Yorkers still out of their homes is unclear, though federal officials said 350 households in the affected region are still getting money for hotel or motel stays.

?We?ve just got the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of work that needs to be done,? said Michael Byrne, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's senior official in New York state for the Sandy response and recovery.

Though people now have some resources to rebuild, he said, they ?still have some tough questions to answer ... especially people that are in high-risk areas: 'How do I rebuild?' or 'Do I leave, do I seek a buyout?? So, there?s still a lot of tough issues to be worked out.?

While some neighbors are almost ready to move back home, others are still unsure how much of their property can be rebuilt following the storm.

Sandy wreaked havoc in the Caribbean before blasting ashore on Oct. 29 near Brigantine, N.J., leaving more than 100 people dead in the U.S. alone. Nearly 74,000 homes and apartments in New York and New Jersey, where it made landfall on Oct. 29, sustained damage, according to FEMA.

Some 450 homes in New York were destroyed by the storm, while approximately 46,000 in New Jersey were destroyed or sustained major damage, according to FEMA.

FEMA has given more than $1.3 billion to more than 180,000 Sandy victims in Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. The National Flood Insurance Program has paid more than $7.1 billion in claims.

Some survivors whose homes sustained minor damage quickly returned home, as did some others who were able to shelter in place while they repaired and rebuilt.

But in devastated communities like the Irish-American enclave of Breezy Point, many residents had to wait for the gas, power and water to be restored and insurance funds to come through -- if they did -- while still paying mortgages plus rent.

?Some families and some lives have come back together quickly and well and some people are up and running,? New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week. ?Some people are still very much in the midst of the recovery. You still have people in hotel rooms. You still have people doubled up. You still have people fighting with insurance companies, and for them it?s been terrible and horrendous.?

That seems a fitting description of Karly and Anthony Carozza's situation in their neighborhood in Brick Township, N.J., which is dotted with ?for sale? signs. Reconstruction work immediately ground to a halt in January, when FEMA released initial drafts of its new flood maps, which placed the community into the highest risk zone, they said.

John Makely / NBC News

Karly Carrozza and her husband, Anthony, can't start the rebuilding in Brick Township, N.J., until FEMA's flood zone map -- and the guidelines that come with it -- are finalized.

If the maps are finalized as drawn, residents? homes would have to be raised 11 feet and placed on pilings. Some state residents who don?t meet the requirements could face flood insurance premiums of up to $31,000 a year, according to Gov. Christie.

?The cost to put this on pilings would not be worth the value of the house. It wouldn't make any sense,? Anthony Carozza, 34, an equities trader, said this month of their small home on a lagoon.

But the couple would have to pay off their $300,000 mortgage if they wanted to demolish the house and start anew.

?We're all kind of in the same boat in a sense that until they have the final maps come out we can't make any decisions,? Karly Carozza, 36, an account executive, said.

She has joined a group of New Jersey citizens facing the same difficult choices -- called Stop FEMA Now -- to advocate for changes to the flood maps. They also have recently ventured to New York City to band forces with homeowners there.

She feels if they don't act, their coastal community will never be the same.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a bill has been reintroduced in New York that would provide legal protection for architects who volunteer their services during disasters. New York Assemblyman Steve Englebright, the bill's sponsor hopes it will be voted on by June. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown speaks with Englebright and also Lance Brown of the American Institute of Architects about the proposal.

?You could be in the middle class and enjoy a house on the water and I just feel like that's all going to change because a lot of the people around us who are going to walk away -- their homes are worth nothing,? she said. People who could afford to put the houses up to code "are going to come in and just scoop up the property," she added.

In the meantime, the couple is staying nearby with Karly's parents to avoid paying rent in addition to their mortgage. Tarp and plastic cover part of the inside of their home, which took in a few feet of water.

?There's people whose homes look much worse than ours, but it's almost like we're in no different of a predicament because our hands are tied,? Karly said. ?We can't make any decisions, we can't move back. ...We're in no different a predicament today than we were the day after the storm.?

Shifting sands have covered nearly all remnants of Kieran Burke?s bungalow in Breezy Point.

The family home, which sat for decades on what were known as the ?sand lanes? in this idyllic seaside community, burned to the ground with nearly 130 other residences in the fire ? the largest in the city's modern history ? that was triggered by the storm.

The Army Corps of Engineers removed the charred remnants earlier this year, leaving just sand across a broad swath of an area known as The Wedge.

John Makely / NBC News

Kieran and Jennifer Burke, with 2-year-old Kieran Jr., visit the lot where their home stood before it burned to the ground the night that Hurricane Sandy hit.

