Discovering a new species can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, so imagine the quest that turned up this new-found microscopic wasp, dubbed Tinkerbella nana. John Noyes of the Natural History Museum in London captured it by sweeping a mesh net through vegetation at Costa Rica's La Selva Biological Station. He then combed through the leaf litter to spot this petite parasite.
At only 250 micrometres long, the fairy fly measures two-and-a-half times the width of a human hair. Its delicate, bristly wings may look ineffective, but they could help the minuscule bug to fly: the reduced surface area may reduce turbulence and drag on the wings.
But how small can bugs go? The smallest flying insect found to date is a Hawaiian relative, the Kikiki huna Huber fairy fly, which measures a mere 150 micrometres. At the other end of the scale, Atlas moths have wingspans up to 25 centimetres.
Fans of tiny animals should take a look at the world's smallest vertebrate, enormous in comparison, and take heart from the trend for climate change to cause animals to shrink.
Journal reference: Journal of Hymenoptera Research, DOI: 10.3897/jhr.32.4663
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Apple typically accompanies the announcement of a new iPhone 5 with a video showcasing their design and manufacturing processes. Samsung has now done something similar for their just-released Galaxy S4. So how do the two videos compare, and what, if anything, do they tell us about the respective companies and phones?
Before we get to the videos, it's worthwhile taking a quick look at how Apple and Samsung handle the devices in general. Here's Apple's phone product logo, which uses a single typeface, compared to Samsung's, which uses different typefaces for both Galaxy and 4, and a highly stylized S in between:
In Samsung's video, which includes the now oft-repeated "Life Companion" tag line, they start off with a quick series of initially unidentified people (we later find out they're UX -- user experience -- designers), who set the stage for a) wanting to go deeper into people's lives, b) be more evolutionary than radically different, c) be like nothing anyone has ever seen before, and d) change people's lives for the better. (Note: the video is in Korean with English subtitles, so there could be cultural differences and contexts that are lost in translation.)
Apple's video, which is actually more of a general product video that also touches on design, begins with Jony Ive, senior vice president of industrial design, who sets up a) the phone as the most-used object in people's lives, b) how seriously Apple takes that relationship, and c) how Apple's goal is not to make something new but something much better.
Samsung's video includes people set in more realistic environments, and a ton of b-roll showing stars, cityscapes, and other dramatic visuals. Apple's video sets everyone on backgrounds of pure white, and b-roll consists exclusively of shots of the iPhone itself, the technology inside it, and the equipment used to manufacture it.
Samsung's UX designers go on to describe how the phone has evolved from information system to life companion, and how they began to think about how they could use it to offer more meaningful value. They showcase features like the eye-tracking page scrolling and video pausing, and the on-hover contextual popups. And they call out the automatic photo album generation.
Apple's Jony Ive explains their decision to increase the screen size to 4-inches by making it taller but not wider (the old one-handed-ease-of-use argument). Bob Mansfield, senior vice-president (of technology) explains some of the new hardware features like LTE and the Apple A6, and Lightning connector. Scott Forstall, former vice president of iOS, then goes over iOS 6 software features like Maps, Panorama photos, Siri enhancements like sports and restaurant reservations, Facebook integration, and FaceTime over celular.
Samsung's Hyoungshin Park, product designer, explains that while the Galaxy S3 had more nature-centric design cues, the Galaxy S4 was meant to be more "rationale" in approach (that has to be a translation glitch, right?) and with more emotional CMF (?). Jongbo Jung, product designer, then describes the GS4 as a precious gem glittering in the dark or stars sparkling in the night sky. They paid attention to the smallest detail and refined it to perfection. They wanted to find the perfect line.
Apple returns to Jonny Ive, who talks not only about the very nearly insane precision of the manufacturing process, but about how the iPhone feels in your hand, and the importance of the materials they use -- glass and aluminum.
Samsung says nothing about the feeling or importance of their plastics. They do repeat the importance of making people's lives better. Mihnyouk Lee, vice president of product design, says Samsung believes they can create something new and valuable.
Apple's Jony Ive says they began the iPhone 5 with a design they loved, but to implement it, it took everything they'd learned to date. Simple, clear, truly extraordinary.
Samsung ends with: Life Companion, for a richer, simpler, fuller life.
Apple ends with: Apple logo.
Samsung's video does make Apple's look clinical, almost sterile at times, but the simplicity Apple brings to every element makes Samsung look undisciplined, almost unrefined.
What's most interesting is that two companies with such different styles and products are both sitting atop the smartphone space right now.
The dancers of the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble (NCYTE) brought their youthful exuberance and polished precision to an enthusiastic audience at the Carolina Theatre on opening night for their new show Rhythm Evolved. They?ll be repeating the performance Sunday, April 28th at 2:00 pm and you would do yourself a favor to be there.
The two seniors, Laura and Sarah, planned the show with the help of director Gene Medler and assistant director Rachel Teem. The pair of seniors?also choreographed the opening number, entitled Rhythm Evolved. The apt name of the dance and program was given in recognition of tap?s historical evolution to the present, the evolution of NCYTE over its 30 years, and the two seniors? personal tap journeys over the years with NCYTE, according to Laura.
When the curtain lifted you could feel positive energy and a lightness in the theater. The dancers looked sharp in black dress clothes, uniform but individual.
I found it impossible not to smile when I heard the Old Crow Medicine Show song Hard to Love and heavy footsteps coming from backstage that signaled the beginning of the Bluegrass Suite, one of two suites choreographed for the company by alum Michelle Dorrance. Petite Suite, a set of three dances is equally charming and quirky. The newest addition to Petite Suite, The Waltz is a laugh out loud dance full of show-offs with a Spanish flare.
