Grand Canyon as old as the dinosaurs, suggests new study led by CU-Boulder

Public release date: 29-Nov-2012
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Contact: Rebecca Flowers
rebecca.flowers@colorado.edu
303-492-5135
University of Colorado at Boulder

Dates for carving of western Grand Canyon pushed back 60 million years

An analysis of mineral grains from the bottom of the western Grand Canyon indicates it was largely carved out by about 70 million years ago -- a time when dinosaurs were around and may have even peeked over the rim, says a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The new research pushes back the conventionally accepted date for the formation of the Grand Canyon in Arizona by more than 60 million years, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Rebecca Flowers. The team used a dating method that exploits the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium atoms to helium atoms in a phosphate mineral known as apatite, said Flowers, a faculty member in CU-Boulder's geological sciences department.

The helium atoms were locked in the mineral grains as they cooled and moved closer to the surface during the carving of the Grand Canyon, she said. Temperature variations at shallow levels beneath the Earth's surface are influenced by topography, and the thermal history recorded by the apatite grains allowed the team to infer how much time had passed since there was significant natural excavation of the Grand Canyon, Flowers said.

"Our research implies that the Grand Canyon was directly carved to within a few hundred meters of its modern depth by about 70 million years ago," said Flowers. A paper on the subject by Flowers and Professor Kenneth Farley of the California Institute of Technology was published online Nov. 29 in Science magazine.

Flowers said there is significant controversy among scientists over the age and evolution of the Grand Canyon. A variety of data suggest that the Grand Canyon had a complicated history, and the entire modern canyon may not have been carved all at the same time. Different canyon segments may have evolved separately before coalescing into what visitors see today.

In a 2008 study, Flowers and colleagues showed that parts of the eastern section of the Grand Canyon likely developed some 55 million years ago, although the bottom of that ancient canyon was above the height of the current canyon rim at that time before it subsequently eroded to its current depth.

Over a mile deep in places, Arizona's steeply sided Grand Canyon is about 280 miles long and up to 18 miles wide in places. Visited by more than 5 million people annually, the iconic canyon was likely carved in large part by an ancestral waterway of the Colorado River that was flowing in the opposite direction millions of years ago, said Flowers.

"An ancient Grand Canyon has important implications for understanding the evolution of landscapes, topography, hydrology and tectonics in the western U.S. and in mountain belts more generally," said Flowers. The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Whether helium is retained or lost from the individual apatite crystals is a function of temperatures in the rocks of Earth's crust, she said. When temperatures of the apatite grains are greater than 158 degrees Fahrenheit, no helium is retained in the apatite, while at temperatures below 86 degrees F, all of the helium is retained.

"The main thing this technique allows us to do is detect variations in the thermal structure at shallow levels of the Earth's crust," she said. "Since these variations are in part induced by the topography of the region, we obtained dates that allowed us to constrain the timeframe when the Grand Canyon was incised."

Flowers and Farley took their uranium/thorium/helium dating technique to a more sophisticated level by analyzing the spatial distribution of helium atoms near the margin of individual apatite crystals. "Knowing not just how much helium is present in the grains but also how it is distributed gives us additional information about whether the rocks had a rapid cooling or slow cooling history," said Flowers.

There have been a number of studies in recent years reporting various ages for the Grand Canyon, said Flowers. The most popular theory places the age of the Grand Canyon at 5 million to 6 million years based on the age of gravel washed downstream by the ancestral Colorado River. In contrast, a 2008 study published in Science estimated the age of the Grand Canyon to be some 17 million years old after researchers dated mineral deposits inside of caves carved in the canyon walls.

Paleontologists believe dinosaurs were wiped out when a giant asteroid collided with Earth 65 million years ago, resulting in huge clouds of dust that blocked the sun's rays from reaching Earth's surface, cooling the planet and killing most plants and animals.

Because of the wide numbers of theories, dates and debates regarding the age of the Grand Canyon, geologists have redoubled their efforts, said Flowers. "There has been a resurgence of work on this problem over the past few years because we now have some new techniques that allow us to date rocks that we couldn't date before," she said.

While the dating research for the new study was done at Caltech, Flowers recently set up her own lab at CU-Boulder with the ability to conduct uranium/thorium/helium dating.

"If it were simple, I think we would have solved the problem a long time ago," said Flowers. "But the variety of conflicting information has caused scientists to argue about the age of the Grand Canyon for more than 150 years. I expect that our interpretation that the Grand Canyon formed some 70 million years ago is going to generate a fair amount of controversy, and I hope it will motivate more research to help solve this problem."

###

Contact:
Rebecca Flowers, 303-492-5135
Rebecca.Flowers@colorado.edu
Jim Scott, CU media relations, 303-492-3114
Jim.Scott@colorado.edu

---

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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.

Public release date: 29-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Rebecca Flowers
rebecca.flowers@colorado.edu
303-492-5135
University of Colorado at Boulder

Dates for carving of western Grand Canyon pushed back 60 million years

An analysis of mineral grains from the bottom of the western Grand Canyon indicates it was largely carved out by about 70 million years ago -- a time when dinosaurs were around and may have even peeked over the rim, says a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The new research pushes back the conventionally accepted date for the formation of the Grand Canyon in Arizona by more than 60 million years, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Rebecca Flowers. The team used a dating method that exploits the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium atoms to helium atoms in a phosphate mineral known as apatite, said Flowers, a faculty member in CU-Boulder's geological sciences department.

The helium atoms were locked in the mineral grains as they cooled and moved closer to the surface during the carving of the Grand Canyon, she said. Temperature variations at shallow levels beneath the Earth's surface are influenced by topography, and the thermal history recorded by the apatite grains allowed the team to infer how much time had passed since there was significant natural excavation of the Grand Canyon, Flowers said.

"Our research implies that the Grand Canyon was directly carved to within a few hundred meters of its modern depth by about 70 million years ago," said Flowers. A paper on the subject by Flowers and Professor Kenneth Farley of the California Institute of Technology was published online Nov. 29 in Science magazine.

Flowers said there is significant controversy among scientists over the age and evolution of the Grand Canyon. A variety of data suggest that the Grand Canyon had a complicated history, and the entire modern canyon may not have been carved all at the same time. Different canyon segments may have evolved separately before coalescing into what visitors see today.

In a 2008 study, Flowers and colleagues showed that parts of the eastern section of the Grand Canyon likely developed some 55 million years ago, although the bottom of that ancient canyon was above the height of the current canyon rim at that time before it subsequently eroded to its current depth.

Over a mile deep in places, Arizona's steeply sided Grand Canyon is about 280 miles long and up to 18 miles wide in places. Visited by more than 5 million people annually, the iconic canyon was likely carved in large part by an ancestral waterway of the Colorado River that was flowing in the opposite direction millions of years ago, said Flowers.

