congo news: May 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

UK's top court backs extradition of WikiLeaks boss

FILE - Julian Assange WikiLeaks founder leaves the Supreme Court in London, in this, Feb. 1, 2012 file photo. UK Supreme Court backed the extradition of Julian Assange to Sweden Wednesday May 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

FILE - This is a Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he pauses as he makes a statement to media gathered outside the High Court in London. Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday May 30, 2012 ruled that Assange can be extradited to Sweden where he is accused of sex crimes. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

FILE - This is a Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he makes a statement to media gathered outside the High Court in London. Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday May 30, 2012 ruled that Assange can be extradited to Sweden where he is accused of sex crimes. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

LONDON (AP) ? Britain's Supreme Court has endorsed the extradition of WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange to Sweden, bringing the secret-spilling Internet activist a big step closer to prosecution in a Scandinavian court.

But a question mark hung over the decision after Assange's lawyer made the highly unusual suggestion that she would try to reopen the case, raising the prospect of more legal wrangling.

Assange, 40, has spent the better part of two years fighting attempts to send him to the Sweden, where he is wanted over sex crime allegations. He has yet to be charged.

The U.K. side of that struggle came to an uncertain end Wednesday, with the nation's highest court ruling 5-2 that the warrant seeking his arrest was properly issued ? and Assange's lawyer saying she might challenge the ruling because it made reference to a treaty whose interpretation she says she did not have the chance to challenge.

Supreme Court President Nicholas Phillips, speaking for the majority, acknowledged that coming to a conclusion had "not been simple."

But he said that the court had ultimately concluded that "the request for Mr. Assange's extradition has been lawfully made and his appeal against extradition is accordingly dismissed."

Assange won't be sent to Sweden immediately.

His lawyer, Dinah Rose, stood up after the verdict to say that court's ruling was based on evidence that was not argued during the appeal, requesting time to study the verdict further with an eye toward trying to reopen the case.

Such a maneuver is practically unheard of, according to attorney Karen Todner, whose law firm handles many high-profile extradition cases.

"It's very unusual," she told The Associated Press. "I've never known them to reopen a case."

Phillips gave Rose two weeks to apply to make her move, meaning an extradition wouldn't happen until the second half of June at the earliest.

It could be much later. Even if the Supreme Court refuses to revisit its judgment, Assange could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, although Todner said that would be unlikely to do much unless he could argue that his physical safety or psychological well-being would be at risk in Sweden.

Assange, a former computer hacker from Australia, shot to international prominence in 2010 with the release of hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. documents, including a hard-to-watch video that showed U.S. forces gunning down a crowd of Iraqi civilians and journalists that they'd mistaken for insurgents.

His release of a quarter-million classified U.S. State Department cables in the final months of that year outraged Washington and destabilized American diplomacy worldwide.

But his work exposing government secrets increasingly came under a cloud after two Swedish women accused him of molestation and rape following a visit to the country in mid-2010. Assange denies wrongdoing, saying the sex was consensual, but has refused to go to Sweden, claiming he won't get a fair trial there.

He and his supporters have also hinted that the sex allegations are a cover for a planned move to extradite him to the United States, where he claims he's been secretly indicted for the WikiLeaks disclosures.

Those allegations, paired with the ponderous progress of Assange's appeals, have caused irritation in Sweden.

Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer who represents the two Swedish women who accuse Assange of sex crimes, expressed relief at the U.K. Supreme Court's decision, but said the British judicial system should have dealt with the case more quickly.

"Now, finally, we have a decision," Borgstrom told AP, saying the long wait had been stressful for his clients. He dismissed suggestions that the underlying motive behind the extradition is to hand Assange over to the United States.

"He is not at a greater risk of being handed over from Sweden than from Britain," Borgstrom said.

Unusually, Assange did not appear in court Wednesday ? he was reportedly stuck in traffic. Attempts to reach him for comment weren't immediately successful.

___

Associated Press Writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Consumer confidence expected to edge up for May

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Dormice whiskers 'aid climbing'

29 May 2012 Last updated at 08:12 By Anna-Louise Taylor BBC Nature

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Slow motion footage of a dormouse reveals that it "whisks" as it climbs

Dormice use their whiskers to help them climb trees, researchers say.

By twitching them upwards, outwards and straight ahead up to 25 times a second, they sense where they are going, a University of Sheffield team has found.

The process, called whisking, is used by some other rodents, and by whiskered mammals including seals and walruses.

Dr Robyn Grant, from the university's Active Touch Laboratory says whisking is "a parallel sense to our sense of touch".

She says hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) use their whiskers, or vibrissae, in a similar way to how people use their eyes - scanning to recognise what is in front of them.

Continue reading the main story

Find out more

Dormice may spend up to 75% of their life asleep
Hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) numbers dropped by about 50% in the 20th Century
Hazel dormice live for up to five years, hibernating on the ground in the winter
They build their summer nests in tree holes or thick bramble and stay living in trees while it's warm
The species is vulnerable to changes in habitat such as loss of hedgerows, altered farming practices and fragmentation of woodlands.