Dancers Luke and Max performed the demanding tap dance choreographed and made famous by Steve and Nick Condos in 1938, The Condos Brothers? Indian Routine. Sam Weber reconstructed and restaged the work in 2003. It?s a dance full of unbelievably fast and challenging flash tap steps in which Luke and Max remained consistently in sync with each other and the music.
The Taiko Drumming Dance is a new piece conceived by Medler based on traditional Japanese Taiko drumming. In this beautiful piece, drummers move slowly and cast long shadows, gradually increasing the tempo. They are joined by two dancers who add to the complexity of the drums? rhythm before finishing as one with the drums.
Rhythm Evolved features guest artists Matthew Shields and Michelle Dorrance, who each dance alone and return to the stage together later in the show. Shields, currently based in Austin, TX where he is a principal dancer with Tapestry Dance Company, gave a whimsical performance to continuously changing music. His ease with slides and turns made it seem he was on ice. Shields danced in a familiar and understated way and worked his way up to super-fast taps that came from imperceptible movements.
Dorrance?s physical whole-body based tapping and authentic expression created an attention grabbing and captivating performance. I?ve never seen a tap dancer so connected to the sounds she produces. The sounds separated from her movement as smoothly as liquid mercury separates into droplets.
Dorrance, who is a Bessie award winner and the first tap? choreographer to receive a Princess Grace award, spoke as a former NCYTE member about the company?s 30 years, its legacy, and the impact of Gene Medler as the director. ?He is developing artists,? Dorrance said of Medler. She also said the company is unprecedented in the world and throughout tap history.
From the seniors to the youngest and newest, NCYTE members are creative in improvisation, precise and engaged in groups, and a joy to witness in action. These kids are top-notch artists you don?t want to miss. Do yourself a favor and go see the Sunday performance.
For ticket information visit: http://www.ncyte.dreamhosters.com/?page_id=43
See some pictures from a studio rehearsal at Artsview NC : A day with NCYTE
Tagged as: Carolina Theatre of Durham, Gene Medler, Matthew Shields, Michelle Dorrance, NCYTE
HOUSTON ? Kevin Durant was in uncharted territory on Saturday night, playing in his first game without friend and teammate Russell Westbrook.
Durant knew it would be different, but vowed to do whatever he could to carry his team through this difficult period.
He delivered on that promise by scoring 41 points and helping Oklahoma City fight off Houston's late rally to beat the Rockets 104-101 for a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series.
"I didn't feel the same," Durant said. "And I knew I just had to give my all from here on out ... every game is for him."
Durant checked his phone moments after leaving the court and smiled recalling the text messages he received from Westbrook.
"He texted me at halftime and right after the game," Durant said. "Just said congrats and that he loved me."
Durant scored 27 points in the first half, and the Thunder led by 26 points before a big third-quarter rally by the Rockets put them within striking distance.
Houston regained the lead with about 4 minutes left, and was up with less than a minute remaining. But Durant hit a 3-pointer, which bounced off the rim before falling in, to put Oklahoma City on top 100-99.
"We didn't want to give up any 3s," Houston's James Harden said. "He just made a lucky shot. It was good defense. It just went in and took some of the energy out of us."
A turnover by Harden gave the Thunder the ball back and Derek Fisher made two free throws to push the lead to three. Harden made a layup, but Reggie Jackson hit two more free throws after that.
Houston had a last chance, but Carlos Delfino's 3-pointer fell short.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks was impressed that his team was able to win despite losing its All-Star point guard.
"It's been an emotional time the last 48 hours," Brooks said. "We all love what Russell (Westbrook) is about. He's got probably the biggest heart I've ever been around."
Fisher said it was difficult getting through these last couple of days, but the 16-year veteran said he was there to help the younger guys deal with the loss of Westbrook.
"We're still grieving, so to speak, as a team," Fisher said. "But that's why I'm here, and that's why this is a team. Injuries and bad things happen in sports, but we still have to figure out a way to get things done."
Harden scored 30 points for the Rockets in the first playoff game in Houston since 2009. The Rockets will be at home again for Game 4 on Monday night.
Westbrook was injured in Game 2 and had season-ending right knee surgery Saturday. It was the first time Durant had played a pro game without Westbrook, who hadn't missed a game in his career before Saturday.
Durant's 41 points equaled a playoff career high, and he also had 14 rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block. He sat down for just 44 seconds on Saturday.
"Kevin has done a great job of being a playmaker all season long," Brooks said. "He's an amazing scorer, and he sets up a lot of guys to get easy buckets."
Jackson made his first career start in place of Westbrook and had 14 points, and Serge Ibaka added 17 points and 11 rebounds.
Chandler Parsons had a tying 3-pointer for Houston with 5:46 left, and Delfino put the Rockets in front for the first time since early in the first quarter when he connected from long range to make it 94-93 about 2 minutes later.
Ibaka made four straight points after that, ending with a reverse layup, to make it 97-94 with about a minute and a half left.
Harden hit a pair of free throws. Then Francisco Garcia's 3-pointer put them up 99-97 with 45 seconds left, before the clutch shot by Durant.
The Rockets rallied from a 15-point deficit to take a lead in the fourth quarter in Game 2. But they weren't able to hold on and Oklahoma City got the 105-102 win.
It was much the same this time, as Houston went up late only to fall again.
"We've got to find a way to win those games," Houston coach Kevin McHale said.