"An ancient Grand Canyon has important implications for understanding the evolution of landscapes, topography, hydrology and tectonics in the western U.S. and in mountain belts more generally," said Flowers. The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Whether helium is retained or lost from the individual apatite crystals is a function of temperatures in the rocks of Earth's crust, she said. When temperatures of the apatite grains are greater than 158 degrees Fahrenheit, no helium is retained in the apatite, while at temperatures below 86 degrees F, all of the helium is retained.

"The main thing this technique allows us to do is detect variations in the thermal structure at shallow levels of the Earth's crust," she said. "Since these variations are in part induced by the topography of the region, we obtained dates that allowed us to constrain the timeframe when the Grand Canyon was incised."

Flowers and Farley took their uranium/thorium/helium dating technique to a more sophisticated level by analyzing the spatial distribution of helium atoms near the margin of individual apatite crystals. "Knowing not just how much helium is present in the grains but also how it is distributed gives us additional information about whether the rocks had a rapid cooling or slow cooling history," said Flowers.

There have been a number of studies in recent years reporting various ages for the Grand Canyon, said Flowers. The most popular theory places the age of the Grand Canyon at 5 million to 6 million years based on the age of gravel washed downstream by the ancestral Colorado River. In contrast, a 2008 study published in Science estimated the age of the Grand Canyon to be some 17 million years old after researchers dated mineral deposits inside of caves carved in the canyon walls.

Paleontologists believe dinosaurs were wiped out when a giant asteroid collided with Earth 65 million years ago, resulting in huge clouds of dust that blocked the sun's rays from reaching Earth's surface, cooling the planet and killing most plants and animals.

Because of the wide numbers of theories, dates and debates regarding the age of the Grand Canyon, geologists have redoubled their efforts, said Flowers. "There has been a resurgence of work on this problem over the past few years because we now have some new techniques that allow us to date rocks that we couldn't date before," she said.

While the dating research for the new study was done at Caltech, Flowers recently set up her own lab at CU-Boulder with the ability to conduct uranium/thorium/helium dating.

"If it were simple, I think we would have solved the problem a long time ago," said Flowers. "But the variety of conflicting information has caused scientists to argue about the age of the Grand Canyon for more than 150 years. I expect that our interpretation that the Grand Canyon formed some 70 million years ago is going to generate a fair amount of controversy, and I hope it will motivate more research to help solve this problem."

###

Contact:
Rebecca Flowers, 303-492-5135
Rebecca.Flowers@colorado.edu
Jim Scott, CU media relations, 303-492-3114
Jim.Scott@colorado.edu

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/uoca-gca112112.php

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Scientists discover water ice on Mercury: Ice and organic material may have been carried to the planet by passing comets

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? Mercury, the smallest and innermost planet in our solar system, revolves around the sun in a mere 88 days, making a tight orbit that keeps the planet incredibly toasty. Surface temperatures on Mercury can reach a blistering 800 degrees Fahrenheit -- hot enough to liquefy lead.

Now researchers from NASA, MIT, the University of California at Los Angeles and elsewhere have discovered evidence that the scorching planet may harbor pockets of water ice, along with organic material, in several permanently shadowed craters near Mercury's north pole.

The surprising discovery suggests to scientists that both ice and organic material, such as carbon, may have been deposited on Mercury's surface by impacts from comets or asteroids. Over time, this volatile material could then have migrated to the planet's poles.

"We thought the most exciting finding could be that this really was water ice," says Maria Zuber, the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and a member of the research team. "But the identification of darker, insulating material that may indicate complex organics makes the story even more thrilling."

Zuber and her colleagues published their results this week in the journal Science.

Mounting evidence for ice

The possibility that water ice might exist on Mercury is not new: In the 1990s, radar observations detected bright regions near Mercury's poles that scientists believed could be signs of either water ice or a rough planetary surface. However, the evidence was inconclusive for either scenario.

To get a clearer picture of Mercury's polar regions, Zuber and her colleagues analyzed observations taken by NASA's MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) mission, a probe that has been orbiting the planet and mapping its topography since April 2011.

Mapping the planet's surface is a challenging task, as the craft must weather the sun's intense radiation, which can "play havoc with electronics," Zuber says. What's more, the probe moves from pole to pole in an elliptical orbit, making for an extremely tricky mapping mission, both dynamically and thermally. Despite these challenges, MESSENGER's onboard laser altimeter has amassed more than 10 laser pulses that have been used to map topography and measure the near-infrared reflectance of the surface.

Last year, researchers analyzed the probe's topographic observations and created a high-resolution map of Mercury; they then overlaid previous radar observations. They found that the bright regions detected in radar lined up with permanently shadowed craters at the planet's north pole -- regions that never see the sun, and which are potentially ideal places for ice to survive. This finding was one more piece of evidence that Mercury might harbor water ice.

Revealing shadows

In this latest analysis of MESSENGER's observations, scientists believe they have found conclusive evidence for water ice on Mercury, although the data was at first puzzling.

The team found that the probe's reflectance measurements, taken via laser altimetry, matched up well with previously mapped radar-bright regions in Mercury's high northern latitudes. Two craters in particular were bright, both in radar and at laser wavelengths, indicating the possible presence of reflective ice. However, just south of these craters, others appeared dark with laser altimetry, but bright in radar.

The observations "threw us off track for a long time," Zuber says, until another team member, David Paige of UCLA, developed a thermal model of the planet. Using MESSENGER observations of Mercury's topography, reflectance and rotational characteristics, the model simulated the sun's illumination of the planet, enabling precise determination of Mercury's temperature at and below the surface.

Results indicated that the unusually bright deposits corresponded to regions where water ice was stable at the surface; in dark regions, ice was stable within a meter of the surface. The dark insulating material is consistent with complex organics that would already be dark but may have been darkened further by the intense radiation at Mercury's surface.

In addition, MESSENGER's neutron spectrometer detected elemental hydrogen in the vicinity of Mercury's north pole. The combination of the compositional, spectral and geometric observations and the thermal models provided a strong, self-consistent explanation for the unusual radar backscatter observations.

Paul Lucey, a professor of geophysics and planetology at the University of Hawaii, points out that MESSENGER has also revealed a number of regions where surfaces were much darker than in previous radar measurements. Lucey interprets these results as possible evidence of receding ice on Mercury's surface.

"This suggests that in the past, ice was more extensive on Mercury, and retreated to its current state," says Lucey, who was not involved in the research. "Even Mercury experiences global warming."

MESSENGER will continue to orbit Mercury, and Zuber says future data may reveal information beyond the planet's surface. "There are still some really good questions to answer about the interior," Zuber says. "I'll tell you, we're not done."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Jennifer Chu.

