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Sunday, 31 March 2013
These Awesome Floating Vases Are Practically Invisible
No end to Italy deadlock as president meets parties
By James Mackenzie
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's political parties remained far apart on Friday as President Giorgio Napolitano searched for a way out of the month-long stalemate since deadlocked elections left no group able to form a government alone.
Napolitano met political leaders on Friday after center-left chief Pier Luigi Bersani, who won the largest share of the vote but fell short of a majority in parliament, failed to reach a deal with other parties that would allow him to govern.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insisted that the only solution was for Bersani to accept a coalition deal that would give the media tycoon a share in power but he was immediately rebuffed by a senior Democratic Party official.
The 76-year-old billionaire said there was "no other solution" than a coalition and he ruled out backing a technocrat government like the one led by outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, whom he blames for pushing Italy into recession.
"Our position has not changed. We expressed it with absolute clarity to the president," center-right leader Berlusconi told reporters after the meeting with Napolitano.
Luigi Zanda, Senate leader for Bersani's Democratic Party(PD), said it was "very difficult" to imagine a coalition with Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party.
"There are too many important issues in PDL policies that are light years from those of the Democratic Party," he told SkyTG television.
After five days of talks that ended on Thursday, Bersani failed to get a deal with either Berlusconi or Beppe Grillo's populist 5-Star Movement, which holds the balance of power.
Five Star repeated on Friday that it would not back a government led by any of the big parties it blames for Italy's social and economic crisis. It also rejected any "pseudo-technocrat" administration.
"Give them a vote of confidence? Those are swear words in the mouths of people like them," Grillo said in a live video broadcast on his popular blog. "They should all just go home."
A deal between center-right and center-left has been blocked by Bersani, who says Berlusconi is untrustworthy and also rejects the latter's demand to nominate a successor to Napolitano, whose mandate expires in May.
Berlusconi said there had been no deal on the presidency but it was "in the logic of things that if you form a coalition government you discuss the best president of the Republic".
PRESIDENT TAKES THE INITIATIVE
After Bersani's failure, the 87-year-old Napolitano is holding a quick round of meetings with the main parties to assess what options remain to prevent another election.
The refusal by Berlusconi and his allies in the Northern League as well as Grillo to back a technocrat government appears to narrow his options greatly and made it much less likely that an independent figure will be able to lead a non-political administration - which many see as the only way out of deadlock.
"We were against the Monti government and if there is to be another government of that type it's a thousand times better to have new elections," League leader Roberto Maroni said.
Among the names which had been considered possible candidates as a technocrat leader are Fabrizio Saccomanni, director general of the Bank of Italy or the head of the constitutional court Franco Gallo.
The political gridlock has fed growing worries about Italy's ability to confront a prolonged economic crisis that has left it in deep recession for more than a year, with a 2-trillion-euro ($2.6-trillion) public debt and record unemployment, especially among the young.
Rumors have been circulating for days that ratings agency Moody's is preparing to cut its rating on Italy's sovereign debt, which is already only two notches above "junk" grade, partly due to the uncertain political outlook.
Napolitano has made clear that he does not want Italy to go back to new elections immediately, not least because the widely criticized election law is likely to just repeat the deadlock.
But many are already preparing to vote again, with Berlusconi's center-right confident that the momentum created by his surge towards the end of the last campaign will continue.
A poll by the SWG company on Friday showed the center-right had pushed Bersani's bloc into second place since the vote.
($1 = 0.7788 euros)
(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Barry Moody and Michael Roddy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italys-president-seeks-way-political-deadlock-091517168.html
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Obama Stops by Marquette-Syracuse Basketball Game
WASHINGTON - President Obama caught a little bit of hoops fever Saturday afternoon, stopping by the Marquette-Syracuse NCAA men's college basketball tournament game at the Verizon Center.
The basketball-loving president didn't pick Marquette or Syracuse to make it to the Elite 8 in his bracket, but instead, thought Miami and Indiana would make it to that level. The president had picked Indiana to win it all, but the team was knocked out by Syracuse in the Sweet 16.
The president said he picked Syracuse to win other games at the urging of Vice President Joe Biden, who attended Syracuse for law school.
"Biden told me that if I didn't pick em' he wouldn't talk to me," Obama said while filling out his bracket with ESPN.
Earlier this week, the president acknowledged that his bracket is "busted." Three of his Final Four teams are still in the tournament.
While at the Verizon Center, the president talked with Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, also known as RGIII, according to a tweet from a reporter.
This post was updated.
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Friday, 29 March 2013
Make The Ocean Your Play Area; Water Sports In Male
By: Nelson With a brilliant tropical weather and gorgeous beaches with crystal clear ocean waters and powdery sand beaches that set for endless miles, these islands exude the essence of any holiday, spelling out relaxation, rejuvenation and adventure with a healthy mixture of all three.
Maldives welcomes both veteran as well as new players into the excitement of water sports. The group of islets each has hotels and rest houses and villas that also provide services and centres that facilitate water sports, by providing and renting equipment like surfboards and other items to lending instructors and giving lessons in numerous water based sports. The range of water sports are so diverse and provide diving into the depths of the ocean or rising above it with the giant waves or gliding across it or merely sailing with it to different destinations. Diving and snorkelling offers fascinating views of the ravishing Indian Ocean and its treasure troves of colourful reefs, the haunts of manta rays and the flamboyance of multi coloured fish and other sea creatures that frolic in the waters.
Water skiing as well as wind surfing allows you to glide across the water and catch the wind while getting quite a bit of the warm sun and a glowing tan on your back while having the pleasure of a lifetime. Kayaking offers a more relaxed journey to explore the islands and the lagoon with its crystal clear waters at your own gentle pace and savour the scenery and the moments in the sun. kite surfing, para sailing and wake boarding are more adventurous forms of water sports that can also be seen in plenty around the coasts of Maldives by both locals and foreigners.
There is no end to the array of accommodation for the vast number of foreign visitors who travel to Maldives right around the year. However the requirements of some would be to ensure that they experience Luxury Holidays Maldives with an insight into all the heavenly and almost surreal experiences and exposure and sights that it can offer. This is where Silver Sands provides their services as a travel house that offers to tailor make your visit to your own whims and dreams by presenting Maldives and its various perspectives in a way that appeals to your tastes and requirements.
