Celebrities Who Won Google Glass - Business Insider

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images

Google's #ifihadglass competition spurred a number of applications from everyday people, as well as from some high-profile celebrities.

Google is still announcing the winners of its #ifihadglass contest, but there's already handful of celebrities who have been selected.

Andrej Karpathy, a PhD student at Stanford,?created a database of the winners of Glass, sorted by the number of followers they have.?As of right now, there are only 2,318 people on the list, so there might be more celebrities out there with invitations to try Glass. Also, the list only takes into account people who won via Twitter, not via Google+.

Even though these celebrities won the contest, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll fork over the $1,500 to get a pair. But we bet it wouldn't do too much damage to their wallets.?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/celebrities-who-won-google-glass-2013-3

paul williams paul babeu kevin costner budweiser shootout animal house invincible jesse jackson

'G.I. Joe' commands No. 1 at box office with $41M

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? After a nine-month delay, "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" deployed to the top spot at the box office.

The action film starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum as the gun-toting military toys brought to life marched into the No. 1 position at the weekend box office, earning $41.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. "Retaliation" opened Wednesday at midnight, which helped bring its domestic total to $51.7 million.

Paramount postponed the sequel to 2009's "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra" last May from its original June opening date to convert the film to 3-D. The last-minute switcheroo came just weeks after "Battleship," another movie based on a Hasbro toy, sank at the box office. At that time, Paramount already began its advertising campaign for "Retaliation."

"It certainly vindicates the decision," said Don Harris, the studio's head of distribution. "Any time you make those sorts of moves, people always assume the worst. The truth is I'd seen this movie a long time ago in 2-D, and the movie worked in 2-D. It's not trying to be 'Schindler's List.' This movie is intended to be enjoyed as a big, action spectacle."

After debuting in the top spot last weekend, the 3-D animated prehistoric comedy "The Croods" from DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox slipped to the No. 2 spot with $26.5 million in its second weekend. The film features the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Catherine Keener as a cave family on the hunt for a new home.

Among the other new films this weekend, "Tyler Perry's Temptation" starring Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Lance Gross opened above expectations at No. 3 with $22.3 million, while the sci-fi adaptation "The Host" featuring Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, and Jake Abel as characters from the Stephenie Meyer novel landed at No. 6 in its debut weekend with a modest $11 million.

Overall, the weekend box office was on par with last year when "The Hunger Games" continued to dominate in its second weekend of release with $58.5 million. After a slow start, Hollywood's year-to-date revenues are still 12 percent behind last year, heading into next month when summer movie season unofficially kicks off with "Iron Man 3" on May 3.

"It's getting us back on track after many weekends of down trending box office," said Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. "Last weekend was a turning point with the strength of 'The Croods' and 'Olympus Has Fallen' doing better than expected. We're heading toward the summer movie season on solid footing. It's been a tough year so far."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" $41.2 million.

2. "The Croods," $26.5 million.

3. "Tyler Perry's Temptation," $22.3 million.

4. "Olympus Has Fallen," $14 million.

5. "Oz the Great and Powerful," $11.6 million.

6. "The Host," $11 million.

7. "The Call," $4.8 million.

8. "Admission," $3.2 million.

9. "Spring Breakers," $2.7 million.

10. "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," $1.3 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-31-Box%20Office/id-9da4089ad0ce45f6a19475396541a202

oolong tea survivor one world lil kim progeria what will my baby look like gary carter died cmas

North Gulch property attracts 'activity' | nashvillepost.com

To date, the North Gulch has seen very limited activity, with Eleven North being the only significant development within the modestly emerging urban pocket.

Given Northwestern Mutual Real Estate Services officials have not announced a start date for their 30-plus-acre site located north of Charlotte Avenue and, notwithstanding the rehabbing of the building now home to Anthem and the aforementioned Eleven North, the North Gulch continues to be a mixed-use district essentially in name only.

However, the recent demolition of two small buildings that fronted George L. Davis Boulevard and overlooked Interstate 40/65 may have helped place renewed focus on the area.

Nashville-based Professional Real Estate Developers owns six parcels comprising about 1.85 acres, with the Church Street building most recently home to Performance Studios as the last remaining structure on the site. The owners are asking $4 million for the land and the building.

Larry Beadle, a broker with the Nashville office of Colliers International and the man marketing the site, said the land has been for sale since last summer. The site (seen below in an image courtesy of Google Maps) is noteworthy, he said, because it is not common for almost two acres of downtown property with easy interstate access and located essentially between Midtown and the central business district to be assembled and placed on the market.

?It?s a prime location that would be very difficult to assemble today [in the general Gulch area],? Beadle said.

When asked if the demolition has resulted in increased interest from prospective buyers, Beadle simply said, ?There is activity on the site.?

Beadle said Professional Real Estate Developers wants to sell the property and invest in another site. He declined to disclose the other property.
?

Source: http://nashvillepost.com/blogs/postbusiness/2013/3/29/north_gulch_property_attracts_activity

hope solo hope solo tesla model s tesla model s act Black Ops 2 Secede

7 Things I Was Baffled By When I Started Online

I?d like to share some of the problems that prevented me making any money whatsoever for around 7-8 months after I began online almost exactly 3 years ago. I?ll also explain how I overcame them by giving some recommendations for each.

