Picking apart photosynthesis: New insights could lead to better catalysts for water splitting

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Chemists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory believe they can now explain one of the remaining mysteries of photosynthesis, the chemical process by which plants convert sunlight into usable energy and generate the oxygen that we breathe. The finding suggests a new way of approaching the design of catalysts that drive the water-splitting reactions of artificial photosynthesis.

"If we want to make systems that can do artificial photosynthesis, it's important that we understand how the system found in nature functions," says Theodor Agapie, an assistant professor of chemistry at Caltech and principal investigator on a paper in the journal Nature Chemistry that describes the new results.

One of the key pieces of biological machinery that enables photosynthesis is a conglomeration of proteins and pigments known as photosystem II. Within that system lies a small cluster of atoms, called the oxygen-evolving complex, where water molecules are split and molecular oxygen is made. Although this oxygen-producing process has been studied extensively, the role that various parts of the cluster play has remained unclear.

The oxygen-evolving complex performs a reaction that requires the transfer of electrons, making it an example of what is known as a redox, or oxidation-reduction, reaction. The cluster can be described as a "mixed-metal cluster" because in addition to oxygen, it includes two types of metals -- one that is redox active, or capable of participating in the transfer of electrons (in this case, manganese), and one that is redox inactive (calcium).

"Since calcium is redox inactive, people have long wondered what role it might play in this cluster," Agapie says.

It has been difficult to solve that mystery in large part because the oxygen-evolving complex is just a cog in the much larger machine that is photosystem II; it is hard to study the smaller piece because there is so much going on with the whole. To get around this, Agapie's graduate student Emily Tsui prepared a series of compounds that are structurally related to the oxygen-evolving complex. She built upon an organic scaffold in a stepwise fashion, first adding three manganese centers and then attaching a fourth metal. By varying that fourth metal to be calcium and then different redox-inactive metals, such as strontium, sodium, yttrium, and zinc, Tsui was able to compare the effects of the metals on the chemical properties of the compound.

"When making mixed-metal clusters, researchers usually mix simple chemical precursors and hope the metals will self-assemble in desired structures," Tsui says. "That makes it hard to control the product. By preparing these clusters in a much more methodical way, we've been able to get just the right structures."

It turns out that the redox-inactive metals affect the way electrons are transferred in such systems. To make molecular oxygen, the manganese atoms must activate the oxygen atoms connected to the metals in the complex. In order to do that, the manganese atoms must first transfer away several electrons. Redox-inactive metals that tug more strongly on the electrons of the oxygen atoms make it more difficult for manganese to do this. But calcium does not draw electrons strongly toward itself. Therefore, it allows the manganese atoms to transfer away electrons and activate the oxygen atoms that go on to make molecular oxygen.

A number of the catalysts that are currently being developed to drive artificial photosynthesis are mixed-metal oxide catalysts. It has again been unclear what role the redox-inactive metals in these mixed catalysts play. The new findings suggest that the redox-inactive metals affect the way the electrons are transferred. "If you pick the right redox-inactive metal, you can tune the reduction potential to bring the reaction to the range where it is favorable," Agapie says. "That means we now have a more rational way of thinking about how to design these sorts of catalysts because we know how much the redox-inactive metal affects the redox chemistry."

The paper in Nature Chemistry is titled "Redox-inactive metals modulate the reduction potential in heterometallic manganese-oxido clusters." Along with Agapie and Tsui, Rosalie Tran and Junko Yano of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are also coauthors. The work was supported by the Searle Scholars Program, an NSF CAREER award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. X-ray spectroscopy work was supported by the NIH and the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Synchrotron facilities were provided by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, operated by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Kimm Fesenmaier.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Emily Y. Tsui, Rosalie Tran, Junko Yano, Theodor Agapie. Redox-inactive metals modulate the reduction potential in heterometallic manganese?oxido clusters. Nature Chemistry, 2013; 5 (4): 293 DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1578

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/zABlV4-Gj0A/130329125305.htm

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Singer India.Arie laughs off skin-lightening talk

NEW YORK (AP) ? India.Arie is laughing off talk that she may have lightened her skin.

The R&B songstress is known for singing about being authentic and celebrating one's true self. But some accused India.Arie of lightening her skin when a publicity photo for her song "Cocoa Butter" released this week made it look as though she were several shades lighter than her dark brown complexion.

But India.Arie took to Twitter on Friday to deny the accusations, saying she has no desire to bleach her skin because she loves herself and her brown skin "more than ever." She also said that "magnificent lighting" is the cause for her "glow."

She added that she'd like to keep the conversation going, though, on the issue of racism and colorism in the black community.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/singer-india-arie-laughs-off-skin-lightening-talk-231340708.html

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Fire pushes Chattanooga family out of house | timesfreepress.com

A house fire pushed a Chattanooga family of six out of its home Friday afternoon.

One of the older children was cooking for the others at 1604 Wheeler Ave. when the fire broke out in the kitchen, according to a news release. All the children escaped safelty. The mother was not home.

Michael Thomas, acting battalion chief with the Chattanooga Fire Department, said the flames stayed within the kitchen, though smoke damaged other parts of the house. In all, the fire caused about $10,000 in damage.

When she arrived, the children?s mother had to go to the hospital for an unrelated medical problem. Other than the children seemed to be OK, and the family dog also escaped, the release said.

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Source: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/mar/29/fire-pushes-chattanooga-family-out-house/

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Vizio brings pricing and release information to spring line of laptops and desktops

For those opting to "replace" instead of "clean" this spring, Vizio's got a bit of news for you -- the outfit's latest line of touch-friendly laptops and desktops now have firm pricing details to pore over. Starting with the portables, the 14-inch Touch Thin + Light (CT14T-B0) will ship soon with an AMD A10 APU and a base price of $1,089.99; the Core i7-equipped CT14T-B1, however, will start at $1,419.99. For those needing a bit more screen to stare at, the 15.6-inch versions of these guys will go for $1,189.99 (AMD A10) / $1,469.99 (Intel Core i7). Sliding over to desktops, the 24-inch Touch All-in-One (CA24T-B0) will ship momentarily for $1,279.99 with an AMD A10 APU, while the Core i7-infused CA24T-B1 will start at $1,439.99 and the 27-inch CA27T-B1 will get going at $1,549.99. As you'd expect, Windows 8 will find itself on home across the entire range, and those looking to buy in immediately can do so at the source links below.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets

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Source: Vizio, Microsoft Store

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/29/vizio-spring-laptop-desktop-pricing-ship-date/

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Video Interviews with Tyler Perry's Temptation Cast & Crew

Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor is a steamy, cautionary tale of Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), who has all her life choices brought into question by the arrival of a handsome, rich stranger. Grae Drake talks to the cast about what the set was like, why it's fun to play a lost soul, and what their real-life temptations are.