Watch: Why Bill Oddie loves dormice

Dormice hunting for 'tiny biscuits' in oak trees

See a dormouse waking up after winter

How a hazel dormouse fattens up

Watch more on BBC Two's Springwatch at 20:00 BST or join the conversation on twitter.

"Because of the uneven surface on branches, they vibrate them to find where to put their feet, as well as to work out where there's a gap and where to change branches," says Dr Grant.

Dormice are endangered in the UK and hibernate most of the year in small nests on the ground, but in the summer they live in trees.

Dr Grant says that they can also use the sensory nodes in their whisker follicles, which respond to the vibrations of their whiskers. This helps them to locate and determine the size, shape and quality of a food item, or to sense their way home.

The research by the team at the Active Touch Laboratory (ATL@S) is working to compare how a number animals, including opossums, seals and other rodents, move and use their whiskers in a sensory way.

Dr Grant says there are differences in how each species moves its whiskers. Different animals twitch at a different frequency, for example, and most rodents generally whisk their whiskers just backwards and forwards.

"We really want to try to classify strategies common between different animals, looking at whether all climbers use whiskers this way," says Dr says Prof Grant.

"And [we want to] use their different experiences in whisking to try and explore the evolution of their sensing systems."

By using an infrared lightbox, they were able to film nocturnal animals in the dark.

The team recorded the movements of whiskers using a high-speed video camera, which films at 500 frames per second, enabling the researchers to play back the whiskers' movements in slow-motion.

Using this high-speed digital videography, the team has examined whisker movements of nine species of British rodent.

They studied wood, harvest, yellow-necked and house mice; field, bank and water voles; brown rats; hazel dormice and one non-rodent - the water shrew.

The team then used "automatic whisker tracker" computer software to analyse the movements recorded on the video, and obtain data that they could compare.

Dr Grant says the rodents all showed whisking that was similar to rats and mice, but the water shrew did not. This indicated that the dormouse family (Gliridae) shared a common ancestor with other rodents.

She added that previous "whisker research" may have involved animals' whiskers being trimmed off. Without whiskers dormice cannot walk well; they fall off ledges and cannot cross gaps.

See more on BBC Two's Springwatch at 20:00 BST on Tuesday, 29 May.

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

CIA memorializes, reveals IDs of fallen covert officers

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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Safety Inspections Save Lives, Don't Hurt Business | Care2 Causes

Written by Mike Hall

We?ve known this for decades and now the journal?Science has empirical proof that?workplace safety and health inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) save lives, reduce employers? costs for workers? compensation and do not have any negative economic effect on the inspected businesses.

The authors of the study?three professors from the University of California, Harvard Business School and Boston University?say they set out to answer a simple question: Do government regulations kill jobs?as business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican lawmakers claim?or protect the public?

The authors studied 409 California industries that had high injury rates and were inspected by California OSHA from 1996 through 2006. It compared results at those businesses with 409 similar companies that were not inspected in that time period.

Inspected workplaces recorded 9.4 percent fewer injuries. The inspected firms also saved 26 percent on workers? compensation costs in the four years following the inspection, compared with uninspected workplaces. On average, inspected firms saved an estimated $355,000 in injury claims and compensation for lost work over that period. What?s more, there was no discernible impact on the companies? profits.

In addition, says study author and Harvard professor Michael Toffel, ?We never saw any evidence of inspections causing harm.?

If OSHA inspections conducted in all 50 states are as valuable as the ones we studied, inspections improve safety worth roughly $6 billion to employers and employees, ignoring pain and suffering. The overall message of our research is that these inspections worked pretty much the way one would hope. They improved safety, and they didn?t cost firms enough that we could detect it.

AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario says the study:

tells us is that protecting your workers on the job and keeping them safe is good for workers but is also good for business. What?s too costly is not addressing injuries and illnesses. We can?t afford not to protect people.

Click?here to read the findings and?here for the latest edition of the AFL-CIO report ?Death on the Job.?

BTW, here?s another thing we?ve known for decades: No matter how much evidence there is that workplace safety and health rules and inspections are good for workers and employers, some will turn their backs on the facts and science. The National Association of Manufacturers, a group that rails against OSHA and job safety regulations, says the study?s findings are basically meaningless, though they do believe the world is round.

This post was originally published by the AFL-CIO.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

'Forrest Gump' actor Sinise to raise money for vet

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) ? Actor Gary Sinise, known for playing Vietnam War amputee Lt. Dan in the film "Forrest Gump," is keeping his promise to raise money for a southwest Virginia Marine who lost his limbs while on a mine sweep in Afghanistan.

After canceling a March benefit concert due to a car accident, the star of TV's "CSI: New York" is set to perform with his band, named after his fictional Lt. Dan character, in Martinsville on Thursday. The cover band's performance is part of a fundraiser to help build a specially equipped home for 22-year-old Patrick County Marine Cpl. J.B. Kerns, who lost his right arm below the elbow and both his legs below the knees in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2011 during his third tour of duty.