It?s quite interesting for me to see how my thinking and understanding of how to start and build a successful web business has changed over time.

But more importantly I hope you?ll be able to get a lot out of this because from talking to others I?ve learned that most people face the same challenges that I?ve experienced.

Let?s dive in with 7 things I was baffled by when I started out:?

1. How To Create Web Pages

Like all of us I visited lots of different websites on a daily basis but I really didn?t understand how to replicate them. Do you have to learn web design and HTML and get involved in the technical side of things?

Luckily, I was introduced to WordPress pretty early on. Although I have built a few pages in other systems (such as the free HTML editor Kompozer) I really never looked back.

What began as a blogging platform has now developed into a fully fledged content management system (CMS) for websites and for running a home business, there are very few cases when it makes sense to not use WordPress.

My Recommendation: If you don?t know WordPress. Learn it. Just create a simple personal blog and get acquainted. It?s time very well spent.

2. How To Get Traffic

I thought the only options were SEO (ranking your web pages high in Google) or Adwords (Google Paid ads).

Like most newcomers I didn?t want to risk any money so I went down the SEO path.

The trouble was by 2010 SEO was already becoming harder, more long term and increasingly uncertain. This didn?t stop me spending a small fortune on SEO software and training courses which resulted in virtually no revenue whatsoever.

My Recommendation: Traffic is a KEY element in your online success. So invest some time in learning about it. There are countless ways to promote your websites and many of them have been discussed on this blog (here and here?for example). Also, although I wouldn?t completely ignore SEO, I also highly recommend you don?t rely on it. Less than 10% of my traffic comes from SEO ? quite honestly I wouldn?t bother with it much at all!

3. Why The Websites Of Successful Marketers Didn?t Look Like Mine

During my ?SEO phase? I followed several ?gurus? who were very keen to tell me (and sell me) strategies which could rank my websites high in Google. Most of these involved setting up blogs, choosing the keywords, meta tags, headlines, H1 tags correctly and building backlinks to my site.

So how come when I visited these gurus? sites they had none of these things? I remember checking the backlinks and wondering why there weren?t any? How could they be making money if they didn?t seem to do the things they were telling me to do?

Also, a lot of their websites just had places for your name and email address (what I later learnt were called ?squeeze pages?) and had no content on them at all. Google wouldn?t rank these surely so I was baffled.

I was very na?ve really. But it just goes to show if you don?t know something then you just don?t know.

Of course, the reality was the the gurus were using joint ventures (JVs), affiliates and paid traffic to promote their websites. As silly as it might sound it really took me about 10 months to fully recognize this.

My Recommendation: Always ask yourself, ?Are the strategies that this person is teaching me what they actually use to make money themselves??. You can?t always be sure but being aware of this question really helps!

4. Who To Trust

A biggy.

As with any business ? online or offline ? there are scams and people who just want your money. In the internet marketing area there are definitely these kinds of people but also many very genuine businesses and marketers who provide solid products and services which can help you.

My Recommendation: Rather than expand on this here I will refer to a previous post where we covered this issue in detail.

5. Which Niche To Go Into

Again, usually a problem most of us have, especially at the early stage of our business.

This is partly related to ?I?m not an expert in anything? thinking but also because there are literally SO many different niches that it can become difficult to decide!

What I did was go into lots of niches. I don?t recommend this because you end up juggling so many balls that you can?t give the attention each niche deserves.

My Recommendation: Brainstorm niches you are interested in, check for sufficient audience size and profitability. Then pick one and go with it. Later on you can (as I have done) expand it more than one niche but that?s when you?ll have the experience of setting them up and promoting them. Also, understand you don?t need to be an expert: 1) You can learn, 2) You can get another expert to help (e.g., by interviewing them), 3) Many products (e.g., software) don?t rely on you being an expert at all.

6. How Can I Keep Up With The Information Coming At Me

Yes, the old information overload problem here!

What I specifically referring to though is the emails that I received as a result of signing up to people?s lists.

This distraction can manifest in at least 2 ways: 1) You are reading emails instead of implementing and taking action, 2) You get mixed messages and conflicting information which stops you taking action on your current plans by introducing doubt and shiny object syndrome.

My Recommendation: Unsubscribe from any list which just promotes things all the time. Follow the people you trust (or at worst think you trust!) ? see above for tips on this. Pick one project and stick with it, emotionally detach (as best you can) and work on your business (imagine you are consulting on someone else?s business which helps) instead of in your business.

7. Sales Funnels

Again I?m admitting naivety here but after coming online I really didn?t understand the importance of having a funnel or even what one was!

Basically, the sales funnel is process people go through after they go up the ?on ramp? into your business.

For example, they might sign up at for your squeeze page, get offered a promotion on the thank you page, receive email follow ups which offer free content and promotions which increase in price and value.

My recommendation: Be aware all the time of sales funnels and every time you purchase something or sign up for something watch what happens and take notes. I actually have a Word files called ?Other Marketers Swipe? which I take notes on what I see from my journeys around the internet in different niches.