Click here to watch more video interviews

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927137/news/1927137/

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Month in Space: March 2013

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Ryan T. Anderson explains how gay marriage undermines natural ...

From the Heritage Foundation. (H/T Tom)

Excerpt:

Weakening marital norms and severing the connection of marriage with responsible procreation are the admitted goals of many prominent advocates of redefining marriage. E. J. Graff celebrates the fact that redefining marriage would change the ?institution?s message? so that it would ?ever after stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers.? Enacting same-sex marriage, she argues, ?does more than just fit; it announces that marriage has changed shape.?[3]

Andrew Sullivan says that marriage has become ?primarily a way in which two adults affirm their emotional commitment to one another.?[4]

The Norm of Monogamy.?New York University Professor Judith Stacey has expressed hope that redefining marriage would give marriage ?varied, creative and adaptive contours,? leading some to ?question the dyadic limitations of Western marriage and seek?small group marriages.?[5]?In their statement ?Beyond Same-Sex Marriage,? more than 300 ?LGBT and allied? scholars and advocates call for legal recognition of sexual relationships involving more than two partners.[6]

University of Calgary Professor Elizabeth Brake thinks that justice requires using legal recognition to ?denormalize[] heterosexual monogamy as a way of life? and ?rectif[y] past discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals, polygamists, and care networks.? She supports ?minimal marriage? in which ?individuals can have legal marital relationships with more than one person, reciprocally or asymmetrically, themselves determining the sex and number of parties, the type of relationship involved, and which rights and responsibilities to exchange with each.?[7]

In 2009,?Newsweek?reported that the United States already had over 500,000 polyamorous households.[8]?The author concluded:

[P]erhaps the practice is more natural than we think: a response to the challenges of monogamous relationships, whose shortcomings?are clear.? [C]an one person really satisfy every need? Polyamorists think the answer is obvious?and that it?s only a matter of time before the monogamous world sees there?s more than one way to live and love.[9]

A 2012 article in?New York Magazine?introduced Americans to ?throuple,? a new term akin to a ?couple,? but with three people whose ?throuplehood is more or less a permanent domestic arrangement. The three men work together, raise dogs together, sleep together, miss one another?and, in general, exemplify a modern, adult relationship. Except that there are three of them.?[10]

The Norm of Exclusivity.?Andrew Sullivan, who has extolled the ?spirituality? of ?anonymous sex,? also thinks that the ?openness? of same-sex unions could enhance the bonds of husbands and wives:

[A]mong gay male relationships, the openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds.? [T]here is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman.? [S]omething of the gay relationship?s necessary honesty, its flexibility, and its equality could undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds.[11]

?Openness? and ?flexibility? are Sullivan?s euphemisms for sexual infidelity. Similarly, in a?New York Times Magazine?profile, gay activist Dan Savage encourages spouses to adopt ?a more flexible attitude? about allowing each other to seek sex outside their marriage.[12]?The?New York Times?recently reported on a study finding that exclusivity was not the norm among gay partners: ??With straight people, it?s called affairs or cheating,? said Colleen Hoff, the study?s principal investigator, ?but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.??[13]

Leading Advocates of Redefining Marriage Celebrate That It Will Weaken Marriage

Some advocates of redefining marriage embrace the goal of weakening the institution of marriage?in these very terms. ?[Former President George W.] Bush is correct,? says Victoria Brownworth, ?when he states that allowing same-sex couples to marry will weaken the institution of marriage?. It most certainly will do so, and that will make marriage a far better concept than it previously has been.?[14]Professor Ellen Willis celebrates the fact that ?conferring the legitimacy of marriage on homosexual relations will introduce an implicit revolt against the institution into its very heart.?[15]

Michelangelo Signorile urges same-sex couples to ?demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society?s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.?[16]Same-sex couples should, he says, ?fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, because the most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake?is to transform the notion of ?family? entirely.?[17]

It is no surprise that there is already evidence of this occurring. A federal judge in Utah allowed a legal challenge to anti-bigamy laws.[18]?A bill that would allow a child to have three legal parents passed both houses of the California state legislature in 2012 before it was vetoed by the governor, who claimed he wanted ?to take more time to consider all of the implications of this change.?[19]

It?s very important to understand that the typical gay relationship between males is not going to conform to the lifelong, exclusive commitment that heterosexual marriage involves. You can read about the numbers right here on this paper from the Family Research Council, which collects together evidence from secular sources, such as the U.S. Census and peer-reviewed research.

Take a look:

Research indicates that the average male homosexual has hundreds of sex partners in his lifetime:

???The Dutch study of partnered homosexuals, which was published in the journal?AIDS, found that men with a steady partner had an average of eight sexual partners per year.[12]

???Bell and Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having one thousand or more sex partners.[13]

???In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in the?Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al. found that ?the modal range for number of sexual partners ever [of homosexuals] was 101-500.? In addition, 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent had between 501 and 1,000 partners. A further 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent reported having had more than one thousand lifetime sexual partners.[14]

???A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine?Genre?found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than one hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than one thousand sexual partners.[15]

[...]Even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of ?committed? or ?monogamous? typically means something radically different than in heterosexual marriage.

???A Canadian study of homosexual men who had been in committed relationships lasting longer than one year found that only 25 percent of those interviewed reported being monogamous.? According to study author Barry Adam, ?Gay culture allows men to explore different?forms of relationships besides the monogamy coveted by heterosexuals.?[16]

???The?Handbook of Family Diversity?reported a study in which ?many self-described ?monogamous? couples reported an average of three to five partners in the past year. Blasband and Peplau (1985) observed a similar pattern.?[17]

???In?The Male Couple, authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison reported that, in a study of 156 males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years:

Only seven couples have a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men all have been together for less than five years. Stated another way, all couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships.[18]

Are we ready to call that marriage? Isn?t it bad enough that we already have undermined the permanence and stability of marriage with no-fault divorce laws and giving benefits to common-law couples? Don?t you think that these factors will undermine stability, the same way that infidelity undermines heterosexual relationships?

But marriage is a particular thing. It?s permanent. It?s exclusive. It?s not based on feelings and desires. The purpose of marriage is to recognize and encourage people to constrain and bound their sexual activity for the benefit of society. We want to encourage parents to bond together permanently and exclusively, so that the bond is stable. We should be encouraging people to be chaste before marriage, to make good decisions about who to marry, to reward marriages that last, and to make it harder to get out of a marriage. Especially one with children.