Located in one of the older parts of the private cooperative, Burke's home, like those of his neighbors, wasn't fronted on a city-mapped street. That means he will need approval from the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals on rebuilding plans.

The agency has vowed to expedite the process, and the Breezy Point Cooperative is working with architects to design homes that will meet expected new city building requirements, as well as those from the flood maps ? a preliminary version of which should be released in the coming weeks. So Burke is still waiting to break ground.

?It?s devastating. It?s angering,? he said of the shifting planning landscape. ?I?m paying a mortgage on an empty plot of land, we?re paying rent in a place that we're displaced in, that I have no conception of when I?m going to have the ability to move out of.?

Burke, a New York City fire marshal, and his wife, Jennifer, both 40, have a two-year-old son, Kieran Junior, and they just welcomed another boy, Matthew, a little more than two weeks ago. They've been living in an office converted into an apartment in Yonkers, north of Manhattan and about an hour's drive from Breezy Point.

?It doesn?t really seem to look any different than when I was here before, and I would have thought at least some of the other parts of it would have progressed a bit,? Jennifer Burke, a pharmaceutical research manager, said this month as she stood on the spot where her kitchen used to stand. ?We?re just still waiting and still hoping. ? The hardest part is just not knowing.?

A few blocks away, in a corner of the community facing Jamaica Bay, the Fischers have moved back into their two-story home, even though it sits amid empty lots where neighbors once lived and is still being worked on.

Christina and Barry Fischer, parents of five children, broke their lease early from a rental in northern Queens in late March because their FEMA rental aid ran out and they had expenses piling up (the FEMA money later came through).

Some painting, tiling, sanding and cabinet work is among what remains to be done on the first floor, but now their children ? ranging in age from 5 to 15 ? can ride their bikes on Breezy Point?s quiet streets, go to church or the store by themselves, play on the beach and catch up with friends who have returned.

When asked how it was to be home, one of the children, William, 10, exclaimed ?Great!? as he snacked on Mallomars. ?I can actually go outside.?

Miranda Leitsinger / NBC News

Georgia Fischer, 5, sifts sand with beach toys. She has Charcot Marie Tooth Disease, a common nerve disorder that can make it hard to walk, and apraxia, a speech disorder. Her parents had to re-arrange therapy and classes for her in the wake of the storm.

Nonetheless, the road has been hard, with Christina Fischer, 35, taking leave from her job as an adjunct professor at St. John's University in Queens to focus on rebuilding, including battling with the insurance over money and fighting for months to get help from the city's ?Rapid Repairs? program.

That program, a first-ever federal-local initiative, offered to install free boilers, hot water heaters and do the necessary electrical work to restore power, but many who applied encountered long delays and sloppy workmanship when they did get service.

The family also has two special needs children whose classes and therapy sessions had to be re-arranged in the aftermath as people were displaced and classrooms flooded.

But the Fischers weren?t complaining in early April when a reporter met with them to take stock of how far they'd come. Tim, 7, pushed his bike through the sand, Georgia, 5, watched a movie on a computer tablet and the family dog, Scout, sat atop a pile of laundry as Barry Fischer, a 45-year-old electrician, tested out the new washer and dryer.

?The three greatest words in the English language: home sweet home,? Barry said. ?There ... is nothing better.?

Related:

Slideshow: Then and now in Breezy Point

For subway station devastated by Sandy, road to recovery just beginning

Six months after Sandy, Atlantic City is betting on a comeback

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Obama to Nominate Foxx for Transportation Secretary (WSJ)

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Europe Restricts 3 Commonly Used Pesticides in Effort to Protect Honeybees

The UK's chief scientific advisor warns that the moratorium could harm the continent's crop production, but environmental groups pronounced the two-year ban a victory

By Richard Van Noorden and Nature News Blog

Image: Flickr/Karunakar Rayker

No one is sure what is causing bee colonies to die off around the world, but pesticides called neonicotinoids may be part of the problem. Today, Europe?s?health commissioner Tonio Borg said the European Commission would go ahead with a continent-wide plan to severely restrict three of the most commonly-used pesticides in an effort to protect bee health.

The debate over these pesticides has been fierce. (See ?Europe debates risk to bees?, Nature, 496, 408 (2013)). In use since the late 1990s, they are applied to seeds such as maize and soya beans to protect them from insects ? but a growing body of research suggests that bees exposed to the pesticides in nectar and pollen might also be harmed. Much of this research has been conducted in laboratories, with pesticide-manufacturers pitted against conservation groups?in arguments over the studies? significance in the real world.