3 Final Tips

Overall, If I could go back in time and speak to myself when I started out I?d give this advice:

• Focus soley on building a list of subscribers in a profitable niche that you are interested in
• Go to live events and meetups
• Invest some time and money in solid training from people who have achieved what you want to achieve

If you can relate to any of my experiences I?ve described in this post then this is the same advice I?d give to you. Regardless of your history and where you are right now with your business the PERFECT time is NOW!

What things have baffled you in terms on setting up a successful web business? Please LIKE/TWEET if you enjoyed this and start some discussion by dropping a comment below. Cheers, Rob.

0

Source: http://www.gainhigherground.com/7-things-i-was-baffled-by-when-i-started-online/

apple store down apple live blog ohio primary cell phone jammer g8 summit netanyahu aipac

A note on comments (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295409962?client_source=feed&format=rss

aspirin aspirin 21 jump street illinois primary results acapulco mexico hines ward robert deniro

Bee deaths stir up renewed buzz

From 2012: Honeybees may be victims of widely used insecticides. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

This past winter has been exceptionally rough for honeybees ??and although it's too early to say exactly why, the usual suspects range from pesticides that appear to cause memory loss to pests that got an exceptionally early start last spring.

Friday marked the start of an annual survey that asks beekeepers to report how many bees they lost over the winter, conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership, the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The advance word is that the results will be brutal.??The New York Times, for example, quoted beekeepers as saying the losses reached levels of 40 to 50 percent?? which would be double the average reported last year.

One beekeeper in Montana was quoted as saying that his bees seemed health last spring, but in September, "they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy."

---

Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an entomologist at the University of Maryland who is one of the leaders of the survey team, said he can't predict what the past winter's average loss figure will be. The beekeepers' reports are being solicited online for the next two weeks, and the figures are due for release on May 7.

"What I can say is, when we were in California this year, the strength of the colonies that were there was significantly lower than it was in previous years," vanEngelsdorp told NBC News.?

Pesticides at issue
That's consistent with a mysterious ailment known as colony collapse disorder, which has stirred scientists' concern for the past decade. The malady almost certainly due to combination of factors ??including the Varroa mite, a single-celled parasite known as Nosema, several varieties of viruses, and pesticides. Researchers point to one particular class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, as a prime suspect.

Neonicotinoid-based pesticides are commonly applied as a coating on corn seeds, but the chemicals can persist in the environment. Although they have low toxicity for mammals, they've been found to have a significant neurotoxic effect on insects, including bees. Several European countries have banned neonicotinoids, the European Union has been looking at a wider ban, and the Environmental Protection Agency is considering new limitations as well. Just last week, a lawsuit called on the EPA to suspend the use of two types of neonicotinoids immediately.

Two recently published studies add to the concern: This week, researchers report in Nature Communications that neonicotinoids block the part of a bee's brain that associates scents with foods. They suggest that without that functionality, the bees effectively forget that floral scents mean food is nearby, and thus die off before they can pollinate. A study published in January in the Journal of Experimental Biology found a similar link to problems with scent-related learning and memory.

Mild winter, dry summer
Although neonicotinoids are currently front and center in the debate over colony collapse disorder, they're not necessarily the primary reason for this winter's dramatic dip in bee colonies.

VanEngelsdorp noted that the winter of 2011-2012 was easy on the bees: Losses amounted to just 21.9 percent, compared with a 2006-2011 average of 33 percent. However, the mild winter was kind to the bees' pests as well. VanEngelsdorp speculated that Varroa mites may have gained an early foothold in the hives last spring. By the time beekeepers started their treatments on the usual schedule, it was too late to keep the mites from weakening the colonies. That would help explain why the past winter's losses were worse than usual.

Scott Bauer / USDA via AP

A worker bee carries a Varroa mite, visible in this close-up view.

California beekeeper Randy Oliver, who discusses industry trends on the Scientific Beekeeping blog, said the past summer's drought was also a factor: "When there's a drought, the bees are in poor shape with the food," he told NBC News. He said he and other beekeepers predicted that there'd be heavy winter losses last July, when the scale of the drought became clear.

Heavy losses are bad news, and if bee colonies are becoming progressively weaker, that's worse news. It's not just because of the honey: The Department of Agriculture says that bee pollination is responsible for more than $15 billion in increased crop value each year. A bee scarcity increases costs for the farmers who need them for pollination, and that could lead to higher food prices. But Oliver said it's important to keep a sense of perspective about the bad news.

"The situation with the bees is not dire," he said. "The bees are doing OK. There's no danger that the bees will go extinct. ... That's just not true."

More about bees:

---

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2a24ed5c/l/0Lcosmiclog0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C290C175187930Ebee0Edeaths0Estir0Eup0Erenewed0Ebuzz0Dlite/story01.htm

Pumpkin Pie Recipe wii u wii u American Music Awards turkey brine Imessage Not Working mc hammer

FX network to start a younger-skewing channel, FXX

NEW YORK (AP) ? FX is spinning off a new cable network aimed at young adult viewers.

Launching Sept. 2, FXX will join big brother FX along with the movie-oriented FXM. All three networks will share the same sensibility, FX Networks president John Landgraf said in making the announcement Thursday. It's a mindset summed up by the brand's new tagline, "Fearless."