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Filed under: Polemics, Definition of Marriage, Family, Father, Female, Gay, Gay Marriage, GLBT, Lecture, Lesbian, LGBT, Male, Marriage, Marriage Definition, Men, Mother, Natural Marriage, Parenting, Research, Robert P. George, Ryan T. Anderson, Same-Sex Marriage, Sherif Girgis, Traditional Marriage, What Is Marriage?, Women

Source: http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/ryan-t-anderson-explains-how-gay-marriage-undermines-natural-marriage-norms/

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Confirmed: Nexus 4 now shipping with updated design

Small nubs now lift the back of the phone up off a table; camera lens gets a slight redesign

Android Central has confirmed that the Nexus 4 has undergone a little bit of a design tweak. As first reported by German site MobiFlip. there are now a couple of small nubs on the rear of the phone, where the glass meets the foot, positioned just above the two screw holes. 

We've confirmed the change on a pair of Nexus 4s we ordered on Monday this week and received on Wednesday. In the image above, our original Nexus 4, now some four months old, is on top, with a new retail unit (still in its protective plastic) at the bottom. Note the little nub between the screw holes of the two phones.

This small design change has a couple of effects. It lifts phone up ever so slightly, allowing sound to escape the flush speaker. It also should help keep the glass back from getting the little hairline scratches it's been prone to pick up.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/2FEmB3bMXDE/story01.htm

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Heat streak now 19, top Hawks 98-81

Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) forces Atlanta Hawks' Dahntay Jones (30) away from the ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) forces Atlanta Hawks' Dahntay Jones (30) away from the ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade (3) shoots past Atlanta Hawks' Anthony Tolliver (4) during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Atlanta Hawks' Al Horford (15) pressures Miami Heat's Udonis Haslem (40) during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Entertainer and television personality Vanilla Ice watches the first half of an NBA basketball game between the Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks in Miami, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Chart lists the longest win streaks in NBA history; with any related stories

MIAMI (AP) ? Only a few minutes after the Miami Heat's winning streak reached 19 games, Erik Spoelstra laid down the next challenge.

And it wasn't to win a 20th straight game.

Instead, it was to simply win on Wednesday.

Dwyane Wade scored 23 points and on a night when the stat sheet would suggest a struggle, the Heat rolled once again, extending their winning streak and leading wire-to-wire in beating the Atlanta Hawks 98-81 on Tuesday.

Next up: The Heat are in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

"It's a privilege for us to get in our cars and hop on a plane and get into Philly at 4 a.m. after this win and do this again tomorrow night," Spoelstra said. "That's the way we're going to approach it. No excuses."

For about six weeks now, no excuses have been needed ? not even on nights where things went far from perfectly for the reigning NBA champions.

The Heat shot only 43 percent and LeBron James was just 3 for 11 from the field, with the field-goal total matching his lowest from any regular-season game in more than three years.

And they won by 17.

"Let's be honest, guys," said James, who scored 15 points. "We're not sitting here and saying this is not something special. This is an unbelievable streak that we're on. We're playing great basketball. We're winning in different phases of the game, we're playing different styles, we've won every game, on the road, at home, double-overtime games, end-of-regulation games, whatever the case may be."

Chris Bosh and Mario Chalmers added 14 apiece for the Heat, who matched the fifth-longest streak in NBA history.

Only three teams have won at least 20 consecutive games in the same season: the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers (33), the 2007-08 Houston Rockets (22) and the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks (20). The Washington Capitols also won 20 straight, spanning the end of the 1947-48 season and the start of the 1948-49 campaign.

"Ten is enough for me," Bosh said. "Twenty's cool. I'd take it."

Josh Smith scored 15 for the Hawks, who got 12 apiece from Al Horford and Jeff Teague.

"Miami is playing very well right now. You have to give credit where credit is due," Hawks coach Larry Drew said. "Coach (Erik) Spoelstra and his staff over there are doing a great job. Their team is really moving the basketball, they are playing together, they are playing at a very, very high level right now, and they're really good right now. We just got beat by a really good basketball team."

Ray Allen scored 12 and Udonis Haslem grabbed 11 rebounds for the Heat. The crowd was 20,350, a record at AmericanAirlines Arena.

Miami now leads San Antonio by 1? games in the race for the NBA's best record and is atop the Eastern Conference by 9? games over Indiana and New York, who were both idle Tuesday. The Heat (48-14) have 20 games left, while the Pacers have 19 and the Knicks 21.

It was the first game in which the Heat went without trailing since Feb. 14, when they won at Oklahoma City in a surprisingly one-sided NBA Finals rematch. They've needed buzzer-beaters and double-overtimes and big rallies to win several times since, often against opponents who won't be headed to the playoffs, teams like Orlando and Cleveland and Sacramento.

The Hawks are headed to the postseason ? barring a most improbable collapse, anyway ? but this one was never in doubt.

Seven Miami players logged more than 3? minutes of time in the first quarter, all seven of them scored, and the snowball started rolling. James was falling down near the 3-point line on one possession, yet still had the sense to just tap the ball to Wade for a layup that gave Miami an early 17-8 lead. And later, after Haslem missed inside, he got the rebound and fed Allen for a step-back corner 3-pointer that swished.

Yes, it's going that well for Miami right now.

"Leading with our defense has been the key for us," Wade said. "When we come out defensive minded from the beginning of the game, it gets us into the game, it gets us on the offensive end, we're moving the ball. We have been playing well offensively all year, but defense is the key."

The Hawks closed to 41-40 midway through the second quarter, the third ? and last ? time they were within a point. Miami needed just over two minutes to score the next 10 points, the run both starting and ending with 3-pointers from Chalmers, and the margin was 51-40.

As if the Heat needed any more help late in the first half, the often-enigmatic Smith gave them a little boost.

For no apparent reason, Smith fouled Bosh with 0.1 seconds left until intermission ? doing so about 80 feet from the Heat basket. Miami was in the bonus, so Bosh took two free throws, made both, and the Heat went into the break with a 57-44 lead.

An hour later, they were packing for Philadelphia and a chance to win No. 20.

NOTES: James was called for goaltending after blocking a shot by Ivan Johnson late in the third quarter. James didn't like the call, and if that wasn't enough, he swatted the ball into the leg of Bosh's wife, Adrienne, who was seated courtside. She was fine. ... The Hawks lost Teague with 3:08 left in the third quarter after he turned his left ankle. He returned to the bench later in the period after getting re-taped, but did not return to the game. ... Heat assistant coach David Fizdale shared a warm embrace with Drew a few moments before the game. Fizdale is a former Atlanta assistant.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-13-BKN-Heat-Streak/id-e639c83f5aed4a8d8d3d815c0522b5e2

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Lady Gaga & Taylor Kinney Getting Married This Summer?

Lady Gaga & Taylor Kinney Getting Married This Summer?

Is Lady Gaga preparing to marry her “Vampire Diaries” beau Taylor Kinney? Well, that’s what her pal DJ Starlight revealed! Gaga and Kinney have reportedly gotten very serious and are ready to take a walk down the aisle. Is the report true or a rumor? The singer’s close friend DJ Starlight told the UK publication ...