In January, the European Food Safety Authority in Parma, Italy, Europe?s food-chain risk-assessment body, concluded that three neonicotinoids, clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, should not be used in crops where they might attract bees. The European Commission then proposed two years of restrictions, although not an outright ban: there are some exceptions, such as for crops in greenhouses, or in open-air fields after flowering. European member states in March didn?t reach the necessary support for the plans (more voted for than against, but the European system requires a ?qualified majority? ? about 74% of votes which are themselves weighted by member state). An appeals committee also reached an impasse today,?with 15 member states voting for, 8 against (including the UK), and 4 abstentions. Under European rules, that muddle means the European Commission can choose to go ahead with its proposal. ?I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over ?22 billion annually to European agriculture, are protected,? said Borg: the restrictions would apply from 1 December.

The ban goes against the views of the UK?s new chief scientific adviser, Mark Walport, who last week wrote in the FT that a ??moratorium could be harmful to the continent?s crop production, farming communities and consumers?.

Environmental groups were delighted with the decision, pronouncing it a victory for the precautionary principle. Some researchers said it wasn?t clear that a two-year ban would be sufficient to show whether or not the pesticides were harming the bees (particularly if other suspects for colony collapses, such as the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and the parasitic fungus Nosema apis, are also involved).

But others said the ban didn?t go far enough. The UK?s Science Media Centre has collected?varying reactions from bee scientists: among them, David Goulson, a bee researcher at the University of Sussex, noted that the pesticides would continue to be used on some crops, such as wheat, and called for a wider reduction of pesticide use.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature and the Nature news blog. The article was first published on April 29, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=eb35f4874fc35c96954341103e0ee272

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Hitting 'reset' in protein synthesis restores myelination

Monday, April 29, 2013

A potential new treatment strategy for patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is on the horizon, thanks to research by neuroscientists now at the University at Buffalo's Hunter James Kelly Research Institute and their colleagues in Italy and England.

The institute is the research arm of the Hunter's Hope Foundation, established in 1997 by Jim Kelly, Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback, and his wife, Jill, after their infant son Hunter was diagnosed with Krabbe Leukodystrophy, an inherited fatal disorder of the nervous system. Hunter died in 2005 at the age of eight. The institute conducts research on myelin and its related diseases with the goal of developing new ways of understanding and treating conditions such as Krabbe disease and other leukodystrophies.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth or CMT disease, which affects the peripheral nerves, is among the most common of hereditary neurological disorders; it is a disease of myelin and it results from misfolded proteins in cells that produce myelin.

The new findings, published online earlier this month in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, may have relevance for other diseases that result from misfolded proteins, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, cancer and mad cow disease.

The paper shows that missteps in translational homeostasis, the process of regulating new protein production so that cells maintain a precise balance between lipids and proteins, may be how some genetic mutations in CMT cause neuropathy.

CMT neuropathies are common, hereditary and progressive; in severe cases, patients end up in wheelchairs. These diseases significantly affect quality of life but not longevity, taking a major toll on patients, families and society, the researchers note.

"It's possible that our finding could lead to the development of an effective treatment not just for CMT neuropathies but also for other diseases related to misfolded proteins," says Lawrence Wrabetz, MD, director of the institute and professor of neurology and biochemistry in UB's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and senior author on the paper. Maurizio D'Antonio, of the Division of Genetics and Cell Biology of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan is first author; Wrabetz did most of this research while he was at San Raffaele, prior to coming to UB.

The research finding centers around the synthesis of misfolded proteins in Schwann cells, which make myelin in nerves. Myelin is the crucial fatty material that wraps the axons of neurons and allows them to signal effectively. Many CMT neuropathies are associated with mutations in a gene known as P0, which glues the wraps of myelin together. Wrabetz has previously shown in experiments with transgenic mice that those mutations cause the myelin to break down, which in turn, causes degeneration of peripheral nerves and wasting of muscles.

When cells recognize that the misfolded proteins are being synthesized, cells respond by severely reducing protein production in an effort to correct the problem, Wrabetz explains. The cells commence protein synthesis again when a protein called Gadd34 gets involved.

"After cells have reacted to, and corrected, misfolding of proteins, the job of Gadd34 is to turn protein synthesis back on," says Wrabetz. "What we have shown is that once Gadd34 is turned back on, it activates synthesis of proteins at a level that's too high?that's what causes more problems in myelination.