"All told, the three networks will air 25 original series in the next few years," he added, calling that figure comparable to any of the major broadcast networks.

The lineup for FXX will consist of original series, movies and acquired series targeting adults 18 to 34, a slightly younger demographic than the 18-to-49 audience FX attracts, Landgraf said. FXX will initially be available in 74 million TV homes.

The new channel will be anchored by the comedies "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "The League," two veteran series that until now have originated on FX. In addition, "Legit" will move to FXX, as well as the FX late-night series "Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell," which will expand to a five-nights-per-week schedule.

Coming to FX this July is a new drama series titled "The Bridge." Starring Demian Bichir and Diane Kruger, it centers on two detectives hunting down a killer operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

The pilot for another future series, "Tyrant," will be directed this summer by two-time Oscar winner Ang Lee.

And FX's first limited series will be "Fargo," inspired by the acclaimed 1996 film of the same name. This 10-episode drama, which will tell an all-new story, will be executive-produced by the film's creators, Joel and Ethan Coen.

In another announcement, the company said that, this fall, FX Networks will launch its FXNOW app, allowing cable and satellite subscribers to access programming from the FX suite of channels.

___

Online:

http://www.fxnetworks.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-28-TV-FX%20Networks/id-8c3d6dc48c9849fdb3b5dbec0d3a3157

Bacon Number Kate Middleton photos Chi Magazine Kate Middleton Nude Photos glee glee boxing news

Rapper Gucci Mane denied bond in assault case

ATLANTA (AP) ? Gucci Mane has been denied bond on charges stemming from a fan's accusation that the rapper hit him in the head with a champagne bottle at an Atlanta nightclub.

A fan says the rapper, whose real name is Radric Davis, hit him in the club's V.I.P. area March 16 while he tried to take a picture with Gucci Mane. The fan, James Lettley, says he needed 10 stitches.

Davis was in custody on a charge of aggravated assault with a weapon and appeared in court Wednesday.

The rapper's attorney, Drew Findling, tells WSB-TV (http://bit.ly/XdhFoP ) that Davis' criminal history made it difficult for a judge to set bond. Fulton County jail records show Davis has been arrested 10 times since 2005.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rapper-gucci-mane-denied-bond-assault-case-131949635.html

checkers imbibe msg network ray j anthony shadid gary carter this means war

Turing machine built from artificial muscles may lead to smart prosthetics

In the hierarchy of computing hardware, artificial muscle doesn't really even register: it's usually a target for action, not the perpetrator. The University of Auckland has figured out a way to let those muscles play a more active role. Its prototype Turing machine uses a set of electroactive polymer muscles to push memory elements into place and squeeze piezoresistive switches, performing virtually any calculation through flexing. The proof-of-concept computer won't give silicon circuits any threat when it's running at just 0.15Hz and takes up as much space as a mini fridge, but the hope is to dramatically speed up and shrink down future iterations to where there are advanced computers that occupy the same size as real muscles. Researchers ultimately envision smart prosthetic limbs with near-natural reflexes, completely soft robots with complex gestures and even a switch from digital to analog computing for some tasks. Although we're quite a distance away from any of those muscle-bound ideas becoming everyday realities, it's good to at least see them on the horizon.

Filed under: Robots, Science, Alt

Comments

Via: Phys.org

Source: Applied Physics Letters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/29/turing-machine-built-from-artificial-muscles/

Remember Remember The 5th Of November African painted dogs What Time Do Polls Open Krysten Ritter v for vendetta Voting Locations atlanta falcons

Springpad note-taking service gets interface overhaul, now an even worthier rival to Evernote

Springpad may lack Evernote's commercial clout, but it makes up for it in a number of ways -- not least with free-of-charge features like offline access from its mobile apps (which certain rivals charge for) and Pinterest-style sharing options. The interface hasn't been a particular strong point, but that could be about to change as version 4.0 has just gone live for at least some users of the web interface. The new UI centers everything on three key buttons along the top:

• Springs -- which gives you immediate access to your latest notes, regardless of which device you made them on
• Notebooks -- for organizing your notes into projects
• Search & Do -- which, needless to say, lets you search your notes, but also suggests activities based to-do tasks you've created.

The same, simplified philosophy is due to hit Springpad's iOS and Android apps soon, although there's no sign of that happening just yet. In meantime, check out the web interface for yourself at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile

Comments

Source: Springpad

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/springpad-notetaking-platform-gets-interface-overhaul/

Amanda Todd washington nationals Gary Collins bus driver uppercut Alex Karras BCS Rankings 2012 vampire diaries

Germany urged to grant Muslims days off for religious festivals

BERLIN (Reuters) - Muslims living in Germany should be granted two days of official holiday a year to mark important religious festivals, a leading member of the country's Muslim community said, drawing criticism from within Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling conservatives.

Aiman Mazyek told Thursday's edition of the regional Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) that providing German Muslims with a legal holiday in the holy fasting month of Ramadan and another during the Feast of the Sacrifice would be "an important sign of integration".

"It would underline tolerance in our society," said Mazyek, who is chairman of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, adding that Muslims in public services such as the police could stand in for colleagues over Christian holidays like Easter.