Harden complained that he and his teammates were sluggish and lacked energy early. He knows that won't cut it if they expect to win on Monday.
"We have to have that energy from the beginning of the game to the end of the game," he said. "We can't have droughts. You have to play a solid game for 48 minutes."
Westbrook's absence didn't seem to bother Oklahoma City early, as Durant had the big first half and the Thunder looked to be in complete control.
Things changed in the third quarter when Durant was limited offensively and Houston outscored the Thunder 27-14 in the period.
Houston point guard Jeremy Lin, who bruised a chest muscle in Game 2, started but scored only two points in about 18 minutes.
Parsons scored 21 points, and Garcia had 18.
After a big run got Houston within eight in the third quarter, Garcia and Harden made 3-pointers around a dunk by Durant to whittle the lead to 80-76 entering the last quarter.
Durant was scoreless in the third until his dunk with 27 seconds remaining in the quarter.
The Thunder led by 19 points when the Rockets used a 16-5 surge to get to 78-70 with 2 1/2 minutes left in the third. The Rockets harassed Oklahoma City into three turnovers in that stretch, and Durant went cold as he missed four shots.
NOTES: Garcia and McHale received technical fouls in the first quarter. ... Pitching great Roger Clemens and Houston Texans star receiver Andre Johnson attended the game.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Google has bought Wavii, a Seattle startup behind an application that condenses online content for time-pressed Web surfers.
Both companies confirmed the deal Friday. As with most of its acquisitions, Google isn't disclosing how much it paid for Wavii.
Wavii's technology grasps the context of language so it can summarize the main points in news stories and other content.
Although Wavii's app is shutting down, CEO Adrian Aoun says the startup's technology will be used in other Google products.
Google Inc., which is based in Mountain, View, Calif., declined to discuss its plans for Wavii. The natural-language technology could be useful for Google's Knowledge Graph, an 11-month-old feature that summarizes information in boxes that appear alongside some of Google's search results.
After releasing an ad that tries to find comedy in a man's failed suicide attempt ? the "joke" being that the new car's exhaust emissions are made of water rather than carbon monoxide and, thus, aren't toxic ? Hyundai has unsurprisingly found itself in the midst of a PR crisis.
After freelance copywriter Holly Brockwell's heartfelt blog about her father, who successfully killed himself by inhaling his car's exhaust fumes, went viral Thursday, both Hyundai Motor America and the company as a whole, released apologies for the European-made ads.
Hyundai is in trouble with the public, but could the company have done anything to prevent it?
The most obvious answer, of course, is that the ad should never have been made and certainly never approved. Barring public service announcements, suicide has no place in advertising ? especially as a joke.
(Pepsi got in trouble for ads that came out in Dusseldorf in 2008?which a personified calorie committed suicide in various graphic ways.)
But even after the green light, Hyundai dropped the ball in a way that contributed to its current PR crisis.
On April 19, a full six days before Brockwell wrote her condemning blog post, Adweek published an article criticizing the "suicide" commercial.
While the story didn't immediately appear on other major media sites or incite mass outrage, it laid out the problems and noted, "Neither Hyundai nor ad agency Innocean responded to queries."
And there's the problem.?
Reporter David Gianatasio directly reached out for comment. And it looks like he was ignored. Perhaps the company thought the issue would go away on its own, but they were mistaken ??and it resurfaced in a major way, six days later.
Of course there's a risk involved in drawing attention to an issue that might magically disappear before the mass public has become aware of the misstep. Maybe Brockwell would still have seen the video and written her passionate piece, even if the company had apologized in Adweek.
But failing to acknowledge the mistake can be worse, and make the company look more callous.?
Assuming that a problem will go away and people will stop watching the ad on their own is a fundamental misstep. Companies can't assume that the internet will just forget.
The ad was bound to gain attention, and an earlier apology might have lessened the blow.
Bullet holes visible in the windshield of the Mercedes.
In this photo obtained by NBC News, a tow truck delivers a bullet-riddled black Mercedes SUV to police headquarters in Watertown, MA, on Friday afternoon, April 19th.
By Jamie Novogrod, Hannah Rappleye and Tom Winter, NBC News
WATERTOWN, Mass. ? Hours after the gun battle in suburban Boston that left one marathon bombing suspect dead and another severely wounded, a tow truck delivered this bullet-riddled Mercedes SUV to police headquarters here in Watertown.
In this photo obtained by NBC News, the Mercedes SUV awaits pickup by a tow truck last Friday morning, April 19th, at the corner of Spruce and Lincoln Street in Watertown.
In these photographs, taken at the police station last Friday afternoon and obtained by NBC News, bullet holes are visible in the windshield and driver's side door of the SUV.? The front bumper and left headlight are crumpled and cracked.
The photos capture another step in a strange journey for the luxury car, which was hijacked by bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev late Thursday evening in Cambridge and then driven to Watertown, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal authorities.
There in Watertown, according to the complaint and eyewitnesses, the brothers traded fire with police, before Dzhokhar used the car to break through police lines and escape capture for roughly 16 hours.
As he sped toward authorities, Dzhokhar collided with his older brother, Tamerlan, officials and eyewitnesses told NBC News.? Dragged across the pavement and wounded by gunfire, Tamerlan was captured and pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. Frirday at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Bullet holes in the driver's side door and rear passenger door of the Mercedes. Photo obtained by NBC News.
Dzhohkar was discovered in a nearby backyard on Friday evening, where he had taken refuge inside a boat parked less than mile from the scene of the gunfight.