"We have provided proof of principle that Gadd34 causes a problem with translational homeostasis and that's what causes some neuropathies," says Wrabetz. "We've shown that if we just reduce Gadd34, we actually get better myelination. So, leaving protein synthesis turned partially off is better than turning it back on, completely."

In both cultures and a transgenic mouse model of CMT neuropathies, the researchers improved myelin by reducing Gadd34 with salubrinal, a small molecule research drug. While salubrinal is not appropriate for human use, Wrabetz and colleagues at UB and elsewhere are working to develop derivatives that are appropriate.

"If we can demonstrate that a new version of this molecule is safe and effective, then it could be part of a new therapeutic strategy for CMT and possibly other misfolded protein diseases as well," says Wrabetz.

And while CMT is the focus of this particular research, the work is helping scientists at the Hunter James Kelly Research Institute enrich their understanding of myelin disorders in general.

"What we learn in one disease, such as CMT, may inform how we think about toxins for others, such as Krabbe's," Wrabetz says. "We'd like to build a foundation and answer basic questions about where and when toxicity in diseases begin."

The misfolded protein diseases are an interesting and challenging group of diseases to study, he continues. "CMT, for example, is caused by mutations in more than 40 different genes," he says. "When there are so many different genes involved and so many different mechanisms, you have to find a unifying mechanism: this problem of Gadd34 turning protein synthesis on at too high a level could be one unifying mechanism. The hope is that this proof of principle applies to more than just CMT and may lead to improved treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Type 1 diabetes and the other diseases caused by misfolded proteins."

###

University at Buffalo: http://www.buffalo.edu

Thanks to University at Buffalo for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127974/Hitting__reset__in_protein_synthesis_restores_myelination

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Internet Marketing Tips And Advice For Businesses | Starting-Business

Internet Marketing Tips

Admittedly, most people use Internet marketing to make money. In addition to the freedom owning a business provides, you must be passionate and dedicated to effective internet marketing skills. Put some of these tips into action and watch it happen!

Use tech tools to find how well your internet marketing campaign is working for you. There are a number of web companies that supply trackers to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. They measure things like visitors to your site, repeat visitors and how these visits translate into actual sales.

Finding information on effective marketing strategies does not have to cost a fortune. Many free resources are readily available. You could also join online communities, read blogs, go to seminars, or read eBooks.

Internet marketing is not an endeavor that is formulaic; in fact, it can be said that it is equal parts art and science. True, you need to understand the technical aspects of marketing, but you also have to feel your way through the realistic side of things. Be analytical of relevant data while expressing your creative side through the aesthetics and theme of your site.

Your site may be marketed as some kind of social marketing or club instead of your business. This will keep customers coming back, rather than visiting once and leaving immediately. This will also keep people interested in your site. You can also get some free advertising out of it. Give out different graphics and badges that people can use to advertise your site.

Do you have a product that no one else offers? This can drive a great deal of traffic towards your site as people search for this unique niche. The users will then likely look at your other products, bringing legitimacy to your site and therefore improving your page rank.

Find other businesses that would be interested in your products, and offer them promotional discounts of product or service bundles. This strategy expands your market and benefits both you and your product partners. Online travel agencies frequently do this, offering packages that cover hotel reservations, plane tickets and car rentals in bundled packages. This type of bundled package is great for companies that have products that can easily be linked with other complementary items that enhance their main product line.

To have proper internet marketing, you will want to be listed in Google. You need to know what terms people are searching for on Google that relate to your business. Google has a wide range of directories and listing options. Use them to your advantage.

Do you want to market online? If you want to increase the opt-in list of your website, provide your visitors with an incentive to give you their email information. Try offering freebies or maybe having a contest that they need to use their e-mail to participate in. It is much easier to get people?s email addresses if you offer them a chance at a tempting prize.

The information provided here to you shows that Internet marketing can be a profitable tool when used correctly. You ensure that all your effort is worth it, and you also get to pursue your passion.