The 57-year-old Sinise's foundation, along with others like the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, have helped build several such "smart homes" for wounded veterans across the country as part of an ongoing efforts to support U.S. military personnel and first responders. The foundations partnered to create the Building For America's Bravest program to build the homes.

Nearly 1,450 military personnel have been treated at military facilities for amputations during post-9/11 operations, and more than 435 have multiple amputations, according to the Department of Defense. And the department says that those wounded in battle now have a 50 percent better chance of surviving than any previous war because of improved armor, better medical training and emergency care.

"These are young guys that have been blown to bits and they've given a lot for their country and they're going to have to go for the rest of their lives with a real challenge," Sinise said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're trying to do as much as we can for as many of them as possible."

Sinise hopes his fundraising efforts can give those wounded, like Kerns, a "place that is adapted to their needs so that they know for the rest of their lives they have a place to call home."

The smart homes are custom designed to meet the needs of the amputee and typically feature energy-efficient appliances, along with automated systems to help them handle everyday tasks, said John Hodge, a spokesman for the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Even cabinets and drawers can be opened and closed by pushing a button or an application on an iPad. The costs for the homes range from $500,000 to $1 million, depending on the location and features, Hodge said.

For Kerns, the new home will help him be more independent, but he said his disability hasn't stopped him from living life to the fullest.

"I might be missing three limbs but I still do a lot of stuff I used to do. I still ride my four-wheeler, I still go out shooting and fishing and hunting," Kerns said. "Ever since I've gotten hurt I've had good spirits about anything and everything. I'm going to do what I want to do, you know. I'm not going to let it slow me down."

Kerns said he thinks it's great that Sinise stuck to his word and is "giving up his free time" to help raise money for his new home.

Sinise became more active in supporting military members like Kerns after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but has long been involved with similar efforts.

When playing the role of Lt. Dan, who lost both his legs during combat, Sinise worked with Vietnam War veterans groups and wanted to honor vets "with an accurate portrayal of a Vietnam veteran who didn't end up committing suicide or getting drunk at the end of the story, but he's successful and he's walking around and he's moving forward with his life."

"Certainly his disability was important, but it didn't define him at the end," Sinise said of his character. "I've met incredible, inspirational guys who have lost parts of their body in service to our country and if I can get out there and help them ... it is my privilege and honor to do that."

___

Online:

Gary Sinise Foundation: http://www.garysinisefoundation.org

The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation: http://www.tunneltotowers.org

___

Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum.

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Avail the Local SEO Services and Link Building Strategy

Are you aware of the growing importance of link building strategy for the online businesses? Have you ever realized the need of availing SEM services provided by numerous link building service providers? Do you think that you need to gather information about the local SEO services? Most of the companies don?t realize that the local customers are looking for the local companies online on various search engines and most of the local companies are not even present on the website. Therefore, it has become important for the local businesses to ensure that they are present online at various places. Since Internet marketing is the latest trend these days, the local businesses need to take advantage of this medium of communication as well.

One common mistake that the local businesses are doing these days is that they have just developed their websites and are doing any online activities to attract the customers on their website.

Hence, the companies need to take help from the professionals who can help them in increasing their presence online and the most popular strategy that is being used by the companies these days is SEO and there are many service providers who are helping the local businesses to increase their market share. If you also lack presence on Internet, then you must also consider contacting any of Local SEO service providers who will guide you in developing an effective SEO link building strategy.

Since there are numerous local SEO service providers available on Internet, the local business owners need to do careful comparison among various options so that they select the best service provider for their SEO link building strategy. Therefore, the owners need to first gather sufficient information about these companies and then carefully evaluate their options so that they are able to make a wise decision for their company. Although it is difficult to select one as all of them offer numerous services but the owner needs to ensure that they select the company that will help them in achieving their objective within their set budget.

The experts will help the local businesses to design effective and well-implemented SEO link building strategy that will enhance its presence online and will also help in attracting customers on its website. Therefore, the local businesses should take advantage of increasing their market share by letting the professionals develop an effective and well-planned SEO link building strategy for their business. The local businesses will definitely be able to earn good revenue stream in the long-run which will be beneficial for the company.

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Monday, May 21, 2012

Find the Best Auto Repair Service Which Fits to Your Needs | Bebo ...

When you are on the lookout for the best auto repair service in Las Vegas, ensure that the service provider you are choosing is someone who is skilled at his job, and is reliable too. It might sound like an effortless task; however it is quite difficult to seek such a car repair service.

The automobiles which are being made nowadays are quite intricate. They have complex circuit boards in addition to electronics that automobiles which were made in the earlier period did not possess. If the contemporary mechanic is to work on the cars in an efficient manner, he must devote a lot of instruction and apparatus. The essential know-how pertaining to how a car functions is the same as it used to be, however there are supplementary details which the car repair shops must be proficient at, so that thy can ensure that the job is skillfully accomplished.