Germany has sometimes faced accusations of not doing enough to integrate its Muslim population, estimated to number around four million, mostly of Turkish origin. But some German conservatives say the onus is on Muslims to adapt to the traditions and customs of a mainly Christian-based society.

Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent member of Merkel's traditionally Catholic Christian Democrats (CDU), rejected Mazyek's call, saying there was "no Islamic tradition in Germany" and that religious holidays here reflected the country's Christian heritage.

Another CDU lawmaker, Patrick Sensburg, urged respect among Germans for existing Christian holidays and more shopping restrictions on Sundays.

Guntram Schneider, social minister in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia for the center-left Social Democrats, expressed concern over the economic costs of giving Muslims two days off.

Friday and Monday will be public holidays in Germany marking Easter.

(Reporting by Gareth Jones; Editing by Noah Barkin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germany-urged-grant-muslims-days-off-religious-festivals-131739388.html

west side story final four 2012 bridesmaids winning lottery numbers megamillions winner kansas jayhawks mega millions results

Quitting marshmallow test can be a rational decision

Mar. 26, 2013 ? A psychological experiment known as "the marshmallow test" has captured the public's imagination as a marker of self control and even as a predictor of future success. This test shows how well children can delay gratification, a trait that has been shown to be as important to scholastic performance as traditional IQ.

New research from University of Pennsylvania psychologists suggests, however, that changing one's mind about delaying gratification can be a rational decision in situations when the timing of the payoff is uncertain.

The research was conducted by assistant professor Joseph Kable and postdoctoral researcher Joseph McGuire, both of the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences.

The study was published in the journal Psychological Review.

In the classic marshmallow test, researchers give children a choice between one marshmallow and two. After the children enthusiastically choose two, the experimenter says that they need to leave for "a few minutes" or "a little while." The children are also told that, if they can hold off eating the one marshmallow until the researcher returns, they can have the two marshmallows they prefer. With the children left alone in the room, hidden cameras track how long they resist temptation. Most try to wait but end up caving within a few minutes.

"The kids' responses seem illogical -- if you decided to wait in the first place, why wouldn't you wait the whole way through?" Kable said.

This behavior was an intriguing puzzle for Kable; he studies how people make value-based decisions, especially when they require comparing the value of something in the present with something else in the future. But, in conducting his own variants of the marshmallow test, he found that a key fact had been glossed over in both popular and academic discussions: the children don't know how long they will have to wait.

"I didn't even know that there was uncertainty in the marshmallow test until we started trying to do that type of experiment ourselves on adults and weren't getting any interesting behavior," Kable said. "That the kids don't know how long it's going to be until the researcher returns changes the entire decision problem!"

This confusion may stem from the explanations provided for children's decisions in the marshmallow test. Some of the researchers who have employed the marshmallow test and its variants have hypothesized that participants' decision to eat the marshmallow could be attributed to a strong impulse overriding the original decision to wait, or that the ability to wait was drawing on a reserve of self control that is depleted over time. Since these hypotheses make the same predictions even when there is no uncertainty, the uncertainty was often downplayed.

Kable and McGuire's analysis of data from earlier marshmallow-test studies showed problems for these hypotheses, however. If reversing the decision to wait was a function of the wearing down of self control, the time at which children eat the first marshmallow should be clustered in the middle or towards the end of the waiting period. Instead, children who gave up waiting tended to do so within the first few minutes.

After this analysis, Kable and McGuire did their own survey-based research to see how people estimate the lengths of waiting times in different situations.

The researchers asked participants to imagine themselves in a variety of scenarios, such as watching a movie, practicing the piano or trying to lose weight. Participants were told the amount of time they had been at the activity and were asked to respond how long they thought it would be until they reached their goal or the end.

The results showed a marked difference between the scenario with a relatively well-defined length and those that were more ambiguous.

"Our intuition is that when we are waiting for something, the longer we wait the closer and closer we get to that thing, which is what we see when we ask people about familiar things, like how long a movie will last," Kable says. "But what we've found is that, if you don't know anything about when the outcome will occur, the longer you wait the more you think you're getting farther and farther away from that outcome."

While the marshmallow test remains a good predictor of who is better or worse at delaying gratification, Kable's research suggests the mechanism behind that ability needs to be reinterpreted. It may also suggest some tools and techniques people can use to improve self control, or at least become aware of situations where delaying gratification will be particularly challenging.

"This is exciting to us because it suggests a way to get people to persist to the end," Kable said. "Your previous experience and your expectations can change your behavior, so you need to give them experiences that provide them with the right kinds of expectations."

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania.

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

---

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/hABE1hnohKo/130326194138.htm

robyn texas relays meniscus the colony ncaa final four 2012 uk vs louisville university of kansas

Google adds Street View to ghost town inside Japan nuclear zone

AP / Google

This March 2013 image released by Google shows its camera-equipped Street View vehicle as it moves through Namie in Japan, a nuclear no-go zone where former residents have been unable to live since they fled from radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant two years ago.

By Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

TOKYO? ? Concrete rubble litters streets lined with shuttered shops and dark windows. A collapsed roof juts from the ground. A ship sits stranded on a stretch of dirt flattened when the tsunami roared across the coastline. There isn't a person in sight.