Source: http://www.starting-business-uk.com/internet-marketing-tips-and-advice-for-businesses/

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Wellywood Woman: Under-Representation in Scriptwriting

Recently I participated (from my bed, distracted by itchy shingles) in an excellent?Blackboard forum?discussion on under-representation in scriptwriting,?inspired by the news that the prestigious?Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting?are tracking gender among its applicants. (They have a wonderful ongoing commentary on their?Facebook page.)?Alas, so far, only a quarter of the applicants are women. You have three days left to enter!!!

from Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Facebook page ?(26 April 2013)

The Blackboard Forum: Under-Representation in Screenwriting

Shaula Evans?led the Blackboard discussion warmly-and-welcomingly-and-brilliantly. In her introduction, she says:

'Where are the women' pops up more than other similar potential questions, both online and offline, because it is relatively easy to tell from people?s names if they are male or female, and unless you are collecting demographic data, it ranges from difficult to impossible to tell what proportion of your community are people of color or GLBTQ, have disability issues, are members of minority religions, are economically disadvantaged, etc. Geography is certainly an obstacle of a different kind that many of us right here are actively tackling. Age discrimination is a terrible scourge in American TV writing. And where women are under-represented other people often are, too, and their lack of participation and representation can be even harder to address because it is an 'invisible' problem. So we?re going to open this up beyond the question of gender and look at the broader question of under-representation of any group in screenwriting, along with examples of programs and resources that are addressing obstacles to those groups.

This broader question resonated for me with a?Writers Guild of America (West)?statement that I love, which is one of the inspirations for the Development Project:

Industry diversity is not only about equal access to employment opportunities; it is also about opening space for the telling of stories that might not otherwise be told.

But most of the fascinating Blackboard discussion was about women screenwriters. The usual issues ? confidence, the need for mentors and allies, the value of blind reading, whether there are as many women screenwriters as men (I think so!) etc were canvassed, from a variety of perspectives, with goodwill and respect. And many contributors provided links to very useful info.?

As I read, my main concern became that both the Academy Nicholl Fellowships and The Black List have stated that half their script readers are women, as though that is a good thing, something that inevitably helps women scriptwriters. (The Black List is a script hosting service, where writers pay to submit their scripts using their own names or pseudonyms for hosting and evaluations, and the highest-rated scripts are brought to the attention of participating industry professionals. Industry pros can also actively search for scripts on the site using criteria that include evaluation scores, genre, and tags.)

One contributor to the Blackboard debate thought that because half the Black List readers are women, that would reduce the risk of bias:

Gender bias is unlikely because half the [Black List] readers are female.

Another disagreed:

I do think though that even women readers can be capable (unwittingly) of gender bias (and I speak as someone who has been a reader), simply because we have all been taught what a well-made story is, and that notion is largely based in the supremacy of the traditional hero?s journey. It can be hard to be open to non-traditional ideas and methods, even when you want to, and it takes reading with that self-awareness. The Geena Davis Institute has done research that revealed that it?s only a small percentage of female characters who have journeys unrelated to the men in their lives, or even just conversations about something other than men. Even in works by women writers.

I do believe it?s changing for the better, and younger female writers are less likely to be oriented this way. For the rest of us, to fully explore our experiences as women through story, it may be that we have to re-train our brains to some extent, to give ourselves permission to focus fully on creating worthy female characters and storylines that have every bit the richness of stories about men. There are so many amazing stories to tell, stories that both men and women can take inspiration from and even, certainly just pure enjoyment watching women be women.

And the other contributor agreed.

...great point about women also being capable of gender bias; of course this is true. I kick myself sometimes when I find myself thinking in a way that was shaped by the gender biases I grew up with.

There are other myths around women's support for other women's storytelling beyond the one that women appreciate other women's work more than men do. There's the one that women support other women to tell their stories, more than men do. And that, given a choice, women will support other women's storytelling instead of supporting men's stories.

An element of Emily Sands'?three-part?research, recorded in her Princeton thesis?Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender: An Integrated Economic Analysis of Discrimination in American Theater,?perhaps uniquely,?explores one aspect of these myths, women readers' responses to playscripts when they are told that women wrote them.

Emily Sands' research into playwright gender issues

The whole thesis is a great read and here's an extract from a?New York Times?article about it. It shows the complexity of the issues that face women playwrights, among which the 'woman reader' problem is just one; and establishes that having women readers assessing scripts doesn't necessarily help women writers, at least when those scripts are plays.

The first [part of the research] considered the playwrights themselves. Artistic directors of theater companies have maintained that no discrimination exists, rather that good scripts by women are in short supply. That claim elicited snorts and laughter from the audience when it was repeated Monday night, but Ms. Sands declared, ?They?re right.?

In reviewing information on 20,000 playwrights in the Dramatists Guild and Doollee.com, an online database of playwrights, she found that there were twice as many male playwrights as female ones, and that the men tended to be more prolific, turning out more plays.

What?s more, Ms. Sands found, over all, the work of men and women is produced at the same rate. The artistic directors have a point: they do get many more scripts from men.