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

---

Journal References:

1. David A. Paige, Matthew A. Siegler, John K. Harmon, Gregory A. Neumann, Erwan M. Mazarico, David E. Smith, Maria T. Zuber, Ellen Harju, Mona L. Delitsky, and Sean C. Solomon. Thermal Stability of Volatiles in the North Polar Region of Mercury. Science, 29 November 2012 DOI: 10.1126/science.1231106
2. Gregory A. Neumann, John F. Cavanaugh, Xiaoli Sun, Erwan M. Mazarico, David E. Smith, Maria T. Zuber, Dandan Mao, David A. Paige, Sean C. Solomon, Carolyn M. Ernst, and Olivier S. Barnouin. Bright and Dark Polar Deposits on Mercury: Evidence for Surface Volatiles. Science, 29 November 2012 DOI: 10.1126/science.1229764

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/dIp6jTJsncs/121129151336.htm

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U.N. set for implicit recognition of Palestinian state, despite U.S., Israel threats

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly is set to implicitly recognize a sovereign state of Palestine on Thursday despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government.

A Palestinian resolution that would change the Palestinian Authority's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member state," like the Vatican, is expected to pass easily in the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly.

Israel, the United States and a handful of other members are planning to vote against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, and over a dozen European governments have offered him their support after an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose his efforts toward a negotiated peace.

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and U.S. Middle East peace envoy David Hale traveled to New York on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to get Abbas to reconsider.

The Palestinians gave no sign they were turning back.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated to reporters in Washington on Wednesday the U.S. view that the Palestinian move was misguided and efforts should focus instead on reviving the stalled Middle East peace process.

"The path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York," she said. "The only way to get a lasting solution is to commence direct negotiations."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated U.S. warnings that the move could lead to a reduction of U.S. economic support for the Palestinians. The Israelis have also warned they might take significant deductions out of monthly transfers of duties that Israel collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

'SLAP IN THE FACE'

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it would allow them access to the International Criminal Court and some other international bodies, should they choose to join them.

Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestinian Liberation Organization official, told a news conference in Ramallah that "the Palestinians can't be blackmailed all the time with money."

"If Israel wants to destabilize the whole region, it can," she said. "We are talking to the Arab world about their support, if Israel responds with financial measures, and the EU has indicated they will not stop their support to us."

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world.

In their draft resolution, the Palestinians have pledged to relaunch the peace process immediately following the U.N. vote.

As there is little doubt about how the United States will vote when the Palestinian resolution to upgrade its U.N. status is put to a vote sometime after 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday, the Palestinian Authority has been concentrating its efforts on lobbying wealthy European states, diplomats say.

With strong support from the developing world that makes up the majority of U.N. members, the Palestinian resolution is virtually assured of securing more than the requisite simple majority. Palestinian officials hope for over 130 yes votes.

Abbas has been trying to amass as many European votes in favor as possible.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland had all pledged to support the Palestinian resolution. Britain said it was prepared to vote yes, but only if the Palestinians fulfilled certain conditions.

Diplomats said the Czech Republic was expected to vote against the move, although other Europeans might join it. Germany said it could not support the Palestinian resolution, but left open the question of whether it would abstain, like Estonia and Lithuania, or vote no with the Czechs.

Ashrawi said the positive responses from European states were encouraging and sent a message of hope to all Palestinians.

"This constitutes a historical turning point and opportunity for the world to rectify a grave historical injustice that the Palestinians have undergone since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948," she said.

A strong backing from European nations could make it awkward for Israel to implement harsh retaliatory measures. Diplomats say Israel wants to avoid antagonizing Europe. But Israel's reaction might not be so measured if the Palestinians seek ICC action against Israel on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity or other crimes the court would have jurisdiction over.

Israel also seems wary of weakening the Western-backed Abbas, especially after the political boost rival Hamas received from recent solidarity visits to Gaza by top officials from Egypt, Qatar and Tunisia.

Hamas militants, who control Gaza and have had icy relations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, unexpectedly offered Abbas their support earlier this week.

One Western diplomat said the Palestinian move was almost an insult to recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama.

"It's not the best way to convince Mr. Obama to have a more positive approach toward the peace process," a Western diplomat planning to vote for the Palestinian resolution said. "Three weeks after his election, it's basically a slap in the face."

(Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Michelle Nichols in New York, and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-set-implicit-recognition-palestinian-state-despite-060136202.html

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Factory owner says unaware of need for fire exits

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? The owner of a Bangladesh clothing factory where a fire killed 112 people says he was never informed the facility was required to have an emergency exit, a sign of how far removed the leaders of the nation's garment industry are from issues of worker safety.

"It was my fault. But nobody told me that there was no emergency exit, which could be made accessible from outside," factory owner Delwar Hossain was quoted Thursday as telling The Daily Star newspaper. "Nobody even advised me to install one like that, apart from the existing ones."

"I could have done it. But nobody ever suggested that I do it," said Hossain, who could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Activists in the South Asian country hope the tragedy will invigorate their lengthy ? but fruitless ? efforts to upgrade safety standards and force stronger government oversight of the powerful industry.

The Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory in a Dhaka suburb was making clothes for Wal-Mart, Sears, Disney and other major global retailers. When a fire broke out over the weekend, many of the 1,400 workers were trapped inside the eight-story building because exit doors were locked. A fire official said the death toll would have been much lower if the factory had had an emergency exit.

An AP reporter who visited the damaged factory Wednesday found three stairways but no special fire exits.

Hossain, a former accounts manager at another garment factory, set up his own clothing business, Tuba Textiles Mills Ltd. in 2004. The Tazreen factory was one of a dozen owned by his company.

Iqbal Habib, an architect and an activist, said fire exits were mandatory in such factories. He blamed government agencies, and the local industry trade group, for not ensuring the building was up to the proper standards.

"This is not acceptable. This is a serious issue. We must deal with such things seriously," he said.

Nazma Akhter, president of the Bangladesh Combined Garment Workers Federation trade union, called for the arrest of the factory's owners and management to send a message to the industry as a whole.

"There should be a criminal case against them. It could stop the recurrence of such incidents," he said.

Labor Minister Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju said that factories without emergency exits ? or with only one such exit ? will be forced to close until they upgrade their safety infrastructure. It was not clear when and how that directive will be enforced.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factory-owner-says-unaware-fire-exits-085914624--finance.html

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Investors: How to Price Your Rent Increases ? CT Homes LLC

The U.S. rental market is heating up fast but how real estate investors price their rental increases can make all the difference in their net returns.

Do you have the right rental pricing strategy?

Rents across the country are ramping up much faster than some projected. In hot urban areas like Miami and San Diego tenants are finding their new proposed rent payments going through the roof when renewal time comes up.