Lady Gaga & Taylor Kinney Getting Married This Summer? Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/03/lady-gaga-taylor-kinney-getting-married-this-summer/

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The Lock Pickers

Holms New Electric, version No. 2, 1884

Photo courtesy of Mark Frank

It would be roughly accurate to say that there have been locks as long as there have been things humans wanted to guard. Locks figure in the Bible (?And the key of the house of David I will lay upon his shoulder?), and in Homer. The pin tumbler lock, a technology popularized by Linus Yale Jr., dates more than 4,000 years ago to Egypt, where, as Scientific American observed in 1899, it ?can still be seen in any of the older streets in Cairo.? England issued its first lock patent in 1774, the United States in 1790. With the Industrial Revolution came a flurry of activity, new wealth to guard. The bank vaults of the 19^th century, sporting names like the ?Magic Infallible Bank Lock,? were ornate portals to the monumental caches they secured, bristling with features; there were locks that occluded the key as it entered (to prevent revealing its shape to nearby onlookers), locks that fired bullets or tear gas canisters if opened improperly. In the early 1870s, banks began to equip their vaults with ?time locks,? set to be opened only on Monday morning.

John Erroll is the curator of the Mossman Collection, an impressive, if little visited, assortment of locks housed in a small room in New York City?s General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen. As we tour the display cases, Erroll tells me that time locks emerged in response to a series of masked robberies, in which armed gunmen would roust bank managers from their beds at home on the weekend, march them to the bank, and force them to open the vault. ?After the Civil War, there was a certain kind of violent atmosphere in the U.S.,? he said. ?All these young men came back from the war, young men out of work, and they went into the bank-robbing business.? One of the most curious locks Erroll showed me, ?Wooley?s Fluid Time Lock? (patented in 1877), used water for its time-keeping mechanism. ?One difficulty with water,? Erroll noted, ?is that it doesn?t really drip at a constant rate.?

Edward J. Woolly fluid time lock, 1877

Photo courtesy of Mark Frank

A few days later, I drove to Long Branch, N.J., to visit Ed Roskelly, who I had met at the Dutch lock-picking conference Lockcon. His locksmith?s shop, Bullet Lock, is located on Broadway in an old men?s clothing store. Roskelly, who as it turned out had installed the locks guarding the locks at the Mossman Collection, is an enthusiastic lock collector, and he walked me through his holdings: ancient, ornate warded keys (which, despite their complex appearance, were rather easy to pick); medieval lady?s rings that were themselves keys to small chests; stout Nuremberg iron strong boxes; wooden locks from Africa; and trick Turkish locks in which a series of keys open a successive chain of keyholes. A poster of Houdini (?Europe?s Eclipsing Sensation?) was on one wall; a poster of Louis XVI on another. ?He was supposed to be a great locksmith,? Roskelly said. ?Before they cut his head off.?

For all the rich history in the shop, the modern locksmithing business is rather less exotic (even if Roskelly has done the security for the homes of some of the Garden State?s better known musical performers). Behind the front counter, he shows me a collection of thousands of key ?blanks??the raw material of duplicating keys?noting, however, that most of the 200-some keys he cuts in a week come from a handful of brands like Schlage and Kwikset. (Many keys for high-security locks, like Medeco, cannot be openly displayed, as a wannabe picker could examine them for telltale grooves and the like.)

Another large part of the locksmith trade is what are called ?lockouts??or someone losing their keys. ?I?ve got a guy out right now opening a safe,? he says. ?The lady lost the combination.? And while I envisioned a safe technician, crouching in front of a dial, stethoscope in his ears, the reality is more prosaic. ?We?re never going to make a living picking a lock,? he says. While he has sent his employees on safe manipulation courses, he says they are allowed ?maybe five minutes? to pick a lock. ?If you can?t pick it in five minutes, get the drill, drill it out, and put a new lock in.?

In fact, drilling has long been the preferred criminal method of entry. Why pick a lock when you can obliterate one, or, as Roskelly demonstrated, with a small safe, simply peel back the metal sides and chip away at the concrete inside. ?You have to keep in mind,? Wels had told me, ?the lock is a rather fragile thing.? The most common burglary method in the Netherlands, he told me, is the ?Bulgarian method,? named for a technique employed by criminal gangs from that country which involves simply using a pliers on a weak spot of the lock to wrench it free, then opening the door with a screwdriver.

Actual skilled lock-picking is an elusive creature in the wild. One afternoon at Lockcon, I had walked to Gamma, a Dutch home improvement store, with Datagram and Schuyler Towne (editor of NDE?or ?non-destructive entry??magazine), to buy some tools for the impressioning championships. Datagram, a longtime computer security consultant, has recently begun working in the field of forensic locksmithing. He is occasionally called in to crime scenes to determine not only a means of entry, but whether the lock-picking itself was authentic or merely insurance fraud. ?There?s the obvious stuff, people just run a screwdriver across the face of the lock and say, ?It was picked,? ? he said. ?Or what happens is they?ll leave marks on half the components of the lock. But you can?t pick a lock by manipulating half the components.? We paused by a soda vending machine, where he intently fingered a series of buttons. ?Free soda?? I asked. ?No, but sometimes you get the debug code.?

A Medeco lock and key

Photo courtesy of AB Security Group, Inc.

There are some lock pickers in the real world. A few weeks after Lockcon, I met with Peter Field, of Medeco, in New York City. In the late 1960s, he said, police were noting a high number of burglaries with no signs of forced entries. ?There were a lot of pin tumblers that had been around for years, there was no key control??that is, there were a lot of duplicate keys floating around. Medeco, he said, was founded on a simple idea: ?Pin tumbler locks move up and down. Medeco moves up and down and rotates. It moves in three dimensions rather than two dimensions. Tumblers read the elevation, while sidebars read the rotation.? It is something akin to the modern tamper-resistant caps on pill bottles, where one must both squeeze and rotate at once. But, as Field notes, a few years later a locksmith made a ?decoding? tool that opened the lock; Medeco made a change so it wouldn?t work?and the pattern repeats. A few years ago, a lock hobbyist named Jon King created a new decoding device, exploiting a new weakness. ?Jon has a very good kinesthetic sense,? says Field. ?I?ve only known another man like him, and he was an expert on picking lever locks.? And so it goes, with the lock company adding new types of pins, ?false grooves,? sidebars?any number of tweaks to reduce feedback to the picker or throw him off the trail.

What you are buying, in essence, is time. This is how locks are rated, by agencies like the Underwriters Laboratory: How long will it be able to withstand a variety of attacks. ?I have always been happy to acknowledge any lock can be compromised,? Field said. ?It?s just how much effort is someone going to take.?