The Mercedes was recovered at an intersection near where Dzhokhar was hiding.
Apr. 25, 2013 ? Weight loss is a topic of concern for nearly 36% of Americans who are considered obese. There are many barriers that can interfere with weight loss. For those attending face-to-face weight loss programs, barriers can include travel, conflict with work and home, need for childcare, and loss of anonymity.
In a new study released in the May/June 2013 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, investigators from The University of Kansas Medical Center continue to explore alternative weight management delivery methods to eliminate some of these barriers. The solution they are investigating -- virtual reality for weight loss and weight maintenance.
Looking at the results from twenty overweight and obese individuals after 3 months of a weight loss program at a weekly clinic delivered via face-to-face or virtual reality and then 6 months of weight maintenance delivered via virtual reality, the investigators found virtual reality compares favorably with face-to-face for weight loss and may facilitate greater weight maintenance. Debra Sullivan, lead investigator, adds, "Although we found weight loss was significantly greater for face-to-face compared to virtual reality, weight maintenance was significantly better for virtual reality."
The virtual reality weight maintenance program was conducted using Second Life, a Web-based virtual reality environment available to the public. Participants in Second Life create virtual representations of themselves, called ''avatars,'' which can interact with other avatars and navigate through the virtual world of Second Life. Voice communication is accomplished via headset, which allows for person-to-person and group interaction. Education and training takes place on an ''island,'' which is purchased from Second Life and provides restricted group access to the nutrition education/training area.
To further explain how Second Life can be used in this capacity, Dr. Sullivan explains, "Individuals who want to participate in real-life scenarios without real-life repercussions can use virtual reality. For example, participants can practice meal planning, grocery shopping, and dietary control when eating at restaurants and holiday parties to a much greater extent with Second Life compared with the time-limited clinic meeting. Virtual reality may even be able to serve as a more feasible option to monitor individuals after completing a weight loss program."
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Debra K. Sullivan et al. Improving Weight Maintenance Using Virtual Reality (Second Life). Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, May/June 2013
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President Barack Obama during his meeting Friday with King Abdullah II of Jordan. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP???A whole bunch,? meet ?systematic.? President Barack Obama's cautious stance on the conflict in Syria shone clearly Friday as he warned President Bashar Assad that ?the systematic use? of chemical weapons against Syrian rebels would trigger a forceful American response.
Back in August, Obama bluntly warned Assad?s regime that while he had not ?at this point? ordered an American military response to Syria's civil war, ?a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized."
When it comes to chemical weapons, what is "a whole bunch"? What does "systematic" mean? The White House has carefully refused to define either term precisely, keeping the president's options open. Republicans have called for a far more forceful U.S. role in Syria, notably by arming the rebels and establishing "safe zones" to protect the opposition or Syrians fleeing the fighting.
In 2008, Obama used his opposition to the Iraq war?and Hillary Clinton?s initial support for it?as a potent weapon to capture the Democratic presidential nomination. The flawed case for toppling Saddam Hussein looms large now as the president wrestles with the U.S. response to signs that Assad?s iron-fisted regime used chemical weapons in Syria?s two-year civil war. The conflict has claimed the lives of an estimated 70,000 people.
?I think all of us, not just in the United States but around the world, recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations,? Obama said as he met Friday in the Oval Office with King Abdullah II of Jordan.
The president?s comments came a day after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the White House revealed that U.S. intelligence believed Assad had used chemical weapons, specifically the deadly nerve agent sarin, against opposition forces in the country's ongoing civil war.
On Thursday, the White House disclosed that "our intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence" that Assad's regime had used sarin. But top officials?from Hagel on down?warned that those findings did not mean that Assad had now crossed Obama's "red line" or that American military action might be imminent. Instead, they said Washington will now work with its allies, Syria's opposition and the United Nations to build what one top Obama aide called an ?airtight? case.
"These are preliminary assessments; they?re based on our intelligence gathering. We have varying degrees of confidence about the actual use, but there are a range of questions around how, when, where these weapons may have been used," Obama said Friday, vowing "to make sure that we are investigating this as effectively and as quickly as we can."
"But I meant what I?d said, and I will repeat," he said. "Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law. And that is going to be a game changer."
"We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us, not just in the United States but around the world, recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations," he said.
Just how big a factor is the March 2003 invasion of Iraq? A senior Obama aide, briefing reporters Thursday on a conference call arranged by the White House, made repeated references to it as a reason to tread cautiously.
?I?d say that given our own history with intelligence assessments, including intelligence assessments related to weapons of mass destruction, it?s very important that we are able to establish this with certainty and that we are able to present information that is airtight in a public and credible fashion," he said. "That is, I think, the threshold that is demanded."
White House press secretary Jay Carney sharply rejected any notion that Obama might show more "leniency" on weapons of mass destruction because of the Iraq War. "Absolutely not," he told reporters at his Friday briefing.
"The fact is that we do have some evidence and we need to build on that," Carney said. "The precedent you cite I think is a significant one, and it simply stands to reason that the assessments that we make, the intelligence community makes, are extraordinarily valuable, and they do excellent work, but they are building blocks towards a broader objective here, which is the accumulation of concrete evidence?evidence that can be corroborated, evidence that can be presented and reviewed and then acted on if the conclusion is that a red line has been crossed."