There are a few things you should keep in mind so as to find the best auto repair shop, which fits your needs.

? It is imperative to find a car repair shop that is dedicated to repairing your automobile. It would be beneficial for you if you can bring your automobile to a distinct auto service shop which dedicates itself solely on your car. In Las Vegas there are car repair shops which concentrate on a distinct kind of car, like Land Rovers, Honda and so forth. If you can bring the automobile over to them personally, you can be assured of optimum service. Just like numerous other specialists, their services would be more costly as compared to the standard car repair shops. However, remember that they would repair your car within a shorter time frame, and once you ascertain that the identification and solution is done appropriately, you would have your peace of mind as you know for sure that the work which was accomplished was accurate.

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Activists express disbelief at NATO summit bomb plot arrests

Michael Towson

Photo of bomb plot suspect Brent Betterly, 24, taken by a fellow Occupy protester in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

By Thomas Francis, Special to msnbc.com

Friends of three activists charged with plotting to hurl firebombs during the NATO Summit in Chicago reacted for the most part with disbelief Sunday, saying that the arrests appear to be an effort to undermine?peaceful protest.

Brent Betterly, 24, Brian Jacob Church, 20, and Jared Chase, 24, were charged Saturday with a terrorist conspiracy to firebomb four Chicago police stations, the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and President Barack Obama?s local campaign headquarters.

Stephanie Auguiste, a 25-year-old from Hollywood, Fla., met all three of the alleged bombers through Occupy Fort Lauderdale, a Florida offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement. She said the police description of the trio as violent anarchists didn?t match the young men she knew.

Courtesy Stephanie Auguiste

Stephanie Auguiste, 25, met all three of the alleged firebomb plotters through Occupy protests in Florida.

She said that when she spoke with Betterly by phone last week about his time in Chicago, ?He was telling me how local police officers were harassing them a lot and how they were pretty violent toward protesters. ? Betterly was ?shocked? by the aggressive tactics but didn?t give Auguiste any indication that he was planning to strike back with force, she said.??

Auguiste also said she found it hard to believe that Church -- who she knew by his middle name, Jacob -- is the same person described in charging documents as remarking about the sight of a ?cop on fire.? Rather, she remembers Church as a soft-spoken artist who liked making still-life sketches and opposed the National Defense Authorization Act on constitutional grounds.

?He?s not the kind of person who had the desire to commit violent acts toward anyone,? Auguiste said of Church. ?He believed in peaceful protest.?

Both Church and Betterly had lived in South Florida. Their friend, Chase, was from New Hampshire. Auguiste said she only met him once but found him to be ?extremely friendly, very warm.?

Chase and Betterly have had brushes with the law. According to a Reuters report, Chase was charged with attempt to commit assault and reckless endangerment in June 2003, after he pulled a knife in a fight with another man. The report also detailed an incident a month later where Chase was in another fight, after which he hit a man with his car. The man wasn?t injured, but Chase was reportedly found guilty of assault.

(Chase?s uncle, Michael Chase of Westmoreland, N.H., told the Union-Leader newspaper that his nephew had only become politically active when the Occupy Wall Street protests bloomed. Of the charges, he said, ?Seems outrageous and completely out of character for him. ? He?s no angel. He?s not happy with the economy. Nobody is.?)

Last October Betterly was charged for burglary of an unoccupied structure, grand theft and criminal mischief when after a night of drinking, he and two friends broke into an Oakland Park, Fla., school to swim in the pool, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Those felony charges are still pending.?

Olivia Ferguson

Olivia Ferguson, 36, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said she believes the charges against Betterly "about as much as I believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy."

Olivia Ferguson, 36, said she often shared a tent with Betterly on the plaza adjoining the Fort Lauderdale City Hall during the Occupy protests. An electrician, Betterly would sometimes visit the encampment overnight after having worked 16 hours that same day, she said.

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?I believe Brent is a terrorist about as much as I believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy,? said Ferguson, from Fort Lauderdale. Recalling Betterly?s fondness for drinking, she believes that the home-brewing kit allegedly being used to make Molotov cocktails was probably just for making beer. Recalling his blond dreadlocks and goofy charm, Ferguson said she gave Betterly the nickname ?Spicoli,? after Sean Penn?s party hearty character in ?Fast Times at Ridgemont High.?

At one Occupy Fort Lauderdale meeting in October led by Ferguson and Betterly, a man in the group spoke up to advocate more forceful forms of protest ? spray-painting and property destruction. ?Brent and I said absolutely not,? Ferguson said. ?We were totally against that.?

Another Occupy activist, Mike Howson, 25, said he was ?really surprised? to see Betterly?s name surface in connection with a terrorist act. ?Like most of us, there were political things you?d bitch about, but he didn?t seem like the kind of guy who would actually go through with something like that.?