About the Author:
Pushpitha Wijesinghe is an experienced independent freelance writer. He specializes in providing a wide variety of content and articles related to the travel hospitality industry.
Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com
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Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Make-The-Ocean-Your-Play-Area--Water-Sports-In-Male/4507888
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Thursday, 28 March 2013
ZTE Grand Memo and Grand S on sale now in China
Two of ZTE's Android flagships have just gone on sale in China: the Grand Memo and Grand S. If you'll remember, the Chinese OEM introduced the devices earlier this year, unveiling the 5-inch 1080p Grand S at CES and the stylus-less, 5.7-inch Note competitor, the Grand Memo, at MWC. Although the big buzz around the Memo's introduction had much to do with its Snapdragon 800 heart, the variant hitting the Chinese market won't have that claim to CPU fame -- it'll ship with an S4 Pro instead and should retail for 2,688 yuan (or $432 USD), while the S will run about 3,399 yuan (or $547 USD). Still no word on whether we'll ever see either handset stateside, but given ZTE's bold new brand push, it's likely one of the two'll make the transcontinental trek in some fashion soon.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Source: Engadget Chinese (Translated)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/zte-grand-memo-grand-s-on-sale-in-china/
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Hands-on with Katamari Damacy creator's crazy 16-button game controller (video)
You don't often see a video game specifically designed for a 16-button bespoke controller and for a special one-time party, but that's exactly what Keita Takahashi has done with Tenya Wanya Teens. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Takahashi is responsible for the enormously popular game franchise that is Katamari Damacy along with cult favorite Noby Noby Boy. Teens is his first foray as an independent creator under Uvula, a studio he formed with his wife Asuka Sakai, and is a result of a collaboration with event organizers Wild Rumpus and video game website Venus Patrol. As for the party in question, it's one that is being held concurrently with the 2013 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, which is where we saw the controllers and the game in action.
As you can see above, the controller looks a lot like a modified arcade stick. A hand-made effort by programmer George Buckenham, both boxes were built in about five days for around 200£ ($302.50) each. According to Buckenham, the easiest part was assembling the electronics; it was the plywood housing that took him awhile to master. As for the game, Tenya Wanya Teens is a highly whimsical affair that is described as "a coming-of-age tale about love, hygiene, monsters and finding discarded erotic magazines in the woods." Tasks include peeing in the shower, punching monsters and taking on grizzly bears.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Lnc4ErzBgxQ/
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New bone survey method could aid long-term survival of Arctic caribou
Mar. 27, 2013 ? A study co-authored by a University of Florida scientist adds critical new data for understanding caribou calving grounds in an area under consideration for oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The research may be used to create improved conservation strategies for an ecologically important area that has been under evaluation for natural resource exploration since enactment of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980.
By studying bone accumulations on the Arctic landscape, lead author Joshua Miller discovered rare habitats near river systems are more important for some caribou than previously believed. The study appearing online today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows bone surveys conducted on foot provide highly detailed and extensive data on areas used by caribou as birthing grounds.
"The bone surveys are adding a new piece of the puzzle, giving us a way of studying how caribou use the landscape during calving and providing a longer perspective for evaluating the importance of different regions and habitats," said Miller, an assistant scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus and a Fenneman assistant research professor at the University of Cincinnati.
Unlike other species in the deer family, both male and female caribou grow antlers. Males shed them after they mate, while pregnant females keep their antlers until they calve, losing them within a day or two of giving birth. Newborn caribou calves also suffer high mortality rates within the first couple days of birth. The female antlers and newborn skeletal remains offer a unique biological signal for understanding calving activity, Miller said.
"This new tool has a lot of potential, and the idea that these bones are providing new information is really exciting -- bone surveys allow us to go into the field today and collect historical information about ecosystems and animal communities that are sometimes only known from a few years of observation," Miller said.
Miller recorded evidence of shed caribou antlers and newborn skeletons from the Porcupine Caribou Herd in area 1002 on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, which comprises about 1.5 million acres on Alaska's northeast border. Because these high-latitude habitats are frozen nearly three-quarters of the year, bones may be preserved on the landscape for hundreds or thousands of years, researchers said.
Testing two different habitats, the tussock tundra and riparian terraces, researchers found the latter has higher concentrations of shed female antlers and numerous newborn skeletons. The data suggests these terrace habitats are used more during some portions of the calving period than other areas traditionally viewed as primary calving terrain, which is important because they comprise less than 10 percent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge calving grounds, Miller said.
"Bone surveys are suggesting that these riparian zones should be under special consideration as we think about how to manage the Arctic Refuge and ensure this herd prospers in the decades and centuries to come," Miller said.
The Porcupine Caribou Herd includes as many as 170,000 animals that are essential parts of the delicate Arctic ecosystem. These large, herbivorous, hoofed mammals are an important food source for many indigenous northern peoples and natural predators, including wolves, bears and eagles.
Anna Behrensmeyer, vertebrate paleontology curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, said that using skeletal remains as a research tool is important because it helps scientists understand which habitats need protection with minimal disruption to caribou calving. It also allows researchers to collect historical information that may be used to better understand how climate change and other human influences have affected how these animals use the landscape over time.
"We tend to think that what we see now is normal, but we're just seeing a little bit of time," said Behrensmeyer, who was not involved with the study. "Josh's work can extend our time window back maybe hundreds of years, so there's the chance of seeing long-term cycles in the calving areas and also correlating those cycles with climate -- if you can look back into the past, you might see what this species did to adapt its reproductive strategies to warmer or colder climate periods."
Study co-authors include Patrick Druckenmiller of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Museum and Volker Bahn of Wright State University.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Florida. The original article was written by Danielle Torrent.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- J. H. Miller, P. Druckenmiller, V. Bahn. Antlers on the Arctic Refuge: capturing multi-generational patterns of calving ground use from bones on the landscape. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2013; 280 (1759): 20130275 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.0275
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.
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Testimony ends in marathon NH gas additive trial
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- Testimony has ended in a marathon trial over whether Exxon Mobil Corp. should pay the state of New Hampshire hundreds of millions of dollars to monitor and treat private wells and public drinking supplies contaminated by the gasoline additive MTBE.