For the second study, Ms. Sands sent identical scripts to artistic directors and literary managers around the country. The only difference was that half named a man as the writer (for example, Michael Walker), while half named a woman (i.e., Mary Walker). It turned out that Mary?s scripts received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response than Michael?s. The biggest surprise? ?These results are driven exclusively by the responses of female artistic directors and literary managers,? Ms. Sands said.

Amid the gasps from the audience, an incredulous voice called out, ?Say that again??

Ms. Sands put it another way: ?Men rate men and women playwrights exactly the same.?

Ms. Sands was reluctant to explain the responses in terms of discrimination, suggesting instead that artistic directors who are women perhaps possess a greater awareness of the barriers female playwrights face.

For the third piece, Ms. Sands looked specifically at Broadway, where women write fewer than one in eight shows. She modeled her research on work done in the 1960s and ?70s to determine whether discrimination existed in baseball. Those studies concluded that black players had to deliver higher performing statistics ? for example, better batting averages ? than white players simply to make it to the major leagues.

Ms. Sands examined the 329 new plays and musicals produced on Broadway in the past 10 years to determine whether the bar was set higher. Did scripts by women have to be better than those by men?

Of course, there are many ways to define ?better,? but on Broadway, with the exception of three nonprofit theaters, everyone can agree that one overriding goal is to make a profit. So did shows written by women during that period make more money than shows written by men?

The answer is yes. Plays and musicals by women sold 16 percent more tickets a week and were 18 percent more profitable over all. In the end, women had to deliver the equivalent of higher batting averages, Ms. Sands said.

Yet even though shows written by women earned more money, producers did not keep them running any longer than less profitable shows that were written by men. To Ms. Sands, the length of the run was clear evidence that producers discriminate against women.

A year before Emily Sands published her results,?Julia Jordan presented figures?from three states in the U.S. that show that women write for theatre at around the 20% level that exists in scriptwriting for feature film production in many parts of the world. So perhaps the first part of the research can be applied to screenwriting and explains why fewer women have entered scripts for the Nicholls Fellowships in Screenwriting. But, are the database figures a reliable measure? For example, I know that half the students who take an MA in Scriptwriting at Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters are women and that women win the annual class prize more often than men. Last year in New Zealand's Script Writer Awards women won Best Feature Film Script, the Best New Writer Award and the Unproduced Feature Script Award, where women also wrote seven of the ten final scripts. This evidence of a strong cohort of women scriptwriters exists alongside New Zealand's dismal track record for produced feature scripts by women and suggests that women scriptwriters produce excellent scripts here (and in other parts of the world) in greater numbers than appears from our engagement with competitions and databases. What happens to all those scripts? Do we enter competitions only if we are confident that our work excels?

Maybe men appear to be more prolific when they engage with databases and competitions only because they feel more welcome and at home there than women do. Maybe it's necessary for organisations and databases to strategise to attract women scriptwriters and people from other under-represented groups, some of whom will also be women. Because more diversity of all kinds will make for a richer culture. But decision-makers have to believe that and to work for it, or it won't happen. The Black List has just introduced a group of 'diversity tags' for scriptwriters to use when submitting scripts to its service, including a #BechdelTest tag, thanks to suggestions from @Silverwingscrpt and @BiatchPack on Twitter and from @margibk in the Blackboard discussion, who wrote:

Why not a set of tags that describe the protagonist? Female, male, straight, gay, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and so on. Such tags would help any search designed to find a screenplay featuring underrepresented groups. And the writers can choose whether they wish to tag their screenplays that way or not.

And that seems like a good place to start.

As for the second part of Emily Sands' research, it didn't surprise me that exclusively?women artistic directors and literary managers gave worse ratings to 'Mary?s' scripts than to Michael's, in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response. While Emily Sands suggested?that artistic directors who are women perhaps possess a greater awareness of the barriers female playwrights face and this may explain their ratings, I suspect that the reasons are more complex and include the effects of learned gender biases like those that the contributors to the Blackboard discussion referred to and which I've observed wherever women (including me) assess other women's work. We're all conditioned to enjoy and support men's work more than women's. Those 'golden boys' are seductive!

The 'higher batting averages' element makes sense, too and it's great to have this confirmation of it. At the moment the reality is that women's stories will be resourced only if they're exceptional.

New Zealand and gender bias in theatre

I know little about gender bias in New Zealand theatre. But four years ago Branwen Millar wrote an article in Playmarket magazine (not available online) where she started

As an emerging playwright, I'm excited by the huge talent and diversity of our writers. As a woman, I'm disheartened.