This is a situation which is only likely to become more pronounced as real estate investors take more inventory out of the market and until American?s credit gets better and access to mortgage credit for buying a home gets easier too.

Some experts predicted a 7-10% rise in rental rates over the next couple of years. However, in some hot zones where there is little available inventory like the San Diego real estate market, Manhattan and Miami?s downtown Brickell area tenants are seeing demands for incredible rent hikes. According to the MLxchange this means a 28% spike in rent per square foot or 17% in monthly payments in the first nine months of the year alone. That?s a $500 to $900 leap on a $3,000 a month condo.

This offers great opportunity for real estate investors to pushup cash flow, but how can you stage increases without sabotaging net income?

You don?t want to force out a great tenant and then have an empty unit for months, bringing in nothing and potentially winding up with a bum tenant in the end.

So make it cheaper to pay more than to move, consider negotiating a deal for a longer lease, or higher amount if they want month to month, and negotiate a cap on future increases so they don?t panic. 10% is pretty standard but renters could face far steeper jumps if moving.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2012 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Passive Income. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.cthomesllc.com/2012/11/investors-how-to-price-your-rent-increases/

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Businessman Plans For Mars Colony, Perhaps Jumps the Gun ...

Tuesday, November 27, 2012, by Amy Schellenbaum

Illustration via Gizmodo

Elon Musk, the entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla Motors and Paypal, has been doing some serious planning for his next big venture: his future dominion on Mars. That's right, Musk has called Newt Gingrich's moon colony and raised the politician, oh, 35 million miles. He's not the first entrepreneur to dream up a brand new plot of land to mold as his very own?remember the "breastauranteur" who bought a whole town and renamed it Bikinis??but this Musk fellow, he dreams big: his Mars colony, a city inside a giant pressurized bubble, will house around 80,000 people, perhaps making it No. 1 on the list of most outrageous plans for cities of the future. The territory's first 10 colonizers would need thousands of pounds of construction materials and machinery, which seems to be a wee bit of an undertaking, considering it took eight years and $2.5 billion for NASA to land Curiosity Rover. The whole plan is estimated to cost around $36B, which, as Gizmodo points out, "actually sounds like a bargain, considering there is currently no way to support life on Mars." Is the guy crazy? Well, yes and no. Sure, his plans are largely impossible to obtain in his lifetime, but, come on, he's a wildly wealth entrepreneur, if you can't dream big after you've made your billions, then what's the point?
? Huge Mars Colony Eyed by Spacex Founder [Discovery via Gizmodo]
? Behold: 12 Bonkers Proposals For the World's Future Cities [Curbed National]

Source: http://curbed.com/archives/2012/11/27/businessman-plans-for-mars-colony-perhaps-jumps-the-gun.php

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The 16 Most Important Social Media Updates of 2012

The 16 Most Important Social Media Updates of 2012

.

In the last 11 months, there have been tons of updates to our favorite social networks, several of which were extremely relevant for marketers and business owners.

Many of them were just little tweaks, but a lot -- 16 in our estimation -- had a huge impact on marketers' jobs.

Seeing the world through the eyes of an orangutan

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2012) ? A captive bred Sumatran orangutan and a University of Nottingham neuroscientist in Malaysia are hoping to explain some of the mysteries of the visual brain and improve the lives of captive bred animals.

She is a captive bred Sumatran orangutan. He is a neuroscientist specialising in cognitive and sensory systems research. With the help of specially adapted eye tracking equipment they are hoping to explain some of the mysteries of the visual brain and improve the lives of captive bred animals.

Dr Neil Mennie, from The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), has received funding from Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation, Malaysia (MOSTI) to study the eye movements of Tsunami -- a seven year old orangutan at The National Zoo of Malaysia (Zoo Negara). Not only will Dr Mennie's research address vital questions about the visual cognition of humans and apes in natural tasks, it will also provide valuable enrichment for the juvenile captive-born orangutan.

Dr Mennie said: "Orangutans are particularly interesting because to survive in the treetops they must be very spatially aware of their surroundings. I hope to investigate their ability to search for food and to compare their progress with humans in 3D search and foraging tasks."

Dr Mennie, who is from the Cognitive and Sensory Systems Research Group in the School of Psychology at UNMC, is interested in how humans and apes use their brains to learn and make predictions about our surroundings. With the help of Tsunami's keeper, Mohd Sharullizam Ramli, and the special eye tracking equipment that is worn over her head and shoulders, Dr Mennie has spent the last year recording Tsunami's eye and body movements during the performance of complex actions such as locomotion, foraging for food and manipulation of small objects.

Tracking the eyes of an Orangutan

Tsunami was slowly introduced to the idea of wearing the eye tracking equipment that consists of a back pack containing a wireless transmitter. This pack back transmits data from two video cameras mounted on her head-band. As Tsunami performs various natural tasks -- foraging for food, using tools, moving around -- one camera films what she sees and the other camera films the movements of her right eye. Afterwards Dr Mennie and his students sit down and look at each video frame from this camera and write down the timing and location of these eye movements over the environment. As we make 3 eye movements per second, this is a very time consuming procedure.

Dr Mennie said: "I'm interested in the way we make predictive eye movements to places in the world where the stimulus is yet to appear and whether these predictive eye movements are there to assist the timing and placement of actions or whether they also help high-level mechanisms such as memory for our immediate space and the location of objects within it."

As part of his research Dr Mennie is also hoping to shed light on how these endangered animals navigate to help other scientists who seek to conserve the orangutan habitat. Knowledge of their foraging and search behaviour may help in the design and conservation of forest corridors.

Improving the life of captive animals

Orangutans are a critically endangered species -- they are also among the most intelligent primates. The Sumatran orangutan is on the IUCN Critically Endangered list. At Zoo Negara they are hoping Dr Mennie's research will help them develop their Enrichment Programme that is designed to get captive animals behaving as they would in the wild.

In the wild Tsunami would use her vision and her hands to guide her through the environment -- to find food, to use tools, to move and climb. To make Dr Mennie's task even harder, orangutans can grasp equally well with their feet. Faradilla Ain Roselan, Zoology Officer at Zoo Negara Enrichment Centre, said: "We want to keep our animals occupied so they don't display stereo typical behaviour such as pacing. We also want them to be able to exhibit any natural behaviour. Apes are highly intelligent animals and we don't want them to get bored. If we predict what they want to do maybe we can think of an enrichment that would suit their intelligence."

Long term goals

Currently Tsunami is in a specially built enclosure and this is proving to be a very useful beginning. Eventually he hopes to track this young orangutan when she is allowed to join her fellow red apes and Dr Mennie's long term goal is to record animals in the wild.