Owning a Wii U can feel like an exercise in patience: games and apps can take up to 30 seconds to load, and downloaded software needs to be manually installed. Thankfully, Nintendo heard its fans lamentations, and has issued the first of two major updates designed to mitigate the problem. In addition to dramatically speeding up software load times, the update revises how the Wii U handles downloads and installs. Rather than manually having to install software, the system will automatically update, download and unwrap patches in the background, even if the console is powered down. The system update also puts the finishing touches on the Wii U Virtual Console, which is promised to launch officially in the coming days. Nintendo's old VC can be accessed a little quicker now, too, as the update now allows users to jump directly into the sandboxed Wii ecosystem by holding the B button during start up. All in all, a pretty solid update to a system that needs a little fixing. Check out the full list of changes after the break.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition has taken the lead in eight out of the 12 provinces that held provincial elections at the weekend, including the capital Baghdad, preliminary results showed on Thursday.
A Maliki ally also won in Najaf, effectively giving him a lead in a ninth province.
The strong showing by Shi'ite Maliki's State of Law alliance - based on 87 percent of the results - consolidates his position ahead of parliamentary elections due in 2014, when he has hinted it will be time to form a majority government.
Iraqi politics are deeply split along sectarian lines, with Maliki's government in a crisis over how to share power among Shi'ites, Sunni Muslims and ethnic Kurds who run their own autonomous region in the north.
Voting in two Sunni majority provinces was put off until July due to concerns about security, a delay criticized by the United States. The cabinet said the date could be postponed again unless the situation improved.
Violence and suicide bombings have surged since the start of the year with a local al Qaeda wing vowing a campaign to stoke widespread confrontation. More than 100 people have been killed since Tuesday in clashes between militants and security forces.
(Reporting by Raheem Salman; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
South Korea wants talks with North to reopen joint industrial zone
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Thursday it was proposing formal talks with North Korea to discuss restarting work at a joint factory zone located just north of the rivals' heavily armed border that was suspended in early April amid growing security tensions. The offer is the first formal proposal for direct talks by Seoul aimed at making a breakthrough in a deadlock over the Kaesong factory project, which was the last remaining channel open between the two Koreas until it was forced to close.
U.S. had more tips on Boston suspect; Congress asks questions
WASHINGTON/CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence was alerted when one of the Boston bombing suspects traveled to a volatile region of Russia last year, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, raising new questions about the government's handling of the case and how well law enforcement agencies share information and cooperate with one another. The trip by the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to southern Russia has come under scrutiny over whether he became involved with or was influenced by Chechen separatists or Islamic militants there, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Iraq on edge after raid fuels deadly Sunni unrest
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - More than 30 people were killed in gun battles between Iraqi forces and militants on Wednesday, a day after a raid on a Sunni Muslim protest ignited the fiercest clashes since American troops left the country. The second day of fighting threatens to deepen sectarian rifts in Iraq where relations between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims are still very tense just a few years after inter-communal slaughter pushed the country close to civil war.
Budget cuts back in spotlight as flight delays mount
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday backed a plan that would temporarily eliminate spending cuts disrupting U.S. air travel, while lawmakers in Washington scrambled to avoid blame as the impact of the reductions began being felt across the country. Airlines pushed for the government to act as flight delays increased and planes stacked up at airports, with one chief executive saying, "We can't do this for long."
In Myanmar, cheap SIM card draw may herald telecoms revolution
YANGON (Reuters) - Introduced a decade and a half ago under Myanmar's former military rulers, SIM cards sold for as much as $7,000 apiece. Today, they still cost more than $200. From Thursday, lucky winners of a lottery-style sale may get one for as little as $2. This is telecoms deregulation, Myanmar-style.
Train plot suspect rejects Canadian law, cites "holy book"
TORONTO (Reuters) - One of two men accused in an alleged al Qaeda-backed plan to derail a passenger train in Canada appeared in court on Wednesday and disputed the authority of Canadian law to judge him, saying the criminal code was not a holy book. Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born doctoral student, faces charges that include conspiracy to murder and working with a terrorist group.
Analysis: Iran's unlikely al Qaeda ties: fluid, murky and deteriorating
LONDON (Reuters) - When al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri spoke in an audio message broadcast to supporters earlier this month, he had harsh words for Iran. Its true face, he said, had been unmasked by its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against fighters loyal to al Qaeda. Yet it is symptomatic of the peculiar relationship between Tehran and al Qaeda that in the same month Canadian police would accuse "al Qaeda elements in Iran" of backing a plot to derail a passenger train.
Venezuela's parliament launches probe into Capriles
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's government-controlled parliament set up an inquiry on Wednesday into violence over a disputed election that authorities blame on opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Nine people died and dozens were injured after opposition protests against Nicolas Maduro's narrow April 14 presidential poll win turned violent around the South American nation.
Egyptian judges accuse Mursi backers of attacking their independence
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian judges accused President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday of trying to clamp down on judicial independence by conducting a campaign ostensibly aimed at rooting out corruption. A rift between Egypt's Islamist rulers and the judiciary is steadily widening amid a broader struggle over the future character of the country following the 2011 uprising that overthrew autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.
Syrian army seizes strategic town near capital
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad seized a strategic town east of Damascus on Wednesday, breaking a critical weapons supply route for the rebels, activists and fighters said. Rebels have held several suburbs ringing the southern and eastern parts Damascus for months, but they have been struggling to maintain their positions against a ground offensive backed by fierce army shelling and air strikes in recent weeks.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? For sea turtle hatchlings struggling to reach the ocean, success may depend on having flexible wrists that allow them to move without disturbing too much sand. A similar wrist also helps a robot known as "FlipperBot" move through a test bed, demonstrating how animals and bio-inspired robots can together provide new information on the principles governing locomotion on granular surfaces.