She acknowledged that she had "a massive amount of support for my writing" but is "at a loss when I look at the landscape I'm entering", provided some grim statistics about women playwrights' representation in productions and awards and asked:

Where are the female voices in our theatres? Is it that men are better writers? Do men write faster and therefore have more plays? Receive more support? Are women one-hit wonders? Why do they stop writing?

Nothing's changed since. Earlier this year, in a New Zealand Herald opinion piece entitled Men still pull strings in Auckland theatre, Janet McAllister commented on the lack of female playwrights and directors in Auckland theatres. This is how she started:

The performance arts have a female-friendly image - the ladies are thought to like all that theatrical stuff. But two years ago, I noted the proportion of female directors, playwrights and public-forum speakers participating at various Auckland venues and found that the more flagshippy and stalwarty an establishment was, the fewer of these key women it featured.

The number of women onstage merely masked the general chauvinistic Svengali nature of the industry, with males pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Two years on, has anything changed? Not much, although there are a few hopeful signs, a few worries - and one absolute shocker.

You can read the original article here. Then came a response from distinguished playwright and screenwriter Fiona Samuel, printed several days later in the Letters to the Editor section.

Re Janet McAllister's Opinion column in Saturday's Herald Weekend section, pithily titled 'Men still pull strings in Auckland theatre', I thank the Herald for this timely analysis.?
In Janet's final paragraph, she hopes that the presence of two plays-in-development by female playwrights in the Auckland Theatre Company's Next Stage showcase for 2012 indicates change to come. Don't hold your breath, Janet.?

To my knowledge, ATC has never taken a play by a female playwright from this development initiative on to presentation on the main bill stage. One male/female writing team has made the leap, but that's it - one co-writing credit in seven years.?During that time, nine female playwrights had work in Next Stage; none progressed to production as sole author of a main-bill drama under the aegis of the ATC. ?

The men fared differently. In those same years, plays by Stephen Sinclair, Michael Galvin, Dave Armstrong, Victor Rodger, Geoff Chapple, Arthur Meek and Eli Kent have progressed from development workshop to full theatrical presentation.?

Is this just a surprising coincidence? After seven years, it looks more like a pattern.
So - will things be different in 2013 and beyond? I'd like to think so, but this record doesn't fill me with optimism.?

Fiona Samuel ?(NZ Arts Laureate & playwright)

In New Zealand we're fortunate to have?Playmarket,?a not-for-profit organisation concerned with

...the development, support and representation of New Zealand playwrights. We are a key advocate for the continued growth of New Zealand theatre on our stages and coordinate a range of resources, services and opportunities for playwrights.

Today, I went to the Playmarket website and counted the images from produced plays on two of their pages. ?There were twenty-five writers represented, some several times. Five of them, 20%, are women. ? There are 179 playwrights listed in Playmarket's database and 69, or 38.5%, are women. Why are images of their productions not reproduced in the same proportion? Playmarket has two diversity-oriented programmes, Asian Ink for Asian playwrights and Brown Ink for Maori and Pasifika playwrights, some of whom will of course be women, but no discrete women's programme. Does Playmarket need to up its game? It seems that change is needed in the New Zealand theatre world, as it is in film.

Celebration

Now for the good news, a wee celebration.?Playmarket's?Adam NZ Play Award?is an annual group of awards, supported by arts philanthropists Denis and Verna Adam. It's the only New Zealand award for new writing and "encourages writers to banish all self censoring, all worries about what theatres want, what is affordable and what they think audiences want to see". Only unproduced plays are eligible and the plays are read blind. The top award is for the Best New Zealand Play (last won by a woman in 2009, by Pip Hall with?The 53rd Victim) and further awards for Best Play By a Maori Playwright, Best Play By a Pasifika Playwright and Best Play By a Woman Playwright.Hannah McKie, a Creative Writing PhD student at the International Institute of Modern Letters, and part of the all-women Page Left Collective, is this year's winner of the Best Play By A Woman Playwright with Mary Scott: Queen of the Backblocks. This means that her play is also the New Zealand entry in the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, "given annually to recognize women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre."Renae Maihi, an actor/writer/director, won Best Play By A Maori Playwright for Patua, a play about child abuse, funded by Creative New Zealand. Renae's first play was Nga Manurere.
She also co-wrote Katie Wolfe's short film Redemption and is writer/director of a New Zealand Film Commission funded short ? Purerehua/Butterfly, currently in post-production. Many congratulations to Hannah and Renae.

It's taken me a few days to write this and in the meantime, ever hopeful, I've been tweeting about the Nicholl gender split,?hoping that might encourage more women to enter.?And kind tweeps have been retweeting. But it's made no difference.?There's so much more work to be done.?Here's the info for today, off the Nicholl Facebook site (the main site seems to be down).