?Anyone who says they have a lock that can never be picked is fooling themselves,? he continued. ?There will be a compromise of some sort.? I was unsettled to hear this from a maker of locks, and I wanted to press him: But what about the perfect lock? What if money were no object? But I began to see I was on the wrong track. ?Why would you want this elaborate thing when you?ve got windows on the first floor? People would smash windows and come in,? he said. ?All you want is something that will show you a sign of forced entry. You want to protect things. If someone does break in you?ve got the insurance?that?s part of your risk management.?

The words ?forced entry? speak to a crucial distinction in the lock world. For the most part, sophisticated lock picking does not flourish in criminal circles, either for lack of knowledge, or because it is simply not worth the time compared to an expedient brute force attack. But as I learned at Lockcon, there are those for whom lock picking is not merely a means to gain entry, but a concealing move as well: a way to hide the fact that they were there. One night, late into the conference, after many rounds of beer and air hockey, a murmur ran through the halls. There was, it was announced, an unscheduled ?secret session? that would be taking place, in a conference room upstairs, at around 11 p.m. When I joined the crowded room, Wels was asking that participants put away cellphones and cameras; anyone not complying would be asked to leave. A man got up, launched a PowerPoint, and began to talk about a ?special tool? he had briefly had access to, which essentially would allow ?untrained field agents? to read the inner details of a lock, and make a key. These high-end tools, crafted by a handful of people in the world, are made with one specific lock in mind, costing upward of $10,000. They are bought by, it is widely understood, intelligence agencies wishing to gain surreptitious, and presumably undetected, entry. Given the small contours of this world, I was sternly warned that any further information I were to give, about where the man came from or about the tool itself could result in his losing his job. And here was a curious twist on the notion of security by obscurity: This group of lock obsessives wanted access to this tool for themselves, but did not want the disclosure to travel further. As Wels said, ?I want to know if the government can get in my place.?

The lock is both symbol and act of our security. That security may be broadly defined; Freudian psychoanalysis suggested that in dreams, keys were phallic symbols, locks the ?unexplored vagina.? But locks, merely by having an opening, by needing to admit that key, are inherently vulnerable. The mechanical tolerances necessary to allow the key to function over time are themselves a weakness. The key itself, with each swipe in and out, each minor scraping of metal, contributes to that vulnerability; ?as the lock wears,? Roskelly told me, ?you?re almost picking the lock? as you open with it a key. And what, in the end, is the purpose of locking up all those secrets behind sophisticated locks if, as in the case of WikiLeaks, the greatest security lapse of our age, the documents in question left the premises on a thumb drive?

Still, these weaknesses do not keep people like Wels from imagining, almost desiring, the perfect lock. ?At the end of the day, the perfect lock is a combination of electronic and mechanics,? Wels told me. ?It will be open source; I don?t believe in a black box. Only if enough clever people look at it can it be considered secure.? Then he broached what seemed like an apostasy. ?The perfect lock may not be a lock at all. It may a door with no lock in it at all, with some part in the frame, behind a steel plate, remote controlled.? But then that lock too would only be as secure as those who used it.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=3f6c2cc1391c10505f627b2e7d176567

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The Engadget Interview: Vertu CEO Perry Oosting talks specs and rationale

"Hi, I'm Richard Lai from Engadget. You guys probably hate us but..."

"No no, I don't hate you," Vertu's 52-year-old President and CEO interjected with a charming smile. He then laid a hand on my shoulder and explained our in-joke to the other chuckling diners, "These guys, they read the specs and they only judge by the specs."

Of course, it was just a light-hearted banter the night before our interview, but having been with the luxury phone maker since June 2009 as President, Perry Oosting obviously knew of everyone's ongoing jokes about the rationale of his super expensive phones. Even before Vertu, the Dutchman would've faced a similar problem when he held senior positions at the likes of Bulgari, Prada, Gucci and Escada, except these brands have been around for a lot longer; and for us mere mortals, their existence is already widely accepted. Not so much for the luxury gadgets, though.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/ybR2LIFmxHU/

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Matt Lauer on Ann Curry Firing: We Messed Up

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/matt-lauer-on-ann-curry-firing-we-messed-up/

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US probes Sanofi over blockbuster drug Plavix

PARIS (AP) ? The U.S. Justice Department is investigating drug maker Sanofi's disclosures to the Food and Drug Administration about different responses to its blockbuster blood thinner Plavix.

The French company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week that it learned in June about the investigation.

It did not provide details, saying only that the investigation centered on "the variability of response to Plavix." The company did not immediately respond to requests to give more details on the investigation.

Plavix is prescribed to heart disease patients to prevent dangerous blood clots, which can cause heart attack, stroke and death. In 2010, the FDA added a black box ? its strongest form of warning ? to the drug's label. At the time, the watchdog said certain patients with a genetic variation cannot metabolize the drug, putting them at increased risk for heart attack and stroke.

Before it got U.S. generic competition last May, Plavix was the No. 2 drug in the world by revenue, with annual sales of around $9 billion in 2011.

Sanofi says it is cooperating with the investigation into Plavix, which is jointly marketed with U.S.-based Bristol-Myers Squibb. Bristol-Myers Squibb spokeswoman Jennifer Fron Mauer said the company had no comment on the investigation.

Experts were divided over the potential impact of the investigations, partly because few details are known.

"If the company knew about it in June, why did it delay disclosure?" said Erik Gordon, professor and analyst at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. "Investors are likely to bring lawsuits over the delay."

He noted that the DoJ's involvement raised the stakes: "The DoJ has people who carry badges. It can pursue criminal penalties. It could indicate that the FDA thinks the companies deliberately misled the agency. "

But Les Funtleyder, healthcare strategist at private equity fund Poliwogg, said the probe was likely not a big deal as it is retrospective.

"These issues seem to crop up a lot with pharmaceuticals," he said. "This is the type of event that investors tend to look around, as the occurrence is fairly common."

Shares in Sanofi ended the day 0.5 percent lower on Monday, slightly worse than the broader market.

In order to work effectively, Plavix must be broken down by a particular liver enzyme. But the FDA says 2 to 14 percent of people in the U.S. have low levels of the enzyme, preventing them from successfully processing Plavix. The likelihood of being a non-responder varies by race, according to the FDA.

____

AP Business Writer Linda A. Johnson in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-03-11-Sanofi-Investigation/id-278f6ec0fb27477fa1365b513598c20d

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Children's parties Los Angeles-Just for making your kid's party ...

What is common in all children's parties Los Angeles? It is fun and what makes the events different is fun and entertainment. It hardly matters whether the sitting arrangement was comfortable because kids are concerned with entertainment. When planning a kid's party, concentrate on fun and arrange party essentials to help kids enjoy the celebrations.