Jurors in the longest-running trial in state history are set to hear final arguments on April 3.
The products liability case opened Jan. 14. The final defense witness testified Wednesday that MTBE significantly improved air quality in New Hampshire by reducing emissions.
Engineer Thomas Austin equated the benefits of MTBE use in New Hampshire in 2006 to removing 166,000 vehicles from the state's roads.
The state filed its lawsuit a decade ago against 26 oil companies and distributors. All but Exxon Mobil reached settlement agreements with the state.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/testimony-ends-marathon-nh-gas-172642769.html
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Video: Dumervil not bitter at Broncos? |? Suggs out?
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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/51337504#51337504
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Wednesday, 27 March 2013
With Five Questions: Meet Ilan Finer of In Local Business
In Local Business provides business owners with professional internet marketing solutions--such as search engine optimization and website analysis--to help bring in more customers and generate more sales. 1. Why is SEO marketing so much more affordable than offline forms of marketing like direct mail--and other online forms of marketing like email marketing?
When using SEO marketing, there are many advantages over other marketing media:
First, the people who are looking in the search engines are very precise; they are looking for something using keywords (whether it is for information, a service provider, a product, or a local business), which means that when using SEO on the right profitable keywords will be very effective because you get found by people who are looking for you.
In other marketing there is much less certainty whether the people who are exposed to your marketing are in need of your service, or if they are the right clients for your service. In SEO perhaps you are targeting fewer people, but those are the relevant people for your business.
Second, when comparing the prices of actually obtaining a client from any kind of marketing, the stats are shown as follows:
Average Cost Per Customer
Television Ad - $230 for obtaining a customer
Specialty Magazine - $125 for obtaining a customer
Direct Mail - $70 for obtaining a customer
Email Marketing - $60 for obtaining a customer
Yellow Pages - $20 for obtaining a customer
SEO - $8.5 for obtaining a customer
Because SEO is the most direct kind of marketing you can use, simply because the people who will find you through organic search (search engines) are looking for your service, your marketing is much more specific and effective; therefore, the price of obtaining a client through SEO is much more affordable then other kinds of marketing.
2. In starting your business, why did you decide to specialize on offering local SEO optimization (and how does this differ from SEO in general)?
There is a huge difference between local SEO and general SEO, especially for local businesses. We have noticed many local businesses are performing their SEO in a bad way, and have much more room to improve. Let me give you an example:
A dental clinic is Houston, Texas is trying to advertise their business through SEO; the keywords they have chosen are:
Dental Implants
Cosmetic Dental
Dental Clinic
Dentists
Best Dentist in Texas
Choosing general keywords is a big mistake that many small businesses make. They are trying to rank for general keywords, which will make them face more competition; it will be much harder to rank high for those keywords, and more importantly, they will get seen by people who are unlikely to use their services.
Let?s say this specific dental clinic have done a huge SEO campaign and spent a lot of money to achieve first ranking on those general keywords. Most of the people who will perform an internet search and will find this clinic probably will be from many parts of the world, and will unlikely go to Houston, Texas for a dentist.
Therefore, it will be wiser to perform your SEO locally, using local keywords such as:
Dental Implants Houston TX
Cosmetic Dental Houston
Dental Clinic Houston TX
Dentists in Houston
Best Dentists in Houston Texas
Although those keywords will have fewer searches in the search engines, the people who are looking for those keywords are probably located in Houston, Texas and will more likely to use a local dentist (especially if they are looking for it now).
Keywords should be determined by keyword research, the amount of monthly searches, and competition level. We are specialized in helping local businesses in establishing their business in the search engines, both with their local listing on Google+ and in the organic search for Google / Bing / Yahoo and other big search engines.
We help simply by optimizing business websites to target the profitable, relevant keywords so that they can rank more easily when potential clients are looking for their services.
3. What are some typical packages of services that you put together for companies?
We have many different packages that can fit for every business and every budget. The packages are divided into four different classes. Each package is divided according to the amount of keywords you wish to target; you can choose between 5-30 keywords in a package.
We offer a free consultation on our website in order for companies to choose the right package for their business, as it depends on their current performance, budget, and market competition. We recommend that clients consult with us before choosing a package. More details about the different packages are available here.
4. What is unique about reaching customers via mobile devices as opposed to more generalized internet marketing?
In today's world, most people in the western civilization have smartphones, and those mobile devices are going with them everywhere; when those people are looking for a service online, they go to their mobile device first, and perform a search. In the future we can only expect this trend to expand.
In the United States alone, over 90% of the population now owns a cell phone. If that is not enough,?over 25% of the U.S. population are "mobile-only," which means they mostly use only the mobile and?rarely?if ever use a computer.?
Mobile marketing gives local?business more customers, and right now in 2013 most of the local?business?that have a website don't optimize it for mobile use. Therefore, it?is still relatively?easy to dominate in the local mobile results for any business that starts to optimize for mobile marketing.
5. For a local business owner who is just beginning to explore SEM and SEO opportunities, what do you recommend as a good way to get started?
Since there is a lot to learn about the subject, I would recommend a local businessperson who is just starting his or her internet marketing to learn about the subject first. There are many ways one can advertise a business; understanding the big picture is extremely important, and can save a lot of time, money, and trouble.
First, I would recommend that a business owner perform keyword research (by a professional) so the local business owner will understand the business' online market.
--How many people are looking for each keyword a month?
--What is the competition on those keywords?
--Is it worth it to target those keywords, or other keywords?
All of those questions can be answered by good keyword research. It will help build the strategy for the business and clear things out, as well as anticipate how long it will take to see results.
Second, after you have the keyword research complete and you know how many keywords you wish to target, plan your SEO for the long run. SEO takes time, and to see real results can take a few months, but there are also a few things you can do to help make it faster and more effective.
"On Page Optimization." This refers to your website content. If you optimize your website to the profitable keywords you have decided to target, it will help rank you higher on Google because it will see that your website is optimized for those keywords, and will give you a better ranking then your competition who haven't done it.
"Off Page Optimization." This mostly refers to how many links are connecting to your website, and what the web is saying about your website. Again, this is measured by the amount of links your website has, and the quality of those links.