Source: http://wellywoodwoman.blogspot.com/2013/04/under-representation-in-scriptwriting.html

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Pa. abortion clinic no 'house of horrors,' says defense attorney

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? A lawyer for a Philadelphia abortion doctor on trial for murder says the description of his former clinic as a "house of horrors" is a "political press fabrication."

Defense attorney Jack McMahon said during closing arguments Monday that pictures don't lie and showed photographs of a relatively neat waiting room and other areas in Dr. Kermit Gosnell's clinic.

Gosnell is charged with killing four babies allegedly born alive and in the overdose death of a 41-year-old patient.

McMahon says he's not backing down from his opening remarks that the case is an elitist and racist prosecution against Gosnell, who is black.

McMahon says the clinic wasn't perfect but it wasn't the criminal enterprise that prosecutors claim. The district attorney called it a "house of horrors."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-pa-abortion-clinic-no-house-horrors-171045844.html

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LG Optimus F5 mid-range LTE smartphone hits France April 29, global dispersion to follow

LG's F-series handsets may not be in the same class an HTC One or GS4, but we can't help but appreciate the solid specs and LTE-goodness baked into these mid-range devices. Following a debut alongside its F7 sibling at MWC, the F5 will begin trickling out to French retailers on April 29th. While there's no mention of US availability -- despite a recent leak pegging it for Verizon -- we do know LG will soon be pushing it out to parts of Asia and Central / South America. Aimed at markets new to LTE, the smartphone packs a beefy 2,150mAh battery, 5-megapixel camera, 1.2GHz dual-core processor and a 4.3-inch screen for showing off LG's skinned version of Android 4.1.2. If you're curious to give LTE a go and this looks like a winner, you'll find the full press release after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/vva-YXWy-Is/

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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review

More Info

• Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 shipping this month for $1,099, ARM-powered Yoga 11 coming in December
• Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 review
• Microsoft Surface with Windows RT review

Normally, when a company releases two laptops in different sizes (the MacBook Air, anyone?) we review just one: we assume you'll get the gist about the design and trackpad the first time, ya know? So it's funny, then, that we're taking a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 after we've already tested the Yoga 13 and named it one of our favorite Windows 8 convertibles. They look alike, with an inventive hinge allowing you to fold the screen back like a book cover. The keyboards are the same too, though the 11-incher's is understandably a tad more crowded. They even have the same oddly shaped power port.

Except, of course, they're totally different products. Whereas the Yoga 13 is a proper laptop, with a Core i5 processor and full Windows 8, the Yoga 11 runs Windows RT, and is powered by a Tegra 3 chip (yes, the same one you're used to seeing in Android tablets). That means a big dip in performance, but exponentially longer battery life. Legacy x86 apps are off-limits too, given that this is Windows RT and all. Now that we've set up that equation for you (weaker performance plus longer battery life minus standard Windows apps equals what?) let's meet up after the break to see if this is just as good a deal as its big brother.

Gallery: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Lenovo

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SMALL-BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: Bid of History, Chesterton ? The ...

CHESTERTON | The name, Bid of History, tells the story.

Robert Zahkar and Vince Kisala?s business, an in-house and online auction house, handles property from estates, of collectors or just those who need to dispose of items they no longer want or need. Auctions are held live at the seller?s premises, at the auction house or online.

The latter is what sets them apart from their local competitors.

?We wanted to do something different,? said Vince Kisala, the owner of an eBay store in Chesterton. ?We decided to be a high-tech house.?

The partners opened the business in December after almost a year of preparation that included renovating a commercial building owner by Zakhar and earning state certifications as auctioneers.

?We went to Indianapolis in February (2012) for 10 days to auctioneering school,? Kisala said. ?It was a lot more involved than either of us thought. Indiana is very strict. We had 90 hours of schooling, passed three exams inside the school and had to go to the Indiana State building to pass the final certification test. We both passed and got our licenses in March (2012.)?

Besides renovating the building at a cost of $275,000, the men spent another $200,000 buying the computer system that allows them to video and audio stream their auctions live via the internet.

The partners and their appraisers evaluate each item

We recommend you visit the following site for more complete information and related topics. Article source: http://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/small-business-spotlight-bid-of-history-chesterton/article_c9818c34-b914-57bf-99cb-f00a6e577a4c.html

Source: http://leomoo.com/2013/04/small-business-spotlight-bid-of-history-chesterton-the-times/

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