When it comes to an entertaining event, the first thing that comes to mind is games. There are many indoor games and also video games. The choice is so large that you might get confused as to which one to choose. Here you child, the birthday boy or girl, could provide real help. The kid can tell which game to choose but it is the parents that take final decision. Ideally the games should be short so that the kids have enough time to enjoy the party.

Fun-filled and entertaining games should be coupled with quick snacks and beverages but make sure that the kids enjoy the games with food and drinks. There are many food items that parents can serve to kids but a choice has to be made as providing all the varieties would be expensive and also it would cause unnecessary hassle.

It is decoration that makes children's parties Los Angeles different and memorable. Also it is decoration that adds convenience to the celebrations. After flowering, decorative pieces and sitting arrangement, there should be ample space for fun and entertainment. It is seen that much space is lost to decoration and the other items have to be huddled together to save some space.

Making such a beautiful arrangement and maintaining it requires professional handling. Today parents don't get much time to make such arrangement and those who try arranging their children's parties Los Angeles lack skills. But a professional event planner can make such arrangement even in short notice. Advantage of involving a planner in the party is that parents could get time for other important things.

A party planner would charge a fee for his professional services but it's better to pay the professional instead of spoiling the arrangement by unprofessional handling. Finding a credible planner couldn't be a difficult job considering the number of entertainment groups available on the web. For children's parties Los Angeles, parents can search party planners on the web. Since there are many event management companies, parents can take the opportunity to shop around and find credible planners.

Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/1528573/childrens-parties-los-angeles-just-for-making-your-kids-party-memorable.htm

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Daylight Saving Time 2013: Everything You Need to Know!

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No Google Glasses allowed, declares dive bar

Todd Bishop , GeekWire ? ? ? 15 hrs.

Google?s high-tech augmented reality ?Project Glass? spectacles are still in development, and not available for purchase. But Seattle?s 5 Point Cafe is getting ahead of the game ? and fueling a debate over privacy ? by banning the devices from the bar in advance.

The 5 Point posted this message on its Facebook page this week: ?For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses. And a** kickings will be encouraged for violators.?

Why is the 5 Point doing this?

?I?m a thought leader,? jokes Dave Meinert, owner of the 5 Point, speaking on the Luke Burbank Show at GeekWire news partner KIRO-FM Friday morning. ?First you have to understand the culture of the 5 Point, which is a sometimes seedy, maybe notorious place. People want to go there and be not known ... and definitely don?t want to be secretly filmed or videotaped and immediately put on the Internet.?

He admits, ?Part of this is a joke, to be funny on Facebook, and get reaction. But part of it?s serious, because we don?t let people film other people or take photos unwanted of people in the bar, because it is kind of a private place that people go.?

Meinert notes that the 5 Point is near Amazon, and acknowledges that ?tech geeks? have been known to patronize the bar. ?It?s OK if you wear them,? he says. ?I just don?t want them worn inside.?

Presumably this rule would apply to Seattle?s notorious Creepy Cameraman, too.

Check out the original post on GeekWire for Luke Burbank?s full interview with Meinert. See KIRO Radio for more.

More from GeekWire:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/no-google-glasses-allowed-declares-dive-bar-1C8781187

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'Wave after wave of snow' to pummel New England - U.S. News

NBC News

A house collapsed on Plum Island, Mass. shortly before 9 a.m. Friday morning.

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

New England residents hunkered down Friday as a late-season storm dumped close to two feet of snow in some areas, with the system moving out to sea Friday afternoon.

The storm also brought high winds that battered Nantucket, Martha?s Vineyard, and Long Island, the Weather Channel reported. A winter storm warning remained in effect for the region through 1 p.m., with snowfall expected to lessen through the afternoon. Some parts of central Massachusetts and Connecticut could stand to close out the blustery day with nearly two feet of fresh snow, the National Weather Service predicted in an increase over earlier estimates.

?We are watching a conveyor belt of wave after wave of snow coming in over the Atlantic,? Alan Dunham, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told The Associated Press.

The Massachusetts town of Mansfield reported 14 inches and Rockland had a foot, according to the National Weather Service. A seaside house on Plum Island, about 40 miles north of Boston, was listing at a 45-degree angle after being battered by waves, WHDH reported.

??I?ve owned the house for a long, long time,? homeowner Stephen Bandoian told WHDH in a phone interview from Florida. ?It was a great home, it was a great place, and now it?s gone.?

The accumulation of wet snow on trees and power lines ? combined with gusty winds ? led to isolated power outages. About 12,000 residents were without power on Friday, Connecticut Light & Power reported. Massachusetts utility provider NStar reported 2,845 outages and National Grid said 5,364 were without power on Friday afternoon. Hundreds of Connecticut schools closed or delayed openings.

Power on Boston?s Tobin Bridge was knocked out Friday morning, according to WHDH. Traffic was not affected, but people were stuck in the bridge?s elevators, the station reported. The state put 2,800 snow-removal trucks and plows out to clear roadways, transportation secretary Richard Davey told the Boston Globe.

?It?s pretty bad out,? homeowner Steve Smith told NBC Connecticut. ?I had trouble getting out of my driveway today.?

The weather meant a change of footwear for Lisa Parisella of Beverly, Mass., where there were six inches on the ground early Friday. ?I was thinking, March, ready to take out the sandals, and I?m taking out the boots again,? she said.

Commuters slid into work on wet, sloshy snow in New York and New Jersey. Central Park in Manhattan had 4 inches of accumulation late Friday morning, the Weather Channel reported, as residents of Passaic County, N.J., dug out from 7 inches of snow. The Bronx received 7 inches and parts of Westchester County were hit with more than a foot.

More than 141 flights had been canceled for New York?s LaGuardia airport, 106 at Newark Liberty International, and 97 at Logan in Boston as of 2:45 p.m. Friday, according to airline tracker Flight Aware.

The weather was forecasted to turn milder over the weekend, with meteorologists saying that temperatures on Saturday could break 50 degrees in the tri-state area. Highs would hover around the low 40s in Boston, the Weather Channel predicted.

The storm swept through the Midwest and up from the Mid-Atlantic earlier in the week, taking its toll in several states. A Virginia man died after his car slid off an icy road, and two North Carolina boaters remained missing offshore.

NBC News? Jason Cumming and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:

Justin Lane / EPA

A storm system stretching from the Dakotas to the Florida Panhandle is predicted to bring snow to the mid-Atlantic states.

?

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 8, 2013 7:33 AM EST

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/08/17235661-wave-after-wave-of-snow-to-pummel-new-england

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Researchers grow teeth from cells

8 March 2013 Last updated at 20:12 ET

Dentists may one day be able to replace missing teeth with ones newly grown from gum cells, say UK researchers.

The team from King's College London took cells from adult human gum tissue and combined them with another type of cell from mice to grow a tooth.

They say using a readily available source of cells pushes the technology a step nearer to being available to patients.