Dr Mennie said: "I could have done this research at any zoo. But the orangutan is a flagship symbol of Malaysia and I think it is fitting that this research is done here in Malaysia at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus."

With funding from the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Dr Mennie has already studied Orangutan eye movements in free ranging behaviour. MOHE has also funded a project that looked at the predictive eye movements of humans when they play the Malaysian game Congkak.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/2gm1FhC64Lk/121127130155.htm

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Italy's Berlusconi says considering political return

ROME (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday he was considering a political comeback for elections expected in March, but that the decision depended on who his center-left adversaries selected as their main candidate.

A center-left primary contest on Sunday left Democratic Party (PD) leader Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, ahead of his younger rival Matteo Renzi before a final runoff on December 2, thanks mainly to his strong support among traditional PD voters.

Renzi, the 37 year-old mayor of Florence who has run as a modernizer, is mistrusted by many on the left of the PD but has wider appeal among the broader electorate. A Renzi victory is widely seen as a deterrent to a Berlusconi comeback.

In the latest of several switches of position, Berlusconi, who has previously ruled out running, said Italy needed a complete transformation following mounting popular disgust with traditional politics.

"I think that it's right for someone who had the honor of leading the Italian government for almost 10 years to reflect on the way to achieve this modernization of Italy, this liberal revolution," he said, in an interview with his own Canale 5 television.

Berlusconi said he would decide what to do depending on whether the left's candidate turned out to be Renzi or former communist Bersani. "With Renzi, Italy could have a Social Democratic party like other countries such as Germany and England have," he said.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bersani-face-renzi-runoff-vote-italy-left-leader-011147995.html

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Account Control Technology Donates $22,676 for Breast Cancer ...

insideARM.com November 27, 2012 http://www.insidearm.com/daily/debt-collection-news/debt-collection/account-control-technology-donates-22676-for-breast-cancer-research/

Account Control Technology, Inc. (ACT), a national leader in delivering debt management and recovery solutions, is pleased to announce that the company recently donated $22,676 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a nonprofit organization which works to end breast cancer in the U.S. and throughout the world through ground-breaking research, community health outreach, advocacy and programs in more than 30 countries.

Advertisement

The donation is comprised of money raised in October 2012 by ACT?s employees in local offices nationwide, including Bakersfield, California; Canoga Park, California; Mason, Ohio; and San Angelo, Texas. The company matched employee donations and contributed additional funds in honor of its clients.

?We are pleased to support the work of Susan G. Komen, whose work in the fight against breast cancer hits home for many of our employees, clients, partners and communities,? said Nabil Kabbani, CEO of ACT. ?I am proud that ACT employees not only strive to deliver outstanding service, but they also are passionate about offering their time and resources to support worthy causes.?

Driven by a philosophy emphasizing ?People and Performance,? ACT employees have a history of delivering support to charitable and community organizations throughout the year. In October, employees participate in an annual ?ACT for a Cure? fundraiser to acknowledge National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and support Komen. Office employees run contests, raffles, bake sales and other events to encourage donations, which the company then matches. At other times of the year, ACT supports national organizations such as the American Cancer Society, as well as local charities in the communities served by its offices.

Account Control Technology, Inc. (ACT) is a national leader in providing debt management solutions for education, government, and consumer entities. Established in 1990 and wholly-owned by its original founders, ACT has been recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company for the past six years running. The company serves clients nationwide from four office locations: Bakersfield, California; Canoga Park, California; Mason, Ohio; and San Angelo, Texas. For more information, call 800-394-4228, or visit www.accountcontrol.com.

?

Posted in Debt Collection, Doing it Right, Government Receivables, Student Loan Collections .

Source: http://www.insidearm.com/daily/debt-collection-news/debt-collection/account-control-technology-donates-22676-for-breast-cancer-research/

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Climbing & Slackline ? Aspen Parks and Recreation

Come climb to new heights!! The Aspen Recreation Department is pleased to offer climbing at two different locations: Aspen?s largest indoor climbing facility at the Red Brick Recreation Department with over 3,100 square feet of climbing surface, and our 32 foot Climbing Tower at the Aspen Recreation Center with 4 auto belays.

Aspen Recreation Center | 0861 Maroon Creek Road | 970-544-4100
Winter Hours: Monday-Friday | 3:30-7pm & Saturday & Sunday | Noon to 7pm

Red Brick Climbing Wall | 110 E. Hallam Street, Suite 135 | 970-920-5140
Monday-Thursday: 9:00AM-9:00PM. Friday: 8:30AM-3:30PM No Twilight fee at Red Brick Facility

Slackline: Monday and Wednesday 7:00PM-9:00PM
Chicks Rock The Red Brick Class: Tuesday 6:00PM-7:00PM
Core and Climb Class: Thursday 12:00PM-1:00PM

Tags: climbing, Red Brick Recreation Center

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2012 at 9:12 am and is filed under Aspen Recreation Center, Red Brick Recreation Center. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.aspenrecreation.com/blog/aspen-recreation-center/climbing-slackline/

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Video: McCain to GOP: Stop talking about abortion

The top team in all the land

Keith Arnold looks back at the good, bad, and ugly from Notre Dame?s 22-13 win over USC while also getting you ready for January?s matchup that will pit the Irish against a SEC foe in a National Championship Game that is sure to thrill even the modest of college football fans.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/49971275#49971275

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Warren Buffett Calls Out Grover Norquist On Taxes - Business Insider

Warren Buffett is out with a NYT op-ed calling for a minimum tax on the rich.

We'll get to his specifics in a second, but the part that will get the most attention is his intro, where he calls out Grover Norquist, the powerful activist who gets Republicans to "pledge" that they'll never raise taxes.

Buffett writes that what Norquist doesn't get is that no businessman would ever turn down a good, profitable deal due to tax rates.

SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. ?This is a good one,? he says enthusiastically. ?I?m in it, and I think you should be, too.?

Would your reply possibly be this? ?Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you?re saying we?re going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent.? Only in Grover Norquist?s imagination does such a response exist.

With the fiscal cliff debate heating up, criticism of Grover Norquist and his influence is growing louder.

This weekend, a few different Republicans said they would consider violating the Norquist pledge as part of a Fiscal Cliff deal. That's leading to (possibly premature) headlines about how his influence is on the "wane."

As for Buffett's proposed ideas, he calls on Congress to establish a minimum 30 percent on tax on incomes between $1 million and $10 million, and for a 35 percent tax rate on incomes above that. As for existing proposals from the Obama administration that call on the rate to revert to pre-Bush levels for those making $250,000 or above, Buffett suggests a slightly higher threshold, perhaps even as high as $500k. He also says the government should aim for a policy of taking in 18.5 percent of GDP in taxes, while spending 21.5 percent of GDP.