However, for individuals or businesses who don't have the time or will to learn all about internet marketing, I would simply recommend the use of a professional service for SEO. It's worth the time and money, since you will see results in few months without all the headache of studying internet marketing.
Thanks, Ilan!
Source: http://withfivequestions.blogspot.com/2013/03/meet-ilan-finer-of-in-local-business.html
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Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Video: PFT: Getting to know Geno Smith
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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/51325806#51325806
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What are the Top Social Media Sites for Your Law Firm? | Webshark ...
Law firms have notoriously eschewed social media sites. But with millions of consumers actively present on social media sites, social media is becoming a new space for businesses like law firms to attract new clients. Attorneys are increasingly seeing the value that social media can provide to their law firm. With over 150 social media sites online, it can be tempting to join as many as possible in order to try and maintain a significant online presence. However, if your law firm is spreading itself too thin, you may be missing out on other tools to publicize your firm. Instead, find out the top sites your law firm could be using to attract consumer attention. Help your attorney marketing reach more consumers by joining social media networks to benefit your law firm.
Social Media by the Numbers
According to Ebiz and Alexa, there are 15 top social media sites competing for between 4 million and 750 million unique visitors per month. But not all of these social media sites are necessarily appropriate for your law firm. Let?s first find out which sites rank the best. In order, the following social media sites attract the most unique visitors per month:
? Facebook, 750 mil. visitors
? Twitter, 250 mil. visitors
? LinkedIn, 110 mil. visitors
? Pinterest, 85.5 mil. visitors
? Myspace, 70.5 mil. visitors
? Google Plus, 65 mil. visitors
? Deviant Art, 25.5 mil. visitors
? Live Journal, 20.5 mil. visitors
? Tagged, 19.5 mil. visitors
? Orkut, 17.5 mil. visitors
? Cafe Mom, 12.5 mil. visitors
? Ning, 12 mil. visitors
? Meetup, 7.5 mil. visitors
? myLife, 5.4 mil. visitors
? Multiply, 4 mil. visitors
Which Sites Could Benefit Your Law Firm
Of the top 15 social media sites, there are a variety of ways a law firm can attract clients. The traffic to these social media sites is very diverse. But depending on your niche area of law, you could use a variety of social media sites to disseminate your attorney marketing materials and to connect with potential clients. Consider the following social media sites for your law firm?s attorney marketing:
? Facebook- popular with both women and men, consumers enjoy this network so much they also use it as a search method and as a method of evaluating businesses
? Twitter- primarily a method for breaking and sharing news, Twitter is popular among both men and women and is a great way to disseminate your attorney marketing to a variety of consumers
? LinkedIn- a professional network, LinkedIn offers your law firm a great way to network within your own industry to obtain referral business although relatively few consumers actually search LinkedIn for businesses to use
? Pinterest- extremely popular with women, Pinterest has become the newest rising star of the social media world. Businesses have flocked to the site to catch consumers? attention
? Google Plus- offering the ability to push your attorney marketing content higher in the rankings, Google Plus can both connect you to your potential clients and gain you new viewers
? Reddit- while Reddit did not make the list, this is a great social media site to share content that will reach individuals that are largely older professionals
? Live Journal- similar to Reddit, this social media site can help your law firm to connect to its users and to share your attorney marketing content
If your law firm is struggling to use social media effectively, call the team at WebShark360 for help! We can put you onto a variety of social media networks and help you to attract new clients in no time.
Source: http://webshark360.com/what-are-the-top-social-media-sites-for-your-law-firm/
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Early number sense plays role in later math skills
This image provided by the University of Missouri shows an illustration part of a University of Missouri study that examined first-graders? "number system knowledge." That?s how well they understand such things as that numbers represent quantities. Youngsters who didn?t have a good grasp of these concepts went on have lower scores on a key math skills test years later when they were in seventh grade. We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of math _ and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on. (AP Photo/University of Missouri)
This image provided by the University of Missouri shows an illustration part of a University of Missouri study that examined first-graders? "number system knowledge." That?s how well they understand such things as that numbers represent quantities. Youngsters who didn?t have a good grasp of these concepts went on have lower scores on a key math skills test years later when they were in seventh grade. We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of math _ and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on. (AP Photo/University of Missouri)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of math ? and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on.
The findings have specialists considering steps that parents might take to spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.
This isn't only about trying to improve the nation's math scores and attract kids to become engineers. It's far more basic.
Consider: How rapidly can you calculate a tip? Do the fractions to double a recipe? Know how many quarters and dimes the cashier should hand back as your change?
About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lacks the math competence expected of a middle-schooler, meaning they have trouble with those ordinary tasks and aren't qualified for many of today's jobs.
"It's not just, can you do well in school? It's how well can you do in your life," says Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which is funding much of this research into math cognition. "We are in the midst of math all the time."
A new study shows trouble can start early.
University of Missouri researchers tested 180 seventh-graders. Those who lagged behind their peers in a test of core math skills needed to function as adults were the same kids who'd had the least number sense or fluency way back when they started first grade.
"The gap they started with, they don't close it," says Dr. David Geary, a cognitive psychologist who leads the study that is tracking children from kindergarten to high school in the Columbia, Mo., school system. "They're not catching up" to the kids who started ahead.
If first grade sounds pretty young to be predicting math ability, well, no one expects tots to be scribbling sums. But this number sense, or what Geary more precisely terms "number system knowledge," turns out to be a fundamental skill that students continually build on, much more than the simple ability to count.
What's involved? Understanding that numbers represent different quantities ? that three dots is the same as the numeral "3'' or the word "three." Grasping magnitude ? that 23 is bigger than 17. Getting the concept that numbers can be broken into parts ? that 5 is the same as 2 and 3, or 4 and 1. Showing on a number line that the difference between 10 and 12 is the same as the difference between 20 and 22.
Factors such as IQ and attention span didn't explain why some first-graders did better than others. Now Geary is studying if something that youngsters learn in preschool offers an advantage.
There's other evidence that math matters early in life. Numerous studies with young babies and a variety of animals show that a related ability ? to estimate numbers without counting ? is intuitive, sort of hard-wired in the brain, says Mann Koepke, of NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. That's the ability that lets you choose the shortest grocery check-out line at a glance, or that guides a bird to the bush with the most berries.