But it is still likely to be many years before dentists can use the method.

Other work has focused on using embryonic stem cells to create "bioteeth".

It proved it could be done but is expensive and impractical for use in the clinic, the researchers said.

In the latest study they took human epithelial cells from the gums of human patients, grew more of them in the lab and mixed them with mesenchyme cells from mice.

The mesenchyme cells were cultured to be "inducing" - they instruct the epithelial cells to start growing into a tooth.

Transplanting the cell combination into mice, researchers were able to grow hybrid human/mouse teeth that had viable roots, they reported in the Journal of Dental Research.

Next steps

It has already been shown that small pellets of the right type of cells transplanted into the jaw can develop into functional teeth.

The next step will be to get an easily accessible source of human mesenchyme cells and grow enough of them for it to be a useful technique in the clinic.

Study leader Prof Paul Sharpe said mesenchyme cells could be found in the pulp of wisdom teeth, among other sources, but the difficulty had been in getting hold of enough of them.

"This advance here is we have identified a cell population you could envisage using in the clinic. We are now working to try and identify a simple way of getting mesenchyme."

He added: "The next major challenge is to identify a way to culture adult human mesenchymal cells to be tooth-inducing, as at the moment we can only make embryonic mesenchymal cells do this."

He said the hope was that one day the technology could replace current dental implants, which cannot reproduce a natural root structure. Also friction from eating and other jaw movement can cause the bone around the implant to wear away.

"But if it's going to work it has to be about the same price as a dental implant so we have to find a way to do it that is easy and cheap."

Prof Alastair Sloan, an expert in bone biology and tissue engineering at Cardiff University, said the work was significant but there remained many hurdles before it would be available to patients.

"They have used cells from the gum and the fact that it is developing a root is an exciting step forward.

"We are still some way from engineering a whole organ like a tooth but the knock-on effect of research like this is developing bio-fillings, so some aspects of the technology are feasible within the next 10 to 15 years."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21718402#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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'Invincible' city crushed by poverty, violence

In America's most dangerous and poorest city, Camden, N.J., bullet holes are visible in a church's stained glass window, crosses commemorating the murdered line the outside of city hall and the police staff is so outnumbered and outgunned, drug deals occur in the open. Rock Center's Brian Williams visits Camden and talks to those fighting to turn around the forgotten city.

By Shoshana Guy, Producer, NBC News

CAMDEN, N.J. -- Inscribed on the walls of City Hall are the words of Walt Whitman, the great American poet who spent his final years in this city: ?In a dream I saw a city invincible.?

But the decades since have not been kind to Camden. Today it is the poorest in the nation.

Directly in the shadow of the glittering skyline of Philadelphia, Camden has long suffered the indignities that poverty breeds. A drive through the streets of the 9-square mile city reveals a moonscape of crumbling infrastructure and abandoned homes, nearly 4,000 in all.

?I always think of Camden as the best visual aid in America to see what has gone wrong and what is going wrong,? said Father Michael Doyle, who has been serving the city?s poor from his Sacred Heart Church for more than 40 years.?

Camden was once a manufacturing boomtown, home to RCA Victor, Campbell?s Soup and the biggest shipbuilding company in the world. But once industrial jobs began drying up decades ago ? as they did in so many other cities across the United States ? many people left for greener pastures.

Then came a crushing blow: the race riots of 1969 and 1971, which left the city mortally wounded. In the decades that followed, civic corruption and mismanagement rendered Camden increasingly poor and violent. Three mayors have been indicted in the past few decades, adding to the sense of hopeless among residents.

In Camden, N.J., criminals and drug deals operate in the open, and the police department is understaffed. But some residents are working hard to get their city back on track. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Last year was the bloodiest in Camden?s history; the city of just 77,000 had 67 homicides. On average someone was shot every 33 hours.

?It was a tough, tough year,? said Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson. ?And for a city as hardened as Camden is and has become over time, it buckled the city to its knees.??

---

Distraught over the level of violence, the community erected crosses on the lawn of City Hall to try and draw attention to the crisis.

Thomson said crime rates have gone up because he has fewer cops. In early 2011, unable to fund its obligations, the city cut the police department in half, leaving roughly 200 officers to police one of the most violent cities in the country.?

NBC News

Crosses on the lawn of City Hall mark lives lost to violence.

?It?s gotten to the point where even in our daytime hours in this city people are scared to leave their homes,? said Thomson.? ?And this is the United States of America. Children should not have to fear even sitting on their own front steps.?

There is movement to get more officers on the streets. In April of this year, a new county force will take over for the City Police Department, adding 200 officers to the ranks.

The decision to regionalize the force enraged the Camden Fraternal Order of Police, which has charged the city with union busting.?

?The experienced officers are the best chance they have to provide safety to the public,? said FOP spokesperson Nancy Webster.

But Chief Thomson hopes more boots on the ground will help stabilize the city. ?At no point in time can we ever quit,? he said. ?Failure is not an option.?

Chrissy Rodriguez, who lives on one of the most violent streets in the city, worries about her two young boys constantly.?

?My kids don't get to go outside.?They don't get to play,? said Rodriguez.??And I'm not gonna let them ride a bike down the street ? in the afternoon. People are getting shot.?

But it?s hard for people like Rodriguez to scrape together enough funds to leave. Roughly 30 to 40 percent of Camden?s citizens are out of work. Rodriguez has only been able to find a part-time job, which brings in about $700 a month.?

About 42 percent of Camden?s population lives below the poverty line, with the average income hovering around $26,000 a year. That is in stark contrast to the rest of New Jersey, where the average household income is $71,000 a year ? the third highest in the nation.?

?America has decided to concentrate its poor,? said Father Doyle. ?The wall around Camden is very high, it?s an economic wall. You can?t get over it.?

The Rev. Michael Doyle, who has been serving the city's poor from his Sacred Heart Church for more than 40 years, tells Brian Williams there is hope for the city of Camden.

The ?walls? of Camden hold in a population that is 48 percent black and 47 percent Hispanic.

The city is trying to revitalize. Old buildings along the waterfront have been turned into luxury condos. Cooper Hospital and Rutgers University have created stability on handfuls of blocks. And recently Cooper opened a medical school. Still, the main industry remains the drug trade and it?s been so bad for so many years that the city?s tragedies often seem to go unnoticed.

Recently, a former citizen of the city paid for a billboard near the Camden exit off I-676 that read, ?Say something nice about Camden.??

Camden?s got heart. And you?ll find that heart in community leaders like Tawanda Jones. Better known as Ms. Wawa, Jones is the leader of the dance troop the Camden Sophisticated Sisters Drill Team for school-age girls.

?There's a lotta people from Camden that are so gifted and so talented,? said Jones.