Read the whole Op-Ed here >

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-calls-out-grover-norquist-on-taxes-2012-11

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Give the gift of premium Web services

16 hrs.

Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker

As you're trying to come up with great gifts for the holidays, software likely isn't the first thing that comes to mind. It can make a great gift for the right person, though, especially when they're not willing to shell out the cash themselves (as so few people are). Here are some of our favorite (and your favorite) premium Web services that not only boost productivity, but dish out a little holiday cheer too.

Note: Most of these are monthly subscriptions, so you can gift them however you like. Giving someone a few months or a year of a service is a great gift that you can tweak for your budget, and leave yourself room for the same gift next year if they really like it.

If a service doesn't offer a gift option, you can always use a prepaid credit card and give it to them for use with the service you're gifting.

SUBSCRIPTIONS?UNDER $5 A MONTH?

A personalized domain name
It?may sound silly for the No.?1 item on our list, but it's the cheapest subscription you can give, costing only $3.99 a year (that's 33 cents a month), and it's something everyone should have. They may not know it, but a personalized domain name can come in extremely handy, and will only get more important as time goes on. They can post their online CV or resume there, redirect it to their Twitter or Facebook page, and further control how the Internet sees you. The quicker you snatch it up before someone else with the same name, the better. We've linked to Namecheap below, since that's your favorite domain registrar, but check out our Hive Five for a few other options.

Crashplan+
If you have a friend who still isn't backing up their data, it's the perfect time to give them the gift of bulletproof backup thanks to Crashplan. Even if they're backing up to an external drive, that isn't good enough???they need something in the cloud so no matter what happens, their backups are always accessible and they don't become another sad story of lost data. Crashplan is our favorite option, being cheap and easy to set up, so get them in the habit now. If you're particularly cheap, RobotTaco notes that you can get a free subscription right now from this page.

LastPass and Xmarks Premium
If you know someone with multiple computers, the gift of synchronization can be a wonderful thing. Give them a combined subscription to LastPass and Xmarks for their passwords, bookmarks, history, open tabs, and everything else so they're able to browse easily from any computer.?

Xmarks is convenient, but LastPass is the most important app here, as it gives you the enhanced security everyone should have???make sure they create good passwords and turn on two-factor authentication, while you're at it, so they don't fall prey to the ever-increasing number of hacks happening nowadays.?

The pro versions give you access to the mobile apps for each service, more secure two-factor authentication with a thumb drive or YubiKey, plus an ad-free experience and priority support. You can buy each service separately, but buying them both together gets you a pretty sweet discount.

Pandora One
Everyone loves Pandora, but no one likes ads interrupting their music. Reader jrod3737recommended a subscription to Pandora One as a gift for just about anyone: it not only ditches the ads, but lets you use the Pandora desktop client, customize your experience with skins, and listen to higher quality audio all day long. You can either buy a month-to-month subscription or grab an entire year for a discounted price.

Evernote Premium
Evernote is still your favorite note-taking application, and it's only gotten better lately. If you know someone that isn't using Evernote yet???particularly if they need some extra organization in their life??a subscription to Evernote Premium is a great way to get them started. A premium subscription gets you more space per month, offline notebooks, collaborative notes, better speed, PDF search, priority support, an ad-free experience, and more. It's the perfect way to take someone's organization from good to awesome with one simple download.

SUBSCRIPTIONS UNDER $10 A MONTH

Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime's combination of two-day shipping and sizable library of streaming TV shows and movies makes a fantastic gift for?...?well, anyone who ever uses Amazon. And if they don't use Amazon, they will once they can buy anything with free two-day shipping. Of course, you could always share your two-day shipping benefits with them, but getting them their own subscription lets them stream movies too, which is always nice???especially if they have a home theater PC or streaming set-top box in their living room.

Netflix and Hulu Plus
For the true TV addict, grab them a subscription to Netflix and/or Hulu Plus so they can watch all their favorite movies and TV shows on demand. Netflix is great for movies and TV shows alike, while Hulu Plus is particularly good for watching current seasons of shows as they air. Both subscriptions let you stream to a set-top box, too, and are the perfect companions for ditching an expensive cable subscription. Grab one or both for your friends and help set them free from the shackles of cable TV.

Spotify Premium
If your friend has truly embraced streaming and switched to Spotify for their music-listening needs, they need a premium subscription.?

Not only will it get rid of the ads (which the cheaper "Unlimited" subscription will also do), but it gives them higher-quality audio and lets them listen on their iPhone or Android phone, truly completing the Spotify experience.

?It may not be ready to replace most people's libraries, but if you know someone whose fallen in love with it, you should help them go all-out with a Premium subscription.?

Alternatively, if you don't like Spotify, you can grab them a subscription to one of the other great music services out there, like Grooveshark or Rdio.

FOR THE BIG SPENDERS: SUBSCRIPTIONS $10 A MONTH AND UP

A VPN for privacy and international browsing
A VPN (virtual private network)?may seem like an ultra geeky gift, but it's something not everyone knows they need, and nobody wants to pay for. However, it can be useful for all sorts of people, but especially good for users looking for an extra bit of privacy (like bittorrent users) or, as reader JeshuaSanmentions, those living internationally (who?want to watch Hulu or listen to Spotify when it isn't available in their country). Every user is different, so hit the link below to see some of the VPNs we recommend.

• Choose a VPN (Subscriptions range from $7.99/month to $38/month)
  

Extra Dropbox space
Dropbox is one of our all-time favorite Web services, and while you can grab a lot of space for free, sometimes you just need to pony up for a premium subscription. A subscription to expanded space can be great for students, video editors with large files, or people that just want to sync their large musicor photo libraries across computers. Alternatively, you can also grab someone one of the cheaper options, like Google Drive, Skydrive, or Box.

A special thanks goes out to everyone who provided suggestions last week! It made putting together these guides a lot easier, and a better fit for you.

More?from Lifehacker:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/give-gift-premium-web-services-1C7209890

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Meet the Geeks December 2012 Events - Asheville Business ...

• WNC Linux Users Group
  December 1, 2012 from 12:00 pm ? December 1, 2012 2:00 pm
  Firestorm Cafe & Books, 48 Commerce St, Asheville, NC

  Monthly meeting for the WNC Linux Users Group?to provide technical support and host presentations for Linux users, including those who are new to the Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) movement. Never used Linux? We?ll help you learn how!

  For more information, visit WNC Linux Users Group.

• Asheville Area WordPress Group: Talk about WordPress Security
  December 5, 2012 from 7:00 pm ? December 5, 2012 9:00 pm
  NC Cooperative Extension Services, 94 Coxe Avenue, Asheville

  Use the Hilliard Street Entrance for the Extension Service Office.