Number system knowledge is more sophisticated, and the Missouri study shows children who start elementary school without those concepts "seem to struggle enormously," says Mann Koepke, who wasn't part of that research.
While schools tend to focus on math problems around third grade, and math learning disabilities often are diagnosed by fifth grade, the new findings suggest "the need to intervene is much earlier than we ever used to think," she adds.
Exactly how to intervene still is being studied, sure to be a topic when NIH brings experts together this spring to assess what's known about math cognition.
But Geary sees a strong parallel with reading. Scientists have long known that preschoolers who know the names of letters and can better distinguish what sounds those letters make go on to read more easily. So parents today are advised to read to their children from birth, and many youngsters' books use rhyming to focus on sounds.
Likewise for math, "kids need to know number words" early on, he says.
NIH's Mann Koepke agrees, and offers some tips:
?Don't teach your toddler to count solely by reciting numbers. Attach numbers to a noun ? "Here are five crayons: One crayon, two crayons..." or say "I need to buy two yogurts" as you pick them from the store shelf ? so they'll absorb the quantity concept.
?Talk about distance: How many steps to your ball? The swing is farther away; it takes more steps.
?Describe shapes: The ellipse is round like a circle but flatter.
?As they grow, show children how math is part of daily life, as you make change, or measure ingredients, or decide how soon to leave for a destination 10 miles away,
"We should be talking to our children about magnitude, numbers, distance, shapes as soon as they're born," she contends. "More than likely, this is a positive influence on their brain function."
___
EDITOR'S NOTE ? Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
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Monday, 25 March 2013
Yemen clashes between al-Qaida, militiamen kill 9
SANAA, Yemen (AP) ? Yemini security officials say clashes in the south between al-Qaida and pro-government fighters have killed nine.
The officials said Sunday that pro-government fighters recaptured the town of Batis, north of the city of Jaar in Abyan province, after three days of fighting that left six militants and three pro-government militiamen dead. Seven were wounded and 11 al-Qaida members were captured.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the army supported the pro-government militia known as Popular Committees in the fighting.
The U.S. considers Yemen's al-Qaida branch as the terror group's most dangerous offshoot. Washington helped Yemeni troops with airpower and advisers during last year's offensive to drive the militants out of large areas they seized during the political turmoil related to Yemen's 2011 uprising.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yemen-clashes-between-al-qaida-militiamen-kill-9-150440179.html
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Hong Kong court rejects Filipino maids' plea for residency
Domestic workers in Hong Kong have long been treated a notch below other foreign workers, and are told that admission into the country can never be for the purposes of settlement.
Sringatin, a member of a domestic workers union, cries outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong Monday, March 25, 2013. Hong Kong's top court ruled against two Filipino domestic helpers seeking permanent residency Monday, the final decision in a case that affects tens of thousands of other foreign maids in the southern Chinese financial hub.
Kin Cheung/AP
EnlargeHong Kong?s top court announced that foreigners can enter the city as maids and domestic helpers, but cannot expect to settle there as permanent residents.
Skip to next paragraph Robert MarquandStaff writer
Over the past three decades, Robert Marquand has reported on a wide variety of subjects for?The Christian Science Monitor, including American education reform,?the wars in the Balkans, the Supreme Court, South Asian politics, and the oft-cited "rise of China." In the past 15 years he has served as the Monitor's bureau chief in Paris, Beijing, and New Delhi.?
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The verdict deals a blow to a huge contingent of Filipino maids and nannies ? estimated at some 300,000 females, usually unmarried and under 35 ? who make up a diaspora in Hong Kong. The domestic workers are increasingly seen as an indispensable part of the fast-paced city's social fabric, helping keep the Chinese family working and orderly in a highly-competitive environment.
Yet sadly for the maids, today?s ruling reverses a lower court verdict that would have allowed the women?to seek residency.?Had it been upheld, the ruling would have been a breakthrough for the rights of domestic workers, who often complain of overwork, second-class status, and occasionally, abuse.
The system for foreign workers in Hong Kong is stratified. As CNN notes today:
While other foreign workers can apply for permanent residency after spending seven consecutive years in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, domestic helpers are excluded from the law.
Justice Ma wrote in his ruling that foreign domestic helpers are "told from the outset that admission is not for the purposes of settlement."
The ruling was greeted with disappointment by campaigners.
"It's very unfortunate and it's sad but in a way it will make us stronger as it highlights the social exclusion that foreign domestic workers face in Hong Kong," said Cynthia Tellez, General Manager of the?United Filipinos in Hong Kong.
In recent years the ubiquitous Filipino maid has become a staple part of Hong Kong culture. They are known for hard work, dignity, and efficiency. Collectively, they have built a kind of mini-civic society: They have their own postal system, often police themselves, have a variety of support groups, and even run ballots and campaigns for elections back home.
Most middle and upper echelon Hong Kong families hire a maid, and apartments usually include a tiny space as the maid?s quarters or abode.
For many years on Sundays, usually their only day off, Filipino nannies peacefully and colorfully gathered in central Hong Kong, along the main boulevard, past the city hall and the old Admiralty building, putting down blankets or chairs and pulling out lunch baskets, stretching out two-or three deep on a sidewalk in a line that often is a half-mile long.
Yet the right of maids to assemble has been under attack, and their overall legal status has been shrinking, as the city contemplates the costs (said to be $3 billion or more) of offering them the kinds of equal access that would involve education and other social services.
The South China Morning Post writes:
The judgment ends the right of abode saga started by a judicial review sought by Evangeline Vallejos Banao, a mother of five, who has worked in Hong Kong since 1986. She had argued that an immigration provision barring domestic workers from permanent residency was unconstitutional.
Mark Daly, a lawyer for Vallejos, said his client was ?speechless but calmly resigned and said ?no problem.?
Vallejos won a High Court ruling in 2011 granting her the right to request permanent residency status, denied to the city?s 300,000 foreign maids until then. The decision however was overturned later on a government appeal.