Google Street View is giving the world a rare glimpse into one of Japan's eerie ghost towns, created when the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami sparked a nuclear disaster that has left the area uninhabitable.

---

The technology pieces together digital images captured by Google's fleet of camera-equipped vehicles and allows viewers to take virtual tours of locations around the world, including faraway spots like the South Pole and fantastic landscapes like the Grand Canyon.

AP / Google

This screenshot, made from the Google Maps site provided March 27, 2013 by Google, shows stranded ships left as a testament to the power of the tsunami which hit the area two years ago.

Now it is taking people inside Japan's nuclear no-go zone, to the city of Namie, whose 21,000 residents have been unable to return to live since they fled the radiation spewing from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant two years ago.

Koto Naganuma, 32, who lost her home in the tsunami, said some people find it too painful to see the places that were so familiar yet are now so out of reach.

She has only gone back once, a year ago, and for a few minutes.

"I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited I can take a look at those places that are so dear to me," said Naganuma. "It would be hard, too. No one is going to be there."

Namie Mayor Tamotsu Baba said memories came flooding back as he looked at the images shot by Google earlier this month.

He spotted an area where an autumn festival used to be held and another of an elementary school that was once packed with schoolchildren.

"Those of us in the older generation feel that we received this town from our forbearers, and we feel great pain that we cannot pass it down to our children," he said in a post on his blog.

"We want this Street View imagery to become a permanent record of what happened to Namie-machi in the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster."

Street View was started in 2007, and now provides images from more than 3,000 cities across 48 countries, as well as parts of the Arctic and Antarctica.

More on Street View tours:

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

?

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/2a14fe05/l/0Lscience0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C270C174918350Egoogle0Eadds0Estreet0Eview0Eto0Eghost0Etown0Einside0Ejapan0Enuclear0Ezone0Dlite/story01.htm

obama state of the union address 2012 mitt romney tax return flip saunders academy award nominations cynthia nixon cspan state of the union drinking game

Europe's financial crisis leads to suicide surge

LONDON (AP) ? The harsh spending cuts introduced by European governments to tackle their crippling debt problems have not only pitched the region into recession ? they are also being partly blamed for outbreaks of diseases not normally seen in Europe and a spike in suicides, according to new research.

Since the crisis first struck in 2008, state-run welfare and health services across Europe have seen their budgets cut, medical treatments rationed and unpopular measures such as hospital user fees introduced.

Those countries that have slashed public spending the hardest ? namely Greece, Spain and Portugal ? have fared the worst medically.

"Austerity measures haven't solved the economic problems and they have also created big health problems," said Martin McKee, a professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the research.

He said worsening health was driven not just by unemployment, but by the lack of a social welfare system to fall back on. "People need to have hope that the government will help them through this difficult time," he said.

The paper was published online Wednesday in a special series of the journal Lancet.

McKee said Greece in particular was struggling. Based on government data, he and colleagues found suicides rose by 40 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year. Last year, the country also reported an exponential rise in the number of HIV cases among drug users, due in part to addicts sharing contaminated syringes after needle exchange programs were dropped.

In recent years, Greece has also battled outbreaks of malaria, West Nile virus and dengue fever.

"These are not diseases we would normally expect to see in Europe," said Willem de Jonge, general director of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Greece.

In 2011, MSF helped Greece tackle a malaria outbreak that broke out after authorities scrapped spraying programs to kill mosquitoes.

"There's a strong willingness in the government to respond (to health problems) but the problem is a lack of resources," de Jonge said.

Outside Madrid's Hospital Clinico San Carlos, several patients grumbled about deteriorating medical care.

"The cutbacks are noticeable in many ways," said Mari Carmen Cervera, 54, an unemployed nurse. Cervera's mother was initially admitted to the hospital with a serious heart problem that required surgery. Cervera says her mother was discharged too early and had to be brought back when she had trouble breathing one night.

"While she was (hospitalized), she wasn't being properly washed by the nursing staff, so I had to do it myself," she said. "I personally think what has happened to my mother is a consequence of negligence and I am going to make an official complaint as soon as (she) is well enough to come home again."

Hans Kluge of the World Health Organization's European office, advised countries against radical health reforms during an economic crisis. "In every health system, there is fat to cut," he said, recommending countries start with straightforward measures such as buying more generic drugs or eliminating unnecessary hospital beds.

Still, McKee and colleagues found not all countries mired in debt are unhealthy. Despite massive losses in its banking sector, Iceland rejected a bailout deal prescribed by the International Monetary Fund. McKee and colleagues didn't find any bump in suicides and the population may even be healthier since it nearly went bankrupt ? which could have been a result of global junk food chains pulling out of the country due to rising food costs.

Elsewhere, the researchers noted a drop in road accidents as more drivers opted for public transport. In turn, that has led to a shortage of organ donations and transplants, particularly in Spain and Ireland.