Both the baby turtles and FlipperBot run into trouble under the same conditions: traversing granular media disturbed by previous steps. Information from the robot research helped scientists understand why some of the hatchlings they studied experienced trouble, creating a unique feedback loop from animal to robot -- and back to animal.
The research could help robot designers better understand locomotion on complex surfaces and lead biologists to a clearer picture of how seat turtles and other animals like mudskippers use their flippers. The research could also help explain how animals evolved limbs -- including flippers -- for walking on land.
The research is scheduled to be published April 24 in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Program, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
"We are looking at different ways that robots can move about on sand," said Daniel Goldman, an associate professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We wanted to make a systematic study of what makes flippers useful or effective. We've learned that the flow of the materials plays a large role in the strategy that can be used by either animals or robots."
The research began in 2010 with a six-week study of hatchling loggerhead sea turtles emerging at night from nests on Jekyll Island, one of Georgia's coastal islands. The research was done in collaboration with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.
Nicole Mazouchova, then a graduate student in the Georgia Tech School of Biology, studied the baby turtles using a trackway filled with beach sand and housed in a truck parked near the beach. She recorded kinematic and biomechanical data as the turtles moved in darkness toward an LED light that simulated the moon.
Mazouchova and Goldman studied data from the 25 hatchlings, and were surprised to learn that they managed to maintain their speed regardless of the surface on which they were running.
"On soft sand, the animals move their limbs in such a way that they don't create a yielding of the material on which they're walking," said Goldman. "That means the material doesn't flow around the limbs and they don't slip. The surprising thing to us was that the turtles had comparable performance when they were running on hard ground or soft sand."
The key maintaining performance seemed to be the ability of the hatchlings to control their wrists, allowing them to change how they used their flippers under different sand conditions.
"On hard ground, their wrists locked in place, and they pivoted about a fixed arm," Goldman explained. "On soft sand, they put their flippers into the sand and the wrist would bend as they moved forward. We decided to investigate this using a robot model."
That led to development of FlipperBot, with assistance from Paul Umbanhowar, a research associate professor at Northwestern University. The robot measures about 19 centimeters in length, weighs about 970 grams, and has two flippers driven by servo-motors. Like the turtles, the robot has flexible wrists that allow variations in its movement. To move through a track bed filled with poppy seeds that simulate sand, the robot lifts its flippers up, drops them into the seeds, then moves the flippers backward to propel itself.
Mazouchova, now a Ph.D. student at Temple University, studied many variations of gait and wrist position and found that the free-moving mechanical wrist also provided an advantage to the robot.
"In the robot, the free wrist does provide some advantage," said Goldman. "For the most part, the wrist confers advantage for moving forward without slipping. The wrist flexibility minimizes material yielding, which disturbs less ground. The flexible wrist also allows both the robot and turtles to maintain a high angle of attack for their bodies, which reduces performance-impeding drag from belly friction."
The researchers also noted that the robot often failed when limbs encountered material that the same limbs had already disturbed. That led them to re-examine the data collected on the hatchling turtles, some of which had also experienced difficulty walking across the soft sand.
"When we saw the turtles moving poorly, they appeared to be suffering from the same failure mode that we saw in the robot," Goldman explained. "When they interacted with materials that had been previously disturbed, they tended to lose performance."
Mazouchova and Goldman then worked with Umbanhowar to model the robot's performance in an effort to predict how the turtle hatchlings should respond to different conditions. The predictions closely matched what was actually observed, closing the loop between robot and animal.
"The robot study allowed us to test how principles applied to the animals," Goldman said. While the results may not directly improve robot designs, what the researchers learned should contribute to a better understanding of the principles governing movement using flippers. That would be useful to the designers of robots that must swim through water and walk on land.
"A multi-modal robot might need to use paddles for swimming in water, but it might also need to walk in an effective way on the beach," Goldman said. "This work can provide fundamental information on what makes flippers good or bad. This information could give robot designers clues to appendage designs and control techniques for robots moving in these environments."
The research could ultimately provide clues to how turtles evolved to walk on land with appendages designed for swimming.
"To understand the mechanics of how the first terrestrial animals moved, you have to understand how their flipper-like limbs interacted with complex, yielding substrates like mud flats," said Goldman. "We don't have solid results on the evolutionary questions yet, but this certainly points to a way that we could address these issues."
This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation under grant CMMI-0825480 and the Physics of Living Systems PoLS program, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's (ARL) Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Program under cooperative agreement W911NF-08-2-0004, the U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award. Any conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF, ARL or ARO.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications. The original article was written by John Toon.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Nicole Mazouchova, Paul B. Umbanhowar and Daniel I. Goldman. Flipper-driven terrestrial locomotion of a sea turtle-inspired robot. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2013
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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
The bylaws of almost all UK universities are short of using the word ?shall? and they substitute it with the words ?will? and ?should?
For the purpose of education, the UK is divided into two halves: England (and Northern Ireland) and Scotland. Each of them has its own body that supervises quality assurance in its part of the higher education sector. For instance, in England (and Northern Ireland), the job is carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education while in Scotland it is the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO).
In 2011, the UK government published a white paper, ?Students at the Heart of the System? to enhance quality assurance in higher education through the participation of students. In the light of this, the QAA is trying to find new ways of reviewing quality assurance in higher education to be implemented in the universities of England (and Northern Ireland) by September 2013. Similarly, in order to augment quality assurance at Scottish universities in the light of the Sinclair report, the SPSO issued its Model Complaints Handling Procedure (MCHP) for Higher Education in December 2012 to be adopted by all Scottish higher education institutes by September 2013. The UK government?s white paper laid emphasis on the standardisation of criteria for assessing academic standards and the quality of the student learning experience at all universities and colleges; the Sinclair report recommended the adoption of a standardised MCHP in all Scottish universities and colleges.