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Sunday, 24 March 2013
Creating Our New Budget Plan - My Personal Finance Journey
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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the "About" or "First-Time Visitor" pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can?subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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The following post is by MPFJ staff writer, Travis.? Travis is a customer blogger for CareOne DebtRelief Services, and also appears weekly at Enemy of Debt.? Travis candidly shares his personal journey to pay off $109,000 of credit card debt and the tips he's learned along the way. As a father and husband, he provides a unique perspective on balancing debt, finances, and family.
How about you all??Are you continually tweaking your budget method, or have you found one that works for you?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of?Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the "About" or "First-Time Visitor" pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can?subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following post is by MPFJ staff writer, Travis.? Travis is a customer blogger for CareOne DebtRelief Services, and also appears weekly at Enemy of Debt.? Travis candidly shares his personal journey to pay off $109,000 of credit card debt and the tips he's learned along the way. As a father and husband, he provides a unique perspective on balancing debt, finances, and family.
Have you ever spent so long working on your budget that your head felt like it was going to explode?
That happened to Vonnie and me last weekend, but I'm glad we did it.Before Vonnie and I joined our debt management plan, our budget consisted of a piece of paper that resided behind the packet of checks inside the checkbook.? When it was time to pay bills, I'd take it out and unfold it.? After the bills were processed, I'd fold it back up and put it back in it's spot.? It had aged so much from being folded and unfolded so many times it looked like it could have been a historical document.? On it were written the major bills of the month, as well as my paycheck amounts.
It didn't include my wife's income, the list of expenses was incomplete, and it was never updated.When we finally decided to take control of our finances, we struggled to find a budgeting method that worked for us.? I came up with something I called the whiteboard method in which I would write on a whiteboard when each bill was due.?? Both Vonnie and I are visual people, and this would seemingly work well.? This method gave us a complete picture of our recurring bills,? but it left us rudderless with our discretionary spending, and the whiteboard was cumbersome.
We then tried a variation on the envelope method in which we would pay our bills, then divide the money left over into amounts to spend during the week on things such as groceries, entertainment and gas.? The cash would be put into their respective envelope.? The problem with this method was that we didn't save anything.? The entertainment envelope was the catchall for any remaining funds, and we always said that we'd save whatever was left over.?
Of course, there was never anything left over.The other major problem with the methods we tried was that they were too short sighted.? They didn't include any planning that allowed us to set and work towards any long term goals. So over last weekend, we spent many hours putting together a budget proposal of congressional proportions.?
I constructed a monthly income statement and recurring expense report (including due date) for the next five months.? We have some changes that needed to be taken into account as we transition through the next few months such as our daughter's dance class breaking for summer, as well as our car being paid off.?? We decided on a constant amount of funds to make available for the weekly budget, which then generated the amount that would go into savings each month.? This information along with the projected savings account balance is included in each month's statement.
Weekly spending is very fluid, but there are some general categories that will always be there.? We put together a template from which we will start each week.
Scheduled Budget Discussions??????????? On the last day of each month, Vonnie and I will sit down to review the next month's information in the long term budget package and make any necessary changes.
??????????? We do most of our spending on the weekend:? cars get filled up with gas on Friday, groceries on Sunday, and entertainment.? Therefore, each Wednesday night we will create our spending plan for the upcoming weekend, take cash out of our checking account and put the money into the categorized envelopes.
?Cash only keeps us from overspending!??????????? Finally, we will review the weekend spending on Sunday night to ensure we're on track, make any needed adjustments, and discuss any spending that needs to occur during the week
This is the most detailed budget plan that we've ever put together.? It accounts for recurring monthly bills, weekly discretionary spending, as well as long term savings goals.? We're both on board, and committed to making it work, or continuing to make adjustments until we find something that does.?
How about you all??Are you continually tweaking your budget method, or have you found one that works for you?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of?Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Source: http://www.mypersonalfinancejourney.com/2013/03/creating-our-new-budget-plan.html
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NCAA tournament 2013: Harvard beat New Mexico? What 'Madness' might Friday bring?
The West region's 14th seeded Crimson shocked the third seeded Lobos late Thursday night. Another 16 games are scheduled to tip off Friday as the tournament field gets pared down 32 teams by the end of the day.
Harvard's Wesley Saunders (23) drives around New Mexico's Tony Snell (21) in the first half during a second-round game in the NCAA college basketball tournament in Salt Lake City, Thursday, March 21, 2013.
Rick Bowmer/AP
Enlarge PhotosNow that the appetizer of the 'First Four' portion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament is complete, the full effects of 'March Madness' are being felt.
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Across the Charles River from the Boston newsroom of the Christian Science Monitor, they're lustily singing 'Ten Thousand Men of Harvard' in Cambridge as the Crimson men's basketball team won its first ever NCAA tournament game Thursday night.
Harvard upset third seed New Mexico, 68-62, in the second round of the West region in Salt Lake City. The 14th seeded Crimson will next play sixth seed Arizona on Saturday.
The Harvard win followed near upsets of West region top seed Gonzaga by Southern and East third seed Marquette by Davidson, also on Thursday.
Going into this year's tournament, many college basketball experts looked at the field and believed a number of teams have a chance to make their mark. A handful of past champion coaches think up to 30 teams in the field have a shot to make the Final Four.
Even President Obama has a second- and third-seeded team along with two top-seeded teams, Indiana and Louisville, in his bracket's Final Four. And any number of brackets across the country will have all four No. 1 seeds reaching Atlanta at the beginning of next month.
The possibility exists for more upsets on Friday as the NCAA tournament provides some interesting match-ups.
One of those games will take place in the South region as sixth seed UCLA meets 11th seed Minnesota Friday night in Austin, Texas.
The Bruins have a?championship?pedigree (11 NCAA titles between 1964 and 1995) on their side. But they lost second-leading scorer?Jordan?Adams to injury in the Pac-12 conference tournament semifinal. UCLA can still compete with a pair of all-Pac-12 performers in guard Larry Drew?II and freshman Shabazz Muhammad. They also feature twin six-foot 10-inch forwards Travis and David Wear.
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For cheaper health insurance, step on the scale
Some say that although the Rhode Island-based pharmacy company may have the right intentions in wanting employees to stay healthy, but asking for health data such weight, body fat and glucose levels can be considered invasive. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
By Isolde Raftery, TODAY
It?s well known that U.S. medical costs are more than double that of other developed countries, which is why, in a bid to lower insurance premiums, companies encourage their employees to be healthy.