  Join us for dinner and/or a drink and ?pre-meeting? discussions at Asheville Brewing Company. (You need to order by 6pm in order to be served and eat ? as the service there can be pretty slow.)

Source: http://ashevillebusinessnetworking.com/2012/11/meet-the-geeks-december-2012-events/

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Taking Care of Your Home's Heating and Cooling Systems - Kasa ...

Nov 24

Duct Cleaning St Louis Park MN Selecting an experienced professional who uses the quality materials and understands heating and cooling system is the most important thing if you need repairs for these systems. There are many brands of furnaces which all have distinct parts and functions. Depending on the type of house you live in, your home temperature and utility bill can improve dramatically if you buy the right furnace. Cooling systems are also very different and it is essential to use one that is the most effective. When you meet with a heating and cooling professional, they can evaluate your home and help choose the tools that best meets your needs. These specialists can also handle all varieties of heating and cooling repairs. Experience a large change in your year-round comfort with quality heating and cooling technicians working for you.

Posted in: Services.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2012 at 10:25 am and is filed under Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://kasadekriz.com/taking-care-of-your-homes-heating-and-cooling-systems/

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Technology Meets Legal Practice at our Second Law and Practice ...

Who wouldn?t want to learn tactics for increasing productivity, or how to implement technology to improve office efficiency?

For most solo practitioners and small firms, the work of running an office is often just as challenging as their legal practice. So, we offered our second Law and Practice Update last weekend, focusing on everything a general practitioner needs to consider when making improvements to their practice.?The seminar included substantive content for the major practice areas as well as technology advice and strategy for the small firm.

And we were thrilled by the response of the participants. ?I have attended both of the Law and Practice Update courses and strongly recommend them to all solo and small firm practitioners,? says Eric Harvie, a solo practitioner from Banff. ?Last year, I implemented several of [legal technology expert] Barron Henley?s suggestions regarding law firm technology and saw an immediate increase in productivity. And every lawyer would learn something from courses like ?Help! My Inbox is Exploding? or ?Drowning in Paper: Paper Reduction Strategies for Lawyers.?

?It really is an excellent opportunity for lawyers to come together for two full days to learn not only updates in the law, but also technological strategies for running your business,? says seminar chair Darryl Aarbo of Courtney Aarbo in Calgary. ?The program accounts for upwards of 12 hours of CPD, and provides really hands-on, practical tips. I think the technology aspect is so valuable, because as we all know, technology is constantly changing, but in a busy practice we don?t necessarily have time to keep up with the changes. A seminar like this helps make it all really doable. I tell lawyers that if they?re going to attend just one seminar a year, this is the one to go to.?

There are other advantages to attending as well, including a number of LESA coupons for use towards our live events and resources, and the chance to connect with other lawyers and exhibitors. ?For us, this kind of seminar is a fantastic opportunity to meet people in the legal community,? says Rebecca Hyder, a customer development specialist with econveyance?, our conference Gold Sponsor and an exhibitor. ?The technology aspect really connects to what we do and what we?re trying to promote within the legal community, as our software handles all aspects of a real estate file. We?re new to the Alberta market ? we?ve only been here a couple of years ? so it?s great to talk to so many people who are interested in technology and who are applying it in their firms. And it?s a great chance to touch base with some of our clients as well.?

Did you miss this year?s Law and Practice Update? Keep watch for our next one. As Eric Harvie says, ?I will be back next year.?

Source: http://blog.lesaonline.org/?p=1017

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gary graviton: incipient karlis: cbc news: Eco-Innovation Observatory ...

The Eco-Innovation Observatory (EIO) would like to invite you to share your views on the role of eco-innovation in the shift towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon Europe. We would like to consult representatives from academia, business, civil society and public administration by taking part in our questionnaire. Your insights will be used in the upcoming reports of the Observatory, including our final flagship annual publication. The survey has only three questions and is entirely anonymous.

Please follow this link to the questionnaire.

For more information on the Eco-Innovation Observatory, see www.eco-innovation.eu

-->

Source: http://seri.at/resource-use/2012/11/15/eco-innovation-observatory-launches-online-questionnaire/

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Source: http://blog-cbc-news.blogspot.com/2012/11/eco-innovation-observatory-launches.html

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Source: http://incipient-karlis.blogspot.com/2012/11/cbc-news-eco-innovation-observatory.html

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Source: http://artlara782.typepad.com/blog/2012/11/incipient-karlis-cbc-news-eco-innovation-observatory-launches.html

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Source: http://gary-graviton.blogspot.com/2012/11/incipient-karlis-cbc-news-eco.html

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Team solves birth and migration mysteries of cortex's powerful inhibitors, 'chandelier' cells

Team solves birth and migration mysteries of cortex's powerful inhibitors, 'chandelier' cells

Friday, November 23, 2012

The cerebral cortex of the human brain has been called "the crowning achievement of evolution." Ironically, it is so complex that even our greatest minds and most sophisticated science are only now beginning to understand how it organizes itself in early development, and how its many cell types function together as circuits.

A major step toward this great goal in neuroscience has been taken by a team led by Professor Z. Josh Huang, Ph.D., at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Today they publish research for the first time revealing the birth timing and embryonic origin of a critical class of inhibitory brain cells called chandelier cells, and tracing the specific paths they take during early development into the cerebral cortex of the mouse brain.

These temporal and spatial sequences are regarded by Huang as genetically programmed aspects of brain development, accounting for aspects of the brain that are likely identical in every member of a given species including humans. Exceptions to these stereotypical patterns include irregularities caused by gene mutations or protein malfunctions, both of which are now being identified in people with developmental disorders and neuropsychiatric illnesses.

Chandelier cells were first noticed only 40 years ago, and in the intervening years frustratingly little has been learned about them, beyond the fact that they "hang" individually among great crowds of excitatory cells in the cortex called pyramidal neurons, and that their relatively short branches make contact with these excitatory cells. Indeed, a single chandelier cell connects, or "synapses," with as many as 500 pyramidal neurons. Noting this, the great biologist Francis Crick decades ago speculated that chandelier cells exerted some kind of "veto" power over the messages being exchanged by the much more numerous excitatory cells in their vicinity.

Born in a previously undiscovered 'country'

After three years of painstaking work that has involved using new technologies to identify and trace neural cell progenitors in ways not previously possible, and to track them as they migrate to positions in the maturing cortex, Huang and colleagues, including Dr. Hiroki Taniguchi now at the Max Planck Florida Institute, have demonstrated that chandelier cells are born in a previously unrecognized portion of the embryonic brain, which they have named the VGZ (ventral germinal zone).

Huang, who has been on a decade-long quest to develop means of learning much more about the cortex's inhibitory cells (sometimes called "interneurons"), points out that while they are far less numerous than the excitatory pyramidal cells all around them, cells including chandelier cells that inhibit or modulate excitatory-cell messages play an indispensable role in balancing message flow and ultimately in determining the functional organization of excitatory neurons into meaningful groups.