Michael Howson

Mike Howson, 25, of Sunrise, Fla., said Betterly "didn't seem like the kind of guy who would actually go through with something like that."

Howson, who resides in Sunrise, Fla., remembered Church being more reserved than the outgoing Betterly-- the type who ?observes before he interacts with people.?

One activist who met Betterly and Church in Florida, and spoke about them on condition of anonymity, was not as surprised as their other fellow protesters, saying they were more inclined than most to push the limits of peaceful protest,?

?Jacob (Church) was immature and he was angry -- that?s a dangerous combination,? the activist said.?

The same activist was more surprised that Betterly was implicated in the plot, but recalled his increasing frustration when the Fort Lauderdale movement cleared out its camp in December.

?He went to Washington, D.C. for that national Occupy convention,? said the activist. ?He then stayed near McPherson Square, and I can only surmise that he became somewhat radicalized by people he met there, because when he was here he was very much committed to nonviolence.?

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Evan Rowe said suspect Brent Betterly "didn't seem to have a coherent ideological motivation, but he was tactically eager to pursue actions which might get him arrested in the pursuit of the Occupy cause."

Evan Rowe, 34, who met Betterly through Occupy Fort Lauderdale, answered questions via email. ?Brent was always super-eager and hard core,? he said. ?He didn?t seem to have a coherent ideological motivation, but he was tactically eager to pursue actions which might get him arrested in the pursuit of the Occupy cause.?

In Rowe?s opinion, the arrests were a ?public relations exercise? by law enforcement agencies that need to invent sophisticated terrorist plots to justify their out-sized budgets, he said.

In a statement to reporters Saturday, Cook County State?s Attorney Anita Alvarez said that the investigation of the NATO bombing plot had been going on for weeks and that the Chicago Police detectives were assisted by the FBI and U.S. Secret Service. Alvarez called the men ?domestic terrorists? who had come to Chicago ?to hurt people.?

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing the three accused bombers, said Sunday that prosecutors have yet to show evidence to support police claims of terrorist acts. ?This is a direct attempt to stifle protest and to turn the public opinion against peaceful protesters.?

Defense attorneys hope to learn more about the state?s case at a court hearing Tuesday. ?We strongly believe that undercover cops in this case were manufacturing crimes,? said Hermes. ?They were provoking these guys to do things that they would not have otherwise done -- and it?s not even clear that they did engage in any criminal activities.?

Hermes said that the same two undercover cops who busted Betterly, Chase and Church were behind the bust of Sebastian Senakiewicz and Mark Neiweem, both of Chicago. Senakiewicz was charged with falsely making a terrorist threat while Neiweem stands accused of attempted possession of an explosive device. Police have said the two plots were unrelated.

Sunday afternoon, thousands of protesters marched from Jackson Drive and Columbus Drive, near Lake Michigan, to McCormick Place, the setting for the NATO Summit. Some 60 countries are sending delegations to the event, where diplomats are discussing the war in Afghanistan and missile defense in Europe.

There were reports of clashes between protesters and police at the conclusion of the march, but it appears that the demonstration was largely peaceful.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Follow US News on msnbc.com on?Twitter?and?Facebook

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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Strategies for producing natural and non-natural chemicals by microorganisms

Friday, May 18, 2012

In our everyday life, we use gasoline, diesel, plastics, rubbers, and numerous chemicals that are derived from fossil oil through petrochemical refinery processes. Fossil resources are limited and not sustainable. Our world is facing problems associated with climate change and other environmental problems resulted from lavish consumption of fossil fuels. One solution to address these problems is to use renewable, non-food biomass for the production of chemicals, fuels, and materials through biorefineries.

In their paper published online in Nature Chemical Biology on May 17th, Professor Sang Yup Lee and his colleagues at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), newly present general strategies for systems metabolic engineering to develop microorganisms for the production of natural and non-natural chemicals from renewable biomass.

Microorganisms are used as biocatalysts to convert biomass into the products of interest. When microorganisms are isolated from nature, however, their efficiency of producing desired chemicals and materials is rather low. Metabolic engineering is performed to improve cellular characteristics to desired levels.

Over the last decade, great advances have been made in systems biology that allows system-wide characterization of cellular networks, both qualitatively and quantitatively, followed by whole-cell level engineering based on these findings. Furthermore, rapid advances in synthetic biology allow design and synthesis of fine controlled metabolic and gene regulatory circuits. The strategies and methods of systems biology and synthetic biology are rapidly integrated with metabolic engineering, thus resulting in "systems metabolic engineering."

According to the paper, the researchers classified the chemicals to be produced into four categories based on whether they have been identified thus far to exist in nature (natural vs. non-natural) and they can be produced by inherent pathways of microorganisms (inherent, noninherent, or created): natural-inherent, natural-noninherent, non-natural-noninherent, and non-natural-created ones.