Generally, the UK?s every university is driven by two factors: first, how to meet its financial earning targets set for any given year, and second, how to improve its position on the universities? ranking table. Any incident of compromise on quality assurance affects adversely a university?s ranking, and consequently, its financial targets. Though the standardisation of the assessment process and the standardisation of MCHP were long overdue, they share a common point: the emphasis of both is still on procedures. This is despite the fact that the cause of the compromise on quality assurance in the past used to be the universities? devising mechanisms to bypass the procedures but retaining their positions on any ranking table.
One of the ways to assure quality through procedures is by obtaining feedback from students. It is a common practice in the UK?s universities that teachers (lecturers and professors) and graduate or post-graduate school administrators influence students, especially overseas students, either to give positive feedback or to make oneself absent from the session meant for gathering feedback from them, whether or not the feedback is obtained at the university or the supra-university level (by the QAA or the SPSO).
The question is this: can an overseas student dare refuse any such ?request? made by a teacher or administrator? The answer is in the negative because the student is told that in case of noncompliance his/her supervisor will not issue a favourable letter of reference to help him/her forward his/her career in the future. It is difficult for an overseas student to turn down such a request because his/her stakes are higher than home students. In this way, the letter of reference has become a major blackmailing instrument in the hands of supervisors (and course administrators). The threat of writing adverse remarks in the letter of reference is used to silence those students who are vocal against the delivery of low quality education and research at the UK?s universities. In this regard, both the QAA and the SPSO have failed to introduce any mechanism to know why a student is absent from the feedback session or why a student has not submitted the feedback at all, especially where the name of the student is mandatory to be mentioned. Secondly, both the QAA and the SPSO have failed to make it mandatory on all students including overseas students to submit their feedback. Thirdly, both the QAA and the SPSO have failed to determine the difference between representative feedback and non-representative feedback.
The second type of students? comments on quality assurance in the UK?s higher education is through the complaints they lodge against the universities in the universities. Again, both the QAA and the SPSO lay emphasis on the procedure of complaints adopted by the UK?s universities. Complaints and their procedures are described in the bylaws of the UK?s universities. Interestingly, in the bylaws of one university, one provision (law) is present while in the bylaws of another university another provision (law) is present. For instance, in the bylaws of several UK universities (without naming any university), the word ?complaint? has not been defined or if it is defined the word ?compensation? has been omitted. Similarly, certain universities do mention the term ?appropriate and reasonable compensation? in their bylaws but do not explain the meaning of that term. Likewise, the bylaws of almost all UK universities are short of using the word ?shall? and they substitute it with the words ?will? and ?should?. The absence of key terms prohibits students, especially overseas students, from filing a complaint and reporting their grievances. Again, the procedure is ineffective in assuring quality in the UK?s higher education sector. In this regard, both the QAA and the SPSO have failed to focus on the standardisation of the bylaws of the UK?s universities. Secondly, both the QAA and the SPSO have failed to notice the absence of key terms from the bylaws of the UK?s universities.
At this juncture, the concern of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan should be whether the degree obtained by an overseas Pakistani student from even any top ranking UK university is the same (not by its name or caption but) in quality that the HEC had thought it would be?
There are other loopholes in the UK?s higher education sector, which have not been mentioned here owing to the limitation of words. If the British Council (which speaks on behalf of the British High Commission) considers it appropriate, the challenge of debate given to it by this writer on the topic on April 10 this year is still open.
Courtesy: Dr Qaisar Rashid (The writer of this article)
1 million hours of psychiatrist time wasted yearly on phone approval for hospitalizationPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Almberg mark@pnhp.org 312-782-6006 Physicians for a National Health Program
Harvard researchers find lengthy waits for severely ill psychiatric patients
A study published today [Tuesday, April 23] in Annals of Emergency Medicine reports lengthy waits for severely ill psychiatric patients in need of immediate hospitalization in the Boston area, due in part to time-consuming prior authorizations required by insurance companies.
Psychiatrists spent, on average, 38 minutes on the telephone getting authorization. In 10 percent of cases it took more than one hour to obtain insurance authorization; in one case authorization took five hours of psychiatrist time.
Mental health disorders are common, affecting nearly 1 in 4 adults annually, less than a third of whom receive psychiatric care. Better access to care might reduce the harms mental illness imposes on the mentally ill, their families and communities.
For the present study, over a three-month period, researchers tabulated how long psychiatric patients who were deemed in need of inpatient admission stayed in the emergency department (ED) prior to being hospitalized, and the amount of time that the ED psychiatrists spent obtaining authorization from the patient's insurer. A group of 11 psychiatric residents at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) working in the psychiatric ED with acutely ill psychiatric patients collected the data.
Most patients required hospitalization because they were suicidal or, in a few cases, homicidal.
Although obtaining insurance authorization delayed care and took clinicians away from other duties, only 1 of the 53 requests for authorization was denied. Median total time in the ED was 8.5 hours, with the shortest stay lasting 3 hours and the longest recorded stay lasting 20 hours.
These numbers don't include a handful of patients who boarded in the ED over the weekend while waiting for an inpatient bed to become available for them. They exclude uninsured patients and those with Medicare, which doesn't require prior authorization.