This is all the more intriguing in the case of chandelier cells, Huang explains, because of their distinctive anatomy: one cell that can regulate the messages of 500 others in its vicinity is one that we need to know about if we want to understand how brain circuits work. Unlike other inhibitory cells, chandelier cells are known to connect with excitatory cells at one particular anatomical location, of great significance: a place called the axon initial segment (AIS) ? the spot where a "broadcasting" pyramidal cell generates its transmittable message. To be able to interdict 500 "broadcasters" at this point renders a single chandelier cell a very important player in message propagation and coordination within its locality.

Because of the strategic importance of such cells throughout the cortex, it has been a source of frustration to neuroscientists that they (and other inhibitory cells) have been difficult to classify. Huang has pursued a strategy of following them from their places of birth in the emerging cortex.

Many inhibitory cells come from a large incubator area called the MGE (medial ganglionic eminence); until now, it was not known that most chandelier cells are not born there, and indeed do not emerge until after the MGE has disappeared. Only at this point does the much smaller VGZ form, providing a place where neural precursor cells specifically give rise to chandelier cells.

The team learned that manufacture of a protein encoded by a gene called Nkx2.1 is among the signals marking the birth of a chandelier cell. The gene's action, they found, is also necessary to make the cells. Nkx2.1is a transcription factor, whose expression has previously been linked to the birth of other inhibitory neuronal types. Huang's team observes that it is the timing of Nkx2.1's expression in certain precursors -- following disappearance of the MGE and appearance of the VGZ -- that enabled them to track the birth, specifically, of chandelier cells.

Highly specific migration route and cortical destinations

"In addition to being surprised to discover that chandelier cells are born 'late'?after other inhibitory cells ? in a part of the cortex we didn't know about," says Huang, "our second surprise is that once born, these cells take a very stereotyped route into the cortex and assume very specific positions, in three cortical layers." (Layers 2, 5 and 6). "This leads us to postulate that other specific cortical cell types also have specific migration routes in development."

As Huang points out, his team's new discoveries about chandelier cells have implications for disease research, since it is known that the number and connective density of chandelier cells is diminished in schizophrenia. Associations of the same type have recently been made in epilepsy.

"To know the identity of a cell type in the cortex is in effect to know the intrinsic program that distinguishes it from other cell types. In the broadest terms, we are learning about those aspects of the brain development that make us human. 'Nurture,' or experience, also has a very important role in brain development. Our work helps clarify the 'nature' part of the nature/nurture mystery that has always fascinated us," Huang says.

###

"The spatial and temporal origin of chandelier cells in mouse cortex" appears online ahead of print November 22, 2012 in Science Express.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: http://www.cshl.org

Thanks to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 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/125442/Team_solves_birth_and_migration_mysteries_of_cortex_s_powerful_inhibitors___chandelier__cells

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Enterprise Cloud Consolidation In Europe: Claranet Buys Star (MessageLabs? Founders? Other Startup) For $88M

Some consolidation is afoot in the world of enterprise cloud services in Europe: Claranet, a managed service provider, is paying $88 million (?55 million) to acquire Star, a provider of cloud-based managed technology services. The move is a sign of how, while enterprise cloud services continue to grow in popularity, there is an increasing move to better service margins through scale and value-added services. Claranet says the deal will make it the largest provider of integrated hosting and network services to the mid market in the UK and continental Europe, with some 4,500 customers on its books.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/g5SAlDVRbwE/

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Drought worsens after weeks of improvement

ST. LOUIS (AP) ? The worst U.S. drought in decades has deepened again after more than a month of encouraging reports of slowly improving conditions, a drought-tracking consortium said Wednesday, as scientists struggled for an explanation other than a simple lack of rain.

While more than half of the continental U.S. has been in a drought since summer, rain storms had appeared to be easing the situation week by week since late September. But that promising run ended with Wednesday's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report, which showed increases in the portion of the country in drought and the severity of it.

The report showed that 60.1 percent of the lower 48 states were in some form of drought as of Tuesday, up from 58.8 percent the previous week. The amount of land in extreme or exceptional drought ? the two worst classifications ? increased from 18.3 percent to 19.04 percent.

The Drought Monitor's map tells the story, with dark red blotches covering the center of the nation and portions of Texas and the Southeast as an indication of where conditions are the most intense. Those areas are surrounded by others in lesser stages of drought, with only the Northwest, Florida and a narrow band from New England south to Mississippi escaping.

A federal meteorologist cautioned that Wednesday's numbers shouldn't be alarming, saying that while drought usually subsides heading into winter, the Drought Monitor report merely reflects a week without rain in a large chunk of the country.

"The places that are getting precipitation, like the Pacific Northwest, are not in drought, while areas that need the rainfall to end the drought aren't getting it," added Richard Heim, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. "I would expect the drought area to expand again" by next week since little rain is forecast in the Midwest in coming days.

He said there was no clear, scientific explanation for why the drought was lingering or estimate for how long it would last.

"What's driving the weather? It's kind of a car with no one at the steering wheel," Heim said. "None of the atmospheric indicators are really strong. A lot of them are tickling around the edges and fighting about who wants to be king of the hill, but none of them are dominant."

The biggest area of exceptional drought, the most severe of the five categories listed by the Drought Monitor, centers over the Great Plains. Virtually all of Nebraska is in a deep drought, with more than three-fourths in the worst stage. But Nebraska, along with the Dakotas to the north, could still see things get worse "in the near future," the USDA's Eric Luebehusen wrote in Wednesday's update.

The drought also has been intensifying in Kansas, the top U.S. producer of winter wheat. It also is entirely covered by drought, and the area in the worst stage rose nearly 4 percentage points to 34.5 percent as of Tuesday. Much of that increase was in southern Kansas, where rainfall has been 25 percent of normal over the past half year.

After a summer in which farmers watched helpless as their corn dried up in the heat and their soybeans became stunted, many are now worrying about their winter wheat.

It has come up at a rate on par with non-drought years, but the quality of the drop doesn't look good, according to the USDA. Nearly one-quarter of the winter wheat that germinated is in poor or very poor condition, an increase of 2 percentage points from the previous week and 9 percentage points worse than the same time in 2011. Forty-two percent of the plantings are described as in fair shape, the same as last week.

Farmers who might normally irrigate in such circumstances worry about low water levels in the rivers and reservoirs they use, and many are hoping for snow to ease the situation. But it would take a lot. About 20 inches of snow equals just an inch of actual water, and many areas have rain deficits of a foot or more.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-drought-worsens-weeks-improvement-164724509--finance.html

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