General strategies for systems metabolic engineering of microorganisms for the production of these chemicals using various tools and methods based on omics, genome-scale metabolic modeling and simulation, evolutionary engineering, and synthetic biology are suggested with relevant examples. For the production of non-natural chemicals, strategies for the construction of synthetic metabolic pathways are also suggested. Having collected diverse tools and methods for systems metabolic engineering, the authors also suggest how to use them and their possible limitations.

Professor Sang Yup Lee said, "It is expected that increasing number of chemicals and materials will be produced through biorefineries. We are now equipped with new strategies for developing microbial strains that can produce our desired products at very high efficiencies, thus allowing cost competitiveness to those produced by petrochemical refineries."

###

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST): http://www.kaist.edu/english/

Thanks to The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Billionaire tied to Wright ad blitz a rising force

FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2005 file photo, Ameritrade chairman and founder Joe Ricketts talks to shareholders in Omaha, Neb. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney sought to distance himself Thursday from a GOP-leaning independent group's plan for a $10 million TV ad campaign renewing attention to President Barack Obama's ties to his controversial former pastor. Obama's campaign accused Romney of failing to show "moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party." (AP Photo/Dave Weaver, File )

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The wealthy executive who considered and then dropped a proposal to revive controversy over the relationship between President Barack Obama and his former pastor is a rising conservative maverick with ties to the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He's also linked to a "super" political action committee that bankrolled an upset in Nebraska's recent Republican Senate primary.

J. Joseph Ricketts, 70, a politically conservative Nebraskan known as "Joe," built the TD Ameritrade brokerage firm into a billion-dollar empire that backed the purchase of the Cubs as well as interests in film, media, resorts and bison meat products. As the man reportedly behind a planned $10 million anti-Obama ad blitz ? a spokesman on Thursday blamed the proposal on consultants and said it was being shelved ? Ricketts is a new force in GOP and conservative politics.

It doesn't run in the family: Ricketts' daughter, Laura, is a prominent lesbian activist who is a volunteer fundraiser for Obama.

Joe Ricketts was identified by a Republican strategist Wednesday as the financier behind plans being drawn up for a $10 million campaign that would have targeted Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor with a history of racially incendiary sermons. Wright's relationship with Obama, his former parishioner, was a hot-button issue in the 2008 presidential race.

Obama's 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain, mostly steered clear of the topic and aides to Mitt Romney quickly repudiated the tactic on Thursday, leading Ricketts to torpedo the plan.

The new super PACs allow well-funded business and other interest groups to wade into political issues that are too sensitive for rival campaigns. Ricketts is on the cutting edge of that phenomenon, one of several wealthy conservative financiers who have single-handedly set up super PACs and nonprofit foundations to advance their pet issues.

Ricketts spent nearly $1.2 million in 2010 to create Ending Spending Action Fund, which was reportedly considering the Wright attack ads. The committee has a sister nonprofit, also called Ending Spending, which Ricketts set up for issue advocacy. It was preceded by Taxpayers Against Earmarks, an advocacy group for Ricketts' campaign against the use of congressional provisions to benefit specific projects in legislators' districts.

Calls to Ricketts at Ending Spending were not immediately returned, but the president of the committee, Brian Baker, said in a statement on the group's website that the planned ad campaign "reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects." Baker called the plans "only a suggestion" and added that Ricketts was "neither the author nor the funder" ? despite indications of deeper involvement.

A champion of limited government and free enterprise who once supported Democratic Party candidates, Ricketts joins such well-heeled conservative activists as the Koch brothers, who head the conservative Americans for Prosperity organization, in pumping millions of dollars into campaigns to influence elections and public policy. His Tampa, Fla.-based super PAC spent $600,000 in the Nevada Senate race in 2010 in a failed attempt to unseat Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

But Ricketts has also shown an independent streak, willing to take on rival conservatives as he did in Nebraska's recent GOP Senate primary. Ricketts' super PAC quietly fronted $130,000 for ads supporting Debra Fischer, a state senator who upset a well-funded rival supported by other influential conservatives. Fischer had tea party support but was opposed by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and other top conservatives.

Ricketts' website describes him as an advocate for "responsible government that promotes freedom, fosters free enterprise and encourages individual opportunity." The site also describes Ricketts' ventures since he retired in 2011 from TD Ameritrade, including the American Film Company; DNAinfo.com, a New York hyper-local website; and High Plains Bison, a bison meat product firm.

Ricketts' family in 2009 purchased 95 percent ownership of the Chicago Cubs for a reported $900 million. The main investor was Ricketts' son, Tom, who is the team's chairman, but Ricketts' other three children, Laura, Pete and Todd, also have interests and are on the team's board. Joe Ricketts also has an interest. Despite his limited government philosophy, the ball club is pressing for $200 million in state-backed bonds to renovate Wrigley Field, the Cubs stadium also owned by the family.

On Wednesday, Tom Ricketts directly confronted the reports that his father was behind the anti-Obama ad campaign. "As chairman of the Chicago Cubs, I repudiate any return to racially divisive issues in this year's presidential campaign or in any setting ? like my father has," he said.