___

AP Writer Harold Heckle in Madrid contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-26-EU-MED-Financial-Crisis-Health/id-677afb7f3d1b4fc6b71a314c9270d319

tim gunn built to last obama state of the union address 2012 mitt romney tax return flip saunders academy award nominations cynthia nixon

Little hope seen for millions priced out of health overhaul

By Tom Brown

MIAMI (Reuters) - Millions of Americans will be priced out of health insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul because of a glitch in the law that adversely affects people with modest incomes who cannot afford family coverage offered by their employers, a leading healthcare advocacy group said on Tuesday.

Tax credits are a key component of the law and the White House has said the credits, averaging about $4,000 apiece, will help about 18 million individuals and families pay for health insurance once the Affordable Care Act takes full effect, beginning in January 2014.

The tax credits are geared toward low and middle-income Americans who do not have access to affordable health insurance coverage through an employer. The law specifies that employer-sponsored insurance is affordable so long as a worker's share of the premium does not exceed 9.5 percent of the worker's household income.

In its rule making, or final interpretation of the law, the IRS said affordability should be based strictly on individual coverage costs, however.

That means that, even if family coverage through an employer-based plan far exceeds the 9.5 percent cutoff, workers would not be eligible for the tax credits to help buy insurance for children or non-working dependents.

"It's an issue. It needs to be fixed," Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an influential healthcare advocacy group said on Tuesday, referring to what he called "the family glitch problem."

He spoke on a teleconference calling attention to a report, released by his organization on Tuesday, that said more than 1.7 million Floridians will be eligible for the new premium tax credits next year.

'TEA PARTY INFUSION'

"The tax credit subsidies are a game changer. They will help make health coverage affordable for huge numbers of uninsured families in Florida who would have been priced out of the health coverage and care they need," Pollack said.

He had no estimate for the number of people in Florida affected by the affordability question and IRS policy. But he said there was little hope for a legislative fix in Congress, where the House is controlled by Republicans still bent on repealing Obamacare.

The problem comes on top of another more contentious healthcare issue in Florida, where the state legislature has opposed Republican Governor Rick Scott's endorsement of an expansion of Medicaid. Without the expansion, envisioned under Obama's 2010 reforms, Pollack said about 1.8 million Floridians would be left without healthcare coverage.

"It would mean that the poorest of the poor really would be left out in the cold," he said.

Pollack was joined on the teleconference by Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congressional champion of healthcare reform who also chairs the Democratic National Committee.

"I think one only has to look at the budget the Republicans crammed through the House last week, with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act attached to it, to know that the odds of adding coverage and improving coverage in Obamacare in this Tea Party-infused House of Representatives is very unlikely," she said.

"The way to improve this law and to address concerns that have come up with it is not to repeal it, not to throw it out, but to simply make modifications to it. It would be wonderful if we had Republican colleagues in our chamber, on the other side of the aisle, who were willing to sit down and do that."

Speaking after the call, Families USA health policy director Kathleen Stoll told Reuters recent studies showed that anywhere between 2 million and 4 million people across the United States would be adversely affected by the federal rule limiting aid and the IRS interpretation of whether an employer's health plan is affordable.

"We'd like to see it fixed because it clearly doesn't reflect what Congress intended," Stoll said.

"It could mean the difference between being able to move in to purchasing private insurance and not purchasing private insurance. Hopefully within the next couple of years there will be room to fix it."

(Reporting by Tom Brown. Editing by Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/little-hope-seen-millions-priced-health-overhaul-213934894--business.html

eddie long ufc 143 weigh ins micron ceo glenn miller who do you think you are superpac steve appleton

Developing our sense of smell

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

When our noses pick up a scent, whether the aroma of a sweet rose or the sweat of a stranger at the gym, two types of sensory neurons are at work in sensing that odor or pheromone. These sensory neurons are particularly interesting because they are the only neurons in our bodies that regenerate throughout adult life?as some of our olfactory neurons die, they are soon replaced by newborns. Just where those neurons come from in the first place has long perplexed developmental biologists.

Previous hypotheses about the origin of these olfactory nerve cells have given credit to embryonic cells that develop into skin or the central nervous system, where ear and eye sensory neurons, respectively, are thought to originate. But biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now found that neural-crest stem cells?multipotent, migratory cells unique to vertebrates that give rise to many structures in the body such as facial bones and smooth muscle?also play a key role in building olfactory sensory neurons in the nose.

"Olfactory neurons have long been thought to be solely derived from a thickened portion of the ectoderm; our results directly refute that concept," says Marianne Bronner, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology at Caltech and corresponding author of a paper published in the journal eLIFE on March 19 that outlines the findings.

The two main types of sensory neurons in the olfactory system are ciliated neurons, which detect volatile scents, and microvillous neurons, which usually sense pheromones. Both of these types are found in the tissue lining the inside of the nasal cavity and transmit sensory information to the central nervous system for processing.

In the new study, the researchers showed that during embryonic development, neural-crest stem cells differentiate into the microvillous neurons, which had long been assumed to arise from the same source as the odor-sensing ciliated neurons. Moreover, they demonstrated that different factors are necessary for the development of these two types of neurons. By eliminating a gene called Sox10, they were able to show that formation of microvillous neurons is blocked whereas ciliated neurons are unaffected.