With approximately 1.6 million psychiatric admissions among people with private insurance nationwide each year, 38 minutes of phone time to obtain authorization translates into about 1 million hours of wasted psychiatrist time.
Lead author Dr. Amy Funkenstein, a child psychiatry fellow at Brown University, led the study while she was a psychiatric resident at CHA and Harvard Medical School. She said: "Society pays for inadequate psychiatric care; more than half of all prison inmates and a third of all homeless people are mentally ill. Massachusetts is considered a model for health reform, yet we found that seriously ill patients routinely spent hours stranded in the ED due to insurance bureaucracy. The hours psychiatrists spend obtaining those authorizations could be far better spent treating our patients."
Senior author Dr. J. Wesley Boyd, attending psychiatrist at CHA and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, commented: "Private insurers are obstructing care by requiring authorizations before a qualified psychiatrist can hospitalize a dangerously ill patient. With doctors, nurses and emergency departments already overburdened, adding a time consuming bureaucratic task that doesn't help patients is unconscionable.
"Insurers hope that clinicians will be so hassled by authorization procedures that they won't seek admission for their patients, saving insurance companies money," he said. "Placing profits ahead of the health of patients when mental illness makes them vulnerable is immoral. A single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system would represent a great leap forward for patients and providers alike."
###
"Insurance Prior Authorization Approval Does Not Substantially Lengthen the Emergency Department Length of Stay for Patients with Psychiatric Conditions," Amy Funkenstein, M.D., Monica Malowney, B.A., and J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D., Annals of Emergency Medicine, April 23, 2013.
A copy of the EMBARGOED manuscript of the study, which takes the form of a clinical observations research letter, is available to media professionals upon request.
Physicians for a National Health Program is a nonprofit research and education organization of more than 18,000 doctors who advocate for single-payer national health insurance, an improved Medicare for all. PNHP had no role in funding or otherwise supporting the study described above. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit http://www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
1 million hours of psychiatrist time wasted yearly on phone approval for hospitalizationPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Almberg mark@pnhp.org 312-782-6006 Physicians for a National Health Program
Harvard researchers find lengthy waits for severely ill psychiatric patients
A study published today [Tuesday, April 23] in Annals of Emergency Medicine reports lengthy waits for severely ill psychiatric patients in need of immediate hospitalization in the Boston area, due in part to time-consuming prior authorizations required by insurance companies.
Psychiatrists spent, on average, 38 minutes on the telephone getting authorization. In 10 percent of cases it took more than one hour to obtain insurance authorization; in one case authorization took five hours of psychiatrist time.
Mental health disorders are common, affecting nearly 1 in 4 adults annually, less than a third of whom receive psychiatric care. Better access to care might reduce the harms mental illness imposes on the mentally ill, their families and communities.
For the present study, over a three-month period, researchers tabulated how long psychiatric patients who were deemed in need of inpatient admission stayed in the emergency department (ED) prior to being hospitalized, and the amount of time that the ED psychiatrists spent obtaining authorization from the patient's insurer. A group of 11 psychiatric residents at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) working in the psychiatric ED with acutely ill psychiatric patients collected the data.
Most patients required hospitalization because they were suicidal or, in a few cases, homicidal.
Although obtaining insurance authorization delayed care and took clinicians away from other duties, only 1 of the 53 requests for authorization was denied. Median total time in the ED was 8.5 hours, with the shortest stay lasting 3 hours and the longest recorded stay lasting 20 hours.
These numbers don't include a handful of patients who boarded in the ED over the weekend while waiting for an inpatient bed to become available for them. They exclude uninsured patients and those with Medicare, which doesn't require prior authorization.
With approximately 1.6 million psychiatric admissions among people with private insurance nationwide each year, 38 minutes of phone time to obtain authorization translates into about 1 million hours of wasted psychiatrist time.
Lead author Dr. Amy Funkenstein, a child psychiatry fellow at Brown University, led the study while she was a psychiatric resident at CHA and Harvard Medical School. She said: "Society pays for inadequate psychiatric care; more than half of all prison inmates and a third of all homeless people are mentally ill. Massachusetts is considered a model for health reform, yet we found that seriously ill patients routinely spent hours stranded in the ED due to insurance bureaucracy. The hours psychiatrists spend obtaining those authorizations could be far better spent treating our patients."
Senior author Dr. J. Wesley Boyd, attending psychiatrist at CHA and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, commented: "Private insurers are obstructing care by requiring authorizations before a qualified psychiatrist can hospitalize a dangerously ill patient. With doctors, nurses and emergency departments already overburdened, adding a time consuming bureaucratic task that doesn't help patients is unconscionable.
"Insurers hope that clinicians will be so hassled by authorization procedures that they won't seek admission for their patients, saving insurance companies money," he said. "Placing profits ahead of the health of patients when mental illness makes them vulnerable is immoral. A single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system would represent a great leap forward for patients and providers alike."
###
"Insurance Prior Authorization Approval Does Not Substantially Lengthen the Emergency Department Length of Stay for Patients with Psychiatric Conditions," Amy Funkenstein, M.D., Monica Malowney, B.A., and J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D., Annals of Emergency Medicine, April 23, 2013.
A copy of the EMBARGOED manuscript of the study, which takes the form of a clinical observations research letter, is available to media professionals upon request.
Physicians for a National Health Program is a nonprofit research and education organization of more than 18,000 doctors who advocate for single-payer national health insurance, an improved Medicare for all. PNHP had no role in funding or otherwise supporting the study described above. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit http://www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
(Image: Jennifer Read, Natural Resources Canada)
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Public release date: 23-Apr-2013
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