Laura Ricketts also spoke out. "We have different political views on how to achieve what is best for the future of America, but we agree that each of us is entitled to our own views and our right to voice those views," she said.

Laura Ricketts is listed by the Obama campaign as a bundler raising between $200,000 and $500,000 in donations. She introduced Obama last February during a Chicago fundraising event that took in more than $1.4 million.

___

Associated Press writer Beth Fouhy in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Friday, May 18, 2012

McNamee admits his story about Clemens changed

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

updated 8:43 p.m. ET May 17, 2012

WASHINGTON - During another seven grueling hours of cross-examination that frustrated all sides, Roger Clemens' accuser explained the evidence he kept in a beer can - and why his story about it has changed.

Brian McNamee was on the stand Thursday for a fourth day in the perjury trial of the seven-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, holding firm to his testimony that he injected Clemens with steroids from 1998 to 2001 and human growth hormone in 2000.

But Clemens' longtime strength coach again conceded that his memory of some details has evolved over the years, and that he initially told some lies during the drugs-in-baseball investigation conducted by federal agents and former Sen. George Mitchell.

Whether the jurors were still keeping track is another matter: They again expressed concern about the agonizingly slow pace of a trial that still has weeks to go, and the judge opined that Clemens' lawyer was "confusing everybody."

"At this pace," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said, "I'll guess we'll be here forever."

Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin tried to exploit McNamee's inconsistencies, even if it meant taking the case far afield from the principal issue of whether Clemens actually used performance-enhancing drugs. The former baseball star is accused of lying when he testified to Congress in 2008 that he never used steroids or HGH.

The day's testimony ended at a tantalizing moment. After some 19 hours on the stand, McNamee was being challenged by Hardin over the needle and other waste kept in a Miller Lite can after a steroids injection McNamee said he gave Clemens in 2001. The government is expected to show the waste contains Clemens' DNA.

McNamee indicated to Congress in 2008 that he kept the evidence primarily because he was starting to distrust Clemens, but he told the jury earlier this week he kept it because his wife had starting nagging him to do something to protect himself from being a fall guy in case he ever got caught.

McNamee said Thursday he had hoped to keep his wife out of the story. His change of heart came as he and his wife are going through a contentious divorce.

"Now she's involved," McNamee said, "she's got to take responsibility for her action."

McNamee said the beer can came from the recycling bin in Clemens' apartment, while conceding that he'd never seen Clemens drink a light beer. Hardin insinuated that McNamee manufactured the evidence after Clemens' televised denials of steroids use.

"All of a sudden, the person being accused is fighting back," Hardin said, "and you have to figure out some way to save yourself."

Hardin's aim is to portray McNamee as a serial liar, and he appeared to have some success this day.

"Did you ever tell Sen. Mitchell that you injected Roger Clemens approximately four times in the rear over a two-week period in 1998?" Hardin asked.

"That's possible," McNamee answered.

"If you did tell him ... would that be a lie?" Hardin asked.

"Yes, it would," said McNamee, who testified this week that he injected Clemens about eight to 10 times during Clemens' 1998 season with the Toronto Blue Jays.

McNamee again maintained that he had minimized the number of shots to try to help out Clemens.

"I wanted to make it not look like he was a bigger steroids user than he was. ... I never lied about the usage, just amounts," he said.

There were several similar exchanges. Hardin also displayed a calendar to show that a 1998 pool party at former slugger Jose Canseco's house was on a Tuesday; McNamee has always remembered it taking place on a Saturday. McNamee then went back and forth trying to place the date he gave Clemens' wife an HGH shot at the Clemens' home in Texas - switching from the 2003-04 offseason to the 2002-03 offseason.

"I could be confused," McNamee said. "I'm getting handed a lot of dates."

But it's an open question whether the lawyer's scattershot approach - leapfrogging from topic to topic with complex questions that evoke frequent objections from the government - will pay dividends with the jury. A serious trial that could end up sending one of baseball's all-time greats to prison was peppered with exchanges Thursday that sounded more like a situation comedy.

There was one exchange in which Hardin wanted to know why McNamee didn't tip off Clemens after being contacted by federal authorities. McNamee said Clemens never asked.

Hardin: "How could he ask if he didn't know?"

McNamee: "How could I answer if he didn't ask?"

Hardin: "You're serious?"

At another point, when Hardin was switching topics at a fast and furious pace, McNamee turned his palms up and said: "You're going from articles to emails - I'm trying to keep up, man."

Later, as Hardin was trying to pin another lie on him, McNamee responded: "I'm having a problem with the `lie' thing."

Then, when explaining why he decided to cooperate with federal authorities, McNamee said: "They would have had an opportunity to lock me up for lying." But Hardin mistook McNamee's thick New York accent, thinking McNamee said "life" instead of "lying." Hardin started to make a big deal of the comment until McNamee corrected him.