Jones has been volunteering her time for more than 25 years. She raises money to help the team travel, visits the children?s schools on her days off, and dedicates herself four nights a week, all year round to creating a safe space for children.

?We practice all year round cause there?s danger all year round,? said Jones.

For now, through the efforts of people like Jones, the City Invincible marches on.?

?There's a spirit in poor people, resilience and a hope and a generosity,? said Father Doyle. ?We might be invincible in that regard, that human beings do not give up.?

Camden's got heart. And you'll find that heart in community leaders like Tawanda Jones. Better known as Ms. Wawa, Jones is the leader of the dance troop the Camden Sophisticated Sisters Drill Team for school-age girls.

Related:?

'By the grace of God': How workers survive on $7.25 per hour

Poverty in America: A problem hidden 'In Plain Sight'

Share your story with us at InPlainSight@nbcuni.com?

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 7, 2013 5:03 PM EST

Source: http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/07/17225824-americas-invincible-city-brought-to-its-knees-by-poverty-violence?lite

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How to thrive in battery acid and among toxic metals

Public release date: 7-Mar-2013
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Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Genome of 'extremophile' red alga offers insights

In the movie Alien, the title character is an extraterrestrial creature that can survive brutal heat and resist the effects of toxins.

In real life, organisms with similar traits exist, such as the "extremophile" red alga Galdieria sulphuraria.

In hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, Galdieria uses energy from the sun to produce sugars through photosynthesis.

In the darkness of old mineshafts in drainage as caustic as battery acid, it feeds on bacteria and survives high concentrations of arsenic and heavy metals.

How has a one-celled alga acquired such flexibility and resilience?

To answer this question, an international research team led by Gerald Schoenknecht of Oklahoma State University and Andreas Weber and Martin Lercher of Heinrich-Heine-Universitat (Heinrich-Heine University) in Dusseldorf, Germany, decoded genetic information in Galdieria.

They are three of 18 co-authors of a paper on the findings published in this week's issue of the journal Science.

The scientists made an unexpected discovery: Galdieria's genome shows clear signs of borrowing genes from its neighbors.

Many genes that contribute to Galdieria's adaptations were not inherited from its ancestor red algae, but were acquired from bacteria or archaebacteria.

This "horizontal gene transfer" is typical for the evolution of bacteria, researchers say.

However, Galdieria is the first known organism with a nucleus (called a eukaryote) that has adapted to extreme environments based on horizontal gene transfer.

"The age of comparative genome sequencing began only slightly more than a decade ago, and revealed a new mechanism of evolution--horizontal gene transfer--that would not have been discovered any other way," says Matt Kane, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

Galdieria's heat tolerance seems to come from genes that exist in hundreds of copies in its genome, all descending from a single gene the alga copied millions of years ago from an archaebacterium.

"The results give us new insights into evolution," Schoenknecht says. "Before this, there was not much indication that eukaryotes acquire genes from bacteria."

The alga owes its ability to survive the toxic effects of such elements as mercury and arsenic to transport proteins and enzymes that originated in genes it swiped from bacteria.

It also copied genes offering tolerance to high salt concentrations, and an ability to make use of a wide variety of food sources. The genes were copied from bacteria that live in the same extreme environment as Galdieria.

"Why reinvent the wheel if you can copy it from your neighbor?" asks Lercher.

"It's usually assumed that organisms with a nucleus cannot copy genes from different species--that's why eukaryotes depend on sex to recombine their genomes.

"How has Galdieria managed to overcome this limitation? It's an exciting question."

What Galdieria did is "a dream come true for biotechnology," says Weber.

"Galdieria has acquired genes with interesting properties from different organisms, integrated them into a functional network and developed unique properties and adaptations."

In the future, genetic engineering may allow other algae to make use of the proteins that offer stress tolerance to Galdieria.

Such a development would be relevant to biofuel production, says Schoenknecht, as oil-producing algae don't yet have the ability to withstand the same extreme conditions as Galdieria.

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Public release date: 7-Mar-2013
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Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Genome of 'extremophile' red alga offers insights

In the movie Alien, the title character is an extraterrestrial creature that can survive brutal heat and resist the effects of toxins.

In real life, organisms with similar traits exist, such as the "extremophile" red alga Galdieria sulphuraria.

In hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, Galdieria uses energy from the sun to produce sugars through photosynthesis.

In the darkness of old mineshafts in drainage as caustic as battery acid, it feeds on bacteria and survives high concentrations of arsenic and heavy metals.

How has a one-celled alga acquired such flexibility and resilience?

To answer this question, an international research team led by Gerald Schoenknecht of Oklahoma State University and Andreas Weber and Martin Lercher of Heinrich-Heine-Universitat (Heinrich-Heine University) in Dusseldorf, Germany, decoded genetic information in Galdieria.

They are three of 18 co-authors of a paper on the findings published in this week's issue of the journal Science.

The scientists made an unexpected discovery: Galdieria's genome shows clear signs of borrowing genes from its neighbors.

Many genes that contribute to Galdieria's adaptations were not inherited from its ancestor red algae, but were acquired from bacteria or archaebacteria.

This "horizontal gene transfer" is typical for the evolution of bacteria, researchers say.

However, Galdieria is the first known organism with a nucleus (called a eukaryote) that has adapted to extreme environments based on horizontal gene transfer.

"The age of comparative genome sequencing began only slightly more than a decade ago, and revealed a new mechanism of evolution--horizontal gene transfer--that would not have been discovered any other way," says Matt Kane, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

Galdieria's heat tolerance seems to come from genes that exist in hundreds of copies in its genome, all descending from a single gene the alga copied millions of years ago from an archaebacterium.

"The results give us new insights into evolution," Schoenknecht says. "Before this, there was not much indication that eukaryotes acquire genes from bacteria."

The alga owes its ability to survive the toxic effects of such elements as mercury and arsenic to transport proteins and enzymes that originated in genes it swiped from bacteria.

It also copied genes offering tolerance to high salt concentrations, and an ability to make use of a wide variety of food sources. The genes were copied from bacteria that live in the same extreme environment as Galdieria.

"Why reinvent the wheel if you can copy it from your neighbor?" asks Lercher.

"It's usually assumed that organisms with a nucleus cannot copy genes from different species--that's why eukaryotes depend on sex to recombine their genomes.

"How has Galdieria managed to overcome this limitation? It's an exciting question."

What Galdieria did is "a dream come true for biotechnology," says Weber.

"Galdieria has acquired genes with interesting properties from different organisms, integrated them into a functional network and developed unique properties and adaptations."

In the future, genetic engineering may allow other algae to make use of the proteins that offer stress tolerance to Galdieria.

Such a development would be relevant to biofuel production, says Schoenknecht, as oil-producing algae don't yet have the ability to withstand the same extreme conditions as Galdieria.

###

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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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/nsf-wtt030713.php

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