Exercise, they urge workers, eat fresh fruits and vegetables, limit fast food and ? above all ? don?t smoke.
Sometimes this encouragement takes the form of a wellness plan ? maybe offering $25 gift certificates to those who meet personal goals ? but some companies take a more aggressive approach. This week, CVS Caremark made waves when it told employees to reveal their weight ? or pay a monthly $50 penalty.
The drug retailing company is not alone, and as many TODAY readers pointed out ? is mild compared to what they?ve gone through to lower health care premiums. Dozens said they had to give blood samples, although not all were upset by the requirement.
?My company already does something similar to this and I don't see the big deal,? said one reader. ?Technically it isn't mandatory. You can either submit the basic info (BMI, glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure) and pay a discounted monthly rate, or not submit anything and pay the full monthly rate. It's just a discount for submitting the info ? just like for my car insurance I get a discount for submitting my mileage and for being a ?good driver.?"
One reader, self-described as 50 and ?in relatively good health,? wrote: ?We had to give information of weight, height etc., then the ?plan administrators? came back and told us what is wrong with us. ? They even had a pedometer tethered to my hip for over 3 months to?monitor my physical activity.?
But many readers lambasted CVS for invasion of privacy.
Wrote one: ?This is a MASSIVE invasion of privacy that is headed towards your employer tell you what and how much food you can eat, the number of beers you can consume and what activity, i.e. motorcycling, rock climbing or anything that might even remotely be considered risky.?
One reader was sarcastic, noting that CVS sells cigarettes: ?I wonder if CVS will?eliminate their candy display and other unhealthy items they carry??
Other readers argued that people need tough love: ?It seems like the only way to do this anymore is to hit people where it matters ... in their wallet.?
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Saturday, 23 March 2013
In Moscow speech, new Chinese leader Xi warns against meddling
By Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against foreign interference in the affairs of other nations during a speech in Moscow on Saturday, sending a signal to the West and echoing a message often repeated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Permanent U.N. Security Council members with veto power, Russia and China have frequently teamed up diplomatically to blunt the influence of the United States and its NATO allies and have blocked three draft resolutions on Syria.
"We must respect the right of each country in the world to independently choose its path of development and oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries," Xi told students at an international relations school.
He was speaking a day after meeting Putin on his first foreign trip becoming president, a choice both said underscored a "strategic partnership" between Russia and China.
"Strong Chinese-Russian relations ... not only answer to our interests but also serve as an important, reliable guarantee of an international strategic balance and peace," Xi said.
Putin, who began a six-year term last May has often criticized foreign interference in sovereign states.
Russia and China have resisted Western calls to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the two-year-old civil conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people.
They both criticized the NATO bombing that helped rebels overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and stood together in the Security Council in votes on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.
Both China and Russia have bristled at U.S. and European criticism of their human rights records.
Putin said in a foreign policy decree issued at the start of his new term that Russia would counter attempts to use human rights as a pretext for interference, and his government has cracked down on foreign-funded non-governmental organizations.
After Russia, Xi will visit Tanzania, the Republic of Congo and South Africa, where he and Putin are expected to meet again at a summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies next week.
(Additional reporting by Megan Davies; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/moscow-speech-chinese-leader-xi-warns-against-meddling-092547200.html
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How serotonin receptors can shape drug effects from LSD to migraine medication
Mar. 21, 2013 ? A team including scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has determined and analyzed the high-resolution atomic structures of two kinds of human serotonin receptor. The new findings help explain why some drugs that interact with these receptors have had unexpectedly complex and sometimes harmful effects.
"Understanding the structure-function of these receptors allows us to discover new biology of serotonin signaling and also gives us better ideas about what biological questions to probe in a more intelligent manner," said TSRI Professor Raymond Stevens, who was a senior investigator for the new research. The studies were published in two papers on March 21, 2013 in Science Express, the advance online version of the journal Science.
Pioneering Important Molecular Structures
Stevens's laboratory at TSRI has pioneered the development of techniques for determining the 3D atomic structures of cellular receptors -- particularly the large receptor class known as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). GPCRs sit in the cell membrane and sense various molecules outside cells. When certain molecules bind to them, the receptor's respond in a way to transmit a signal inside the cell.
"Because G protein-coupled receptors are the targets of nearly 50 percent of medicines, they are the focus of several major National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiatives," said Jean Chin of the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partly funded the work through the Protein Structure Initiative. "These detailed molecular structures of two serotonin receptor subfamilies bound to antimigraines, antipsychotics, antidepressants or appetite suppressants will help us understand how normal cellular signaling is affected by these drugs and will offer a valuable framework for designing safer and more effective medicines."
In the past several years, using X-ray crystallography, the Stevens laboratory has determined the high-resolution structures of 10 of the most important GPCRs for human health -- including the ?2 adrenergic receptor, the A2a adenosine receptor (the target of caffeine), HIV related CXCR4 receptor, the pain-mediating nociceptin receptor, S1P1 receptor important for inflammatory diseases, H1 histamine receptor (antihistamine medications) and the D3 dopamine receptor which is involved in mood, motivation and addiction.
Serotonin receptors are no less important. "Nearly all psychiatric drugs affect serotonin receptors to some extent, and these receptors also mediate a host of effects outside the brain, for example on blood coagulation, smooth muscle contraction and heart valve growth," said Bryan Roth, a collaborator on both studies who is professor of pharmacology at the University of North Carolina (UNC).
Untangling Two Serotonin Receptors
Roth's laboratory teamed up with Stevens's as part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Protein Structure Initiative. For this project the two labs also worked with the laboratories of Professors Eric Xu and Hualiang Jiang at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "By collaborating with the Chinese teams we were able to complete a much more thorough study and get the most out of our fundamental structural results," said Stevens.
In the first of the new studies, co-lead author Chong Wang, a graduate student in the Stevens laboratory, and his colleagues determined the structure of the serotonin receptor subtype 5-HT1B, the principal target of several drug classes. (5-HT, or 5-hydroxytryptamine, is a technical term for serotonin.) The team produced the 5-HT1B receptor while it was bound by either ergotamine or dihydroergotamine -- two old-line anti-migraine drugs that work in part by activating 5-HT1B receptors.