The sputtering pace of the trial, now in its fifth week, is taking a noticeable toll on the jury. Two members of the panel already have been dismissed for sleeping, leaving 12 jurors and two alternates. Walton emerged from a morning break and said they've been asking again how long the trial will last.

Walton sounded incredulous when the government responded that it had 14 more witnesses to call, which would bring its total to 26. The judge then told the jury that he expects the trial to last through at least June 8.

With the jury out of earshot, the judge said "someone's going to pay the price" for the slow pace, but Walton said he couldn't tell which side it would be. Then he segued into a critique of Hardin's all-over-the-place questioning.

"It's confusing everybody," Walton said, "but I don't think it's making much of a point."

More news

Halladay ends skid

Roy Halladay threw eight strong innings for his first victory in a month and the Philadelphia Phillies held on for an 8-7 win over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night.

Jays?drop?Yankees into 4th ?|? Red Sox top Rays

TORONTO (AP) - Jose Bautista and J.P. Arencibia each hit two-run home runs, Drew Hutchison won consecutive starts for the first time and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the New York Yankees 4-1 Thursday night, sweeping their two-game series.

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Music, Film, TV: How social media changed the entertainment ...

At the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland (US) there is a large south facing wall that looks like it might be a piece of abstract public art. Made from 2,352 different samples of stone it is in fact a testing wall where the effects of the weather on building materials are measured?

The wall was built in 1948 in Washington, DC, before being moved to the NIST site in Gaithersburg in 1977. It contains stone from 47 US states and 16 other countries ? from varieties of basalt and bluestone, to marble, limestone, sandstone and tuff.

I was led to read up on the NIST Test Wall and its steadfast research into the effects of weathering (as you do) after photographer Thom Atkinson sent over some of his recent pictures of English pavements, or rather of pavement repairs. Perhaps as ordinary a subject matter as you?re likely to find.

But the aged asphalt in his photographs shows the recognisable signs of deterioration and the subsequent fixes made over the years. The use of new materials, usually in a much brighter, blacker hue than that of the existing well-trodden pavement, mean that the flooring takes on that familiar urban scarring, with the cracks, cuts, fill-ins and repairs building up across one another.

Simple as they are, Atkinson?s images record the imperfections of the streets, the marks of things being dug up and replaced; of electrics being tinkered with, water and gas pipes changed. They reveal that something even as robust as the surface of the street is never stable: when they?re not being bashed up by the weather, like that pixellated wall in Maryland, we?re busy taking them apart ourselves.

The series English Pavement Repairs is on Atkinson?s blog at thomatkinson.tumblr.com. His main website is thomatkinson.com.

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The May issue of Creative Review is the biggest in our 32-year history, with over 200 pages of great content. This speial double issue contains all the selected work for this year?s Annual, our juried showcase of the finest work of the past 12 months. In addition, the May issue contains features on the enduring appeal of John Berger?s Ways of Seeing, a fantastic interview with the irrepressible George Lois, Rick Poynor on the V&A?s British Design show, a preview of the controversial new Stedelijk Museum identity and a report from Flatstock, the US gig poster festival. Plus, in Monograph this month, TwoPoints.net show our subcribers around the pick of Barcelona?s creative scene.

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Pinterest raises $100 million in funding: WSJ

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Source: HP Layoffs Are Going To Be Huge - Business Insider

It's no secret that HP is considering layoffs and soon.

Meg Whitman has even publicly hinted at them. Question is, how many employees will be axed?

One source at HP claims the job cuts are going to be massive.

While this is just one source, we know that tension inside the company is running high and so is the rumor mill.

Here's what our source told us:

Layoffs are going to be significant. At least, they'll be bigger than what Whitman has said so far. She's said that layoffs would NOT be "broad-based" at least in China (whatever that means), but she didn't say anything about the rest of the worldwide workforce.
Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program. We'd guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don't come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don't expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP's total workforce numbers won't reflect all of the cuts.
We're hearing that manufacturing staff won't be hit as hard as others. That makes sense to us given that HP is more of a product company than a software or services company.
Speaking of services, keep an eye out for HP Services results, which one insider said is expected to have another abysmal quarter. HP's outsourcing units could be particularly hit hard with whatever layoffs come and many of their jobs moved offshore. We're hearing that people with 8-10 years of experience?or are at the top of the salary charts -- are the most vulnerable.

We'll find out in one week what HP is officially planning on doing. Given Whitman's constant speeches about HP needing time, we might also hear that HP is not going to rip the bandage off in one fell swoop, but will do one modest layoff in 2012, shift more work to offshore workers, and trim the workforce more over time.

HP had no comment.

Don't miss: The 7 Biggest Ways Meg Whitman Is Struggling At HP

Are you an HP employee with insight to share? We want to hear it. We are discreet. jbort@businessinsider.com.

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Science uncensored.

Hi I'm Ken, I'm a native New Yorker, #Sketch artist & an editor at tumblr's #Science section. I strive to be a science teacher and I'm here to revive your faith in science, logic and reason. I'm not affiliated with NASA, just an enthusiast.

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