They made this discovery by studying the development of the olfactory system in zebrafish?a useful model organism for developmental biology studies due to the optical clarity of the free-swimming embryo. Understanding the origins of olfactory neurons and the process of neuron formation is important for developing therapeutic applications for conditions like anosmia, or the inability to smell, says Bronner.

"A key question in developmental biology?the extent of neural-crest stem cell contribution to the olfactory system?has been addressed in our paper by multiple lines of experimentation," says Ankur Saxena, a postdoctoral scholar in Bronner's laboratory and lead author of the study. "Olfactory neurons are unique in their renewal capacity across species, so by learning how they form, we may gain insights into how neurons in general can be induced to differentiate or regenerate. That knowledge, in turn, may provide new avenues for pursuing treatment of neurological disorders or injury in humans."

Next, the researchers will examine what other genes, in addition to Sox10, play a role in the process by which neural-crest stem cells differentiate into microvillous neurons. They also plan to look at whether or not neural-crest cells give rise to new microvillous neurons during olfactory regeneration that happens after the embryonic stage of development.

###

California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu

Thanks to California Institute of Technology 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.

This press release has been viewed 21 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127460/Developing_our_sense_of_smell

Kids Choice Awards 2013 Joe Weider Florida Gulf Coast Golf Channel Andy Enfield opm La Salle University

'Moderate' New England red tide forecasted for 2013

Mar. 25, 2013 ? New England is expected to experience a "moderate" red tide this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists studying the toxic algae that cause blooms in the Gulf of Maine. The "red tide" is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Red tide typically occurs annually along some portions of the Gulf of Maine coast. This year's outlook is similar to the 2012 red tide which was also classified as "moderate."

As with the past five forecasts for this region, the 2013 outlook is based on the quantities of the A. fundyense in its cyst (dormant) state detected in Gulf of Maine sediments last fall. These data are combined with a computer model to produce a range of bloom scenarios based on previous years' conditions. This year, the team also used a forecast of toxicity impact developed from 34 years of historical data as part of the 2013 outlook. The 2013 bloom is expected to fall somewhere in the middle in terms of toxicity impact, justifying a "moderate" forecast done by the established method.

"This region is very fortunate to have a long time series of cyst abundance data, toxicity records in shellfish, and long-term measurements of ocean conditions from ships and moored instrumented buoys to develop these two complementary approaches to the seasonal forecast," said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Don Anderson.

The forecast team emphasizes the need to consult state and local management agencies for updated harvesting closure information. In order to protect public health, shellfish beds are closed when toxicities rise above a quarantine level, often during the peak harvesting season. Due to effective monitoring by state agencies, there have been no illnesses from legally harvested shellfish in recent years, despite some severe blooms during that time period. There have been, however, several severe poisonings of individuals who ignored closure signs.

"Red tide is a chronic problem throughout the Gulf of Maine, affecting commercial and recreational harvesting interests," said Chris Nash, shellfish program manager for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. "State agencies are responsible for monitoring toxicity levels in shellfish harvest areas and implementing harvest closures when needed. As a state manager, regional-scale, seasonal outlooks help us plan and use limited monitoring resources effectively. Ultimately our goals are to protect public health and give consumers confidence in the quality of the seafood products they purchase from markets and restaurants, and these forecasts are useful in realizing those goals."

Project researchers regularly share their field observations and models with more than 150 coastal resource and fisheries managers in six states as well as federal agencies such as NOAA, the FDA and the EPA. Real-time forecasts are updated on a weekly basis and additional information will be provided on the "Current Status" page of the Northeast PSP website. The National Weather Service is also providing extended hydrological and meteorological outlooks to accompany the bloom forecasts.

"NOAA-funded research has led to the development of seasonal forecasts which aid in monitoring and planning for red tides," said Quay Dortch, program coodinator for NOAA's Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) Program. "These forecasts will be an important part of the Operational HAB Forecasting System NOAA is developing to reduce the impacts of harmful algae."

The forecasting project is a collaboration of investigators from NOAA's National Ocean Service, National Weather Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, WHOI, NCSU, University of Maine, the FDA, Maine Department of Marine Resources, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the North Atlantic Clam Association. Funding is provided through the NOAA program Prevention, Control and Mitigation of Harmful Algal Blooms (PCMHAB), led by Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI). Long-term support for Alexandrium studies in the Gulf of Maine is provided by the NOAA NOS NCCOS Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR) and NIEHS and the NSF through the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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

---

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/~3/vX6Pr8poPnY/130325135416.htm

freddie mac kristin cavallari rough riders joy division norco rand paul detained

Puppy Love: Why Pet Ownership Among Singles Is On The Rise

www.yourtango.com:

My name is Liz Newman, and I love my dog like a human being; if we're being totally honest, I actually love him more than most human beings.

Read the whole story at www.yourtango.com

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Filed by Hayley Hudson ?|?

? "; var coords = [-5, -78]; if( HPConfig.current_vertical_name == 'homepage' ) { coords = [-5, -70]; } else if( HPConfig.current_vertical_name == 'mapquest' ) { coords = [-5, -68]; } FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

1. HuffPost
2. Good News

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/puppy-love-why-pet-owners_n_2952443.html

Ernie Els Teen Choice Awards 2012 Aurora victims usher James Holmes Minka Kelly sex tape Colorado shooting