With the help of the special fusion protein, nicknamed BRIL (apocytochrome b562RIL), Wang and colleagues were able to stabilize these structures and coax them to line up in a regular ordering known as a crystal. X-ray crystallography revealed, at high resolution, an atomic structure of 5-HT1B with a main binding pocket and a separate, extended binding pocket.
Harmful Off-Target Effects
In the second study, TSRI graduate student and lead author Daniel Wacker and colleagues used similar techniques to determine the structure of the 5-HT2B receptor bound to ergotamine. The 5-HT2B receptor was chiefly of interest because drug developers want to avoid activating it.
"Drugs that are meant to target other serotonin receptors in the brain can have harmful off-target effects on 5-HT2B receptors, which are found abundantly on heart valves, for example," said Roth. The weight-loss drug fenfluramine and closely related dexfenfluramine were withdrawn from the US market in 1997 after being linked to heart valve disease. Roth's laboratory later showed that this side effect was mediated by heart valve 5-HT2B receptors.
Analyses of the 5-HT1B and 5-HT2B receptor structures revealed a subtle difference between them. "Although their main binding pockets look very similar, their extended binding pockets are not as similar -- the one for 5-HT2B is narrower and in a slightly different position," said Wang.
With the two receptor structures in hand, the Xu and Jiang team simulated the bindings of various drugs. They showed, for example, that anti-migraine drugs called triptans should bind well to 5-HT1B receptors but poorly to 5-HT2B receptor structures, in which the extended binding pocket is less accessible. Similarly, the team's calculations confirmed that fenfluramine's active metabolite should bind very tightly to the 5-HT2B receptor.
Delving Deeper
In the second study, the researchers used the 5-HT2B and 5-HT1B structural data to better understand a recently discovered GPCR signaling pathway.
When a neurotransmitter such as serotonin binds to its GPCR receptor and triggers the primary, G protein-mediated activation signal, it also usually triggers another signal, often mediated by a protein called ?-arrestin. This second signaling cascade may simply have the effect of "arresting" or inhibiting the primary, G protein-mediated signaling. But it can also have other effects on the cell, and although most molecules bind to their target GPCRs in a way that activates these primary and secondary signals equally, others preferentially activate one or the other. "Such functional selectivity, as we call it, adds another layer of complexity to drug effects on GPCRs," said Roth, a co-senior author of the study.
Roth's laboratory produced several 5-HT receptor subtypes in test cells, and compared the strength of G-protein and ?-arrestin signaling when these receptors were bound by ergotamine or various other drugs, including the ergotamine-derived hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). Most of the tested drugs showed no bias. However, ergotamine, LSD and some of their relatives turned out to be clearly biased in favor of ?-arrestin signaling at the 5-HT2B receptor. Comparison of the ergotamine-bound 5-HT2B structure with the ergotamine-bound 5-HT1B structure revealed the likely reason. "We could see that when ergotamine is bound to the 5-HT2B receptor it stabilizes the receptor structure in a conformation that interferes with G protein signaling," said Wacker.
The findings allow scientists to start probing this arrestin-mediated signaling pathway and its downstream effects in a more targeted manner. "These structural data are teaching us to ask better questions about receptor biology," said Stevens.
In addition to Chong, the two other first authors of the first study, "Structural Basis for Molecular Recognition at Serotonin Receptors," were Yi Jiang, a researcher in the Stevens laboratory who was visiting from the Xu laboratory in Shanghai, and Jinming Ma, a researcher in the Stevens laboratory who was visiting from the Van Andel Research Institute in Michigan, where Xu runs a laboratory. Other contributors to this study were Huixian Wu, Daniel Wacker, Vsevolod Katritch, Gye Won Han, Wei Liu and Vadim Cherezov of TSRI; Xi-Ping Huang, Eyal Vardy and John D. McCorvy of Roth's laboratory at UNC; Xiang Gao, Edward X. Zhou, Karsten Melcher and Chenghai Zhang of the Van Andel Research Institute; Fang Bai of the Dalian University of Technology in China; and Huaiyu Yang, Linlin Yang of Xu and Jiang laboratories in Shanghai.
Contributors to the second study, "Structural Features for Functional Selectivity at Serotonin Receptors," included Chong Wang, Vsevolod Katritch, Gye Won Han, Meihua Chu, Fai Yiu Siu, Wei Liu, Yi Jiang and Vadim Cherezov of TSRI; Xi-Ping Huang, Eyal Vardy and John D. McCorvy of the Roth laboratory at UNC; and Eric Xu.
Support for these studies was provided by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (PSI:Biology grant U54 GM094618), the National Institutes of Health Common Fund in Structural Biology (P50 GM073197), the Jay and Betty Van Andel Foundation, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (R01 DK071662), Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (grants 2012ZX09301001-005 and 2012CB910403); Amway (China); the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (R01 MH61887, U19 MH82441), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA27170) and the NIMH Psychoactive Drug Screening Program.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Scripps Research Institute.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
- Daniel Wacker, Chong Wang, Vsevolod Katritch, Gye Won Han, Xi-Ping Huang, Eyal Vardy, John D. McCorvy, Yi Jiang, Meihua Chu, Fai Yiu Siu, Wei Liu, H. Eric Xu, Vadim Cherezov, Bryan L. Roth, and Raymond C. Stevens. Structural Features for Functional Selectivity at Serotonin Receptors. Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1126/science.1232808
- Chong Wang, Yi Jiang, Jinming Ma, Huixian Wu, Daniel Wacker, Vsevolod Katritch, Gye Won Han, Wei Liu, Xi-Ping Huang, Eyal Vardy, John D. McCorvy, Xiang Gao, Edward X. Zhou, Karsten Melcher, Chenghai Zhang, Fang Bai, Huaiyu Yang, Linlin Yang, Hualiang Jiang, Bryan L. Roth, Vadim Cherezov, Raymond C. Stevens, and H. Eric Xu. Structural Basis for Molecular Recognition at Serotonin Receptors. Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1126/science.1232807
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/top_health/~3/K-OeXhzoios/130321141512.htm
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