miltonkanna: ফেব্রুয়ারী 2013

বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৮ ফেব্রুয়ারী, ২০১৩

Ectopic eyes function without natural connection to brain

Feb. 27, 2013 ? For the first time, scientists have shown that transplanted eyes located far outside the head in a vertebrate animal model can confer vision without a direct neural connection to the brain.

Biologists at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences used a frog model to shed new light -- literally -- on one of the major questions in regenerative medicine, bioengineering, and sensory augmentation research.

"One of the big challenges is to understand how the brain and body adapt to large changes in organization," says Douglas J. Blackiston, Ph.D., first author of the paper "Ectopic Eyes Outside the Head in Xenopus Tadpoles Provide Sensory Data For Light-Mediated Learning," in the February 27 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology. "Here, our research reveals the brain's remarkable ability, or plasticity, to process visual data coming from misplaced eyes, even when they are located far from the head."

Blackiston is a post-doctoral associate in the laboratory of co-author Michael Levin, Ph.D., professor of biology and director of the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University.

Levin notes, "A primary goal in medicine is to one day be able to restore the function of damaged or missing sensory structures through the use of biological or artificial replacement components. There are many implications of this study, but the primary one from a medical standpoint is that we may not need to make specific connections to the brain when treating sensory disorders such as blindness."

In this experiment, the team surgically removed donor embryo eye primordia, marked with fluorescent proteins, and grafted them into the posterior region of recipient embryos. This induced the growth of ectopic eyes. The recipients' natural eyes were removed, leaving only the ectopic eyes.

Fluorescence microscopy revealed various innervation patterns but none of the animals developed nerves that connected the ectopic eyes to the brain or cranial region.

To determine if the ectopic eyes conveyed visual information, the team developed a computer-controlled visual training system in which quadrants of water were illuminated by either red or blue LED lights. The system could administer a mild electric shock to tadpoles swimming in a particular quadrant. A motion tracking system outfitted with a camera and a computer program allowed the scientists to monitor and record the tadpoles' motion and speed.

Eyes See Without Wiring to Brain

The team made exciting discoveries: Just over 19 percent of the animals with optic nerves that connected to the spine demonstrated learned responses to the lights. They swam away from the red light while the blue light stimulated natural movement.

Their response to the lights elicited during the experiments was no different from that of a control group of tadpoles with natural eyes intact. Furthermore, this response was not demonstrated by eyeless tadpoles or tadpoles that did not receive any electrical shock.

"This has never been shown before," says Levin. "No one would have guessed that eyes on the flank of a tadpole could see, especially when wired only to the spinal cord and not the brain." The findings suggest a remarkable plasticity in the brain's ability to incorporate signals from various body regions into behavioral programs that had evolved with a specific and different body plan.

"Ectopic eyes performed visual function," says Blackiston. "The brain recognized visual data from eyes that impinged on the spinal cord. We still need to determine if this plasticity in vertebrate brains extends to different ectopic organs or organs appropriate in different species."

One of the most fascinating areas for future investigation, according to Blackiston and Levin, is the question of exactly how the brain recognizes that the electrical signals coming from tissue near the gut is to be interpreted as visual data.

In computer engineering, notes Levin, who majored in computer science and biology as a Tufts undergraduate, this problem is usually solved by a "header" -- a piece of metadata attached to a packet of information that indicates its source and type. Whether electric signals from eyes impinging on the spinal cord carry such an identifier of their origin remains a hypothesis to be tested.

Research reported in this publication was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under award number MH081842-02 and the National Eye Institute, also of the NIH, under award number EY018168, and the Forsyth Institute, under award number 5T32DE007327-09.

Additional funders were the Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC, award W81XWH-10-2-0058).

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Tufts University, via Newswise.

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

Journal Reference:

Blackiston, B. J. and Levin, M. Ectopic eyes outside the head in Xenopus tadpoles provide sensory data for light-mediated learning. J. Exp. Biol., 2013; 216, 1031-1040

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/strange_science/~3/9csWLUaOYrg/130227183311.htm

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Russian Meteor's Origin and Size Pinned Down

A meteor that exploded over Russia earlier this month likely hit Earth after a long trip from beyond the orbit of Mars, scientists say.

Astronomers and the public were caught off guard by the Russian fireball, which damaged thousands of buildings and wounded more than 1,000 people when it detonated over the city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15.

But some YouTube-aided detective work suggests that the meteor's parent body belonged to the Apollo family of Earth-crossing asteroids, whose elliptical orbits take them farther than one Earth-sun distance (about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers) from our star at some point, researchers said.

Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin of the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, reached this conclusion after analyzing several videos of the Russian meteor, especially one taken in Chelyabinsk's Revolutionary Square and another recorded in the nearby city of Korkino. [Russian Fireball: All You Need to Know (Video)]

They also took into account the location of a hole in the ice of Lake Chebarkul, about 43 miles (70 km) from Chelyabinsk. Scientists think the hole was caused by a piece of the space rock that hit Earth on Feb. 15.

Using trigonometry, Zuluaga and Ferrin calculated basic elements of the fireball's path through Earth's atmosphere.

"According to our estimations, the Chelyabinski meteor started to brighten up when it was between 32 and 47 km up in the atmosphere," they write in their paper, which has been posted to the online astronomy preprint site ArXiv.org. "The velocity of the body predicted by our analysis was between 13 and 19 km/s (relative to the Earth) which encloses the preferred figure of 18 km/s assumed by other researchers."

The pair then entered these figures into a software program developed by the United States Naval Observatory called NOVAS (short for Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry), which calculated the likely orbit of the meteor's parent body.

Some other scientists agree that this orbit took the space rock relatively far from the sun at times ? farther than Mars, in fact.

"It came from the asteroid belt, about 2.5 times farther from the sun than Earth," Bill Cooke, of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a statement. Cooke was not involved in Zuluaga and Ferrin's study.

Meanwhile, the size of the meteor's parent object has come into clearer focus, thanks to measurements made by a global network of infrasound sensors operated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). These sensors monitor extremely low-frequency sound waves, which are a common product of nuclear explosions.

As the Russian meteor burned through Earth's atmosphere, it generated the most powerful infrasound signal ever detected by the CTBTO network, researchers said. And this signal revealed a great deal about the asteroid's size, speed and explosive power.

"The asteroid was about 17 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 10,000 metric tons," Peter Brown, a physics professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said in a statement. "It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles above Earth's surface. The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT."

That's 30 to 40 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II. The Russian fireball likely produced the most powerful such space rock blast since a 130-foot (40 m) object exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening 825 square miles (2,137 square km) of forest.

Preliminary reports suggest that the Chelyabinsk fireball's parent asteroid was composed primarily of stone, with a smidge of iron thrown in.

"In other words, [it's] a typical asteroid from beyond the orbit of Mars," Cooke said. "There are millions more just like it."

The Russian meteor struck just hours before the 130-foot asteroid 2012 DA14 gave Earth a close shave, missing our planet by just 17,200 miles (27,000 km). But the two space rocks are unrelated, researchers say, making Feb. 15 a day of remarkable cosmic coincidences.

You can see the Arxiv paper on the Russian meteor here.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall?or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and?Google+.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-meteors-origin-size-pinned-down-115545347.html

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Clever battery completes stretchable electronics package

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Northwestern University's Yonggang Huang and the University of Illinois' John A. Rogers are the first to demonstrate a stretchable lithium-ion battery -- a flexible device capable of powering their innovative stretchable electronics.

No longer needing to be connected by a cord to an electrical outlet, the stretchable electronic devices now could be used anywhere, including inside the human body. The implantable electronics could monitor anything from brain waves to heart activity, succeeding where flat, rigid batteries would fail.

Huang and Rogers have demonstrated a battery that continues to work -- powering a commercial light-emitting diode (LED) -- even when stretched, folded, twisted and mounted on a human elbow. The battery can work for eight to nine hours before it needs recharging, which can be done wirelessly.

The new battery enables true integration of electronics and power into a small, stretchable package. Details will be published Feb. 26 by the online journal Nature Communications.

"We start with a lot of battery components side by side in a very small space, and we connect them with tightly packed, long wavy lines," said Huang, a corresponding author of the paper. "These wires provide the flexibility. When we stretch the battery, the wavy interconnecting lines unfurl, much like yarn unspooling. And we can stretch the device a great deal and still have a working battery."

Huang led the portion of the research focused on theory, design and modeling. He is the Joseph Cummings Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The power and voltage of the stretchable battery are similar to a conventional lithium-ion battery of the same size, but the flexible battery can stretch up to 300 percent of its original size and still function.

Rogers, also a corresponding author of the paper, led the group that worked on the experimental and fabrication work of the stretchable battery. He is the Swanlund Chair at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Huang and Rogers have been working together for the last six years on stretchable electronics, and designing a cordless power supply has been a major challenge. Now they have solved the problem with their clever "space filling technique," which delivers a small, high-powered battery.

For their stretchable electronic circuits, the two developed "pop-up" technology that allows circuits to bend, stretch and twist. They created an array of tiny circuit elements connected by metal wire "pop-up bridges." When the array is stretched, the wires -- not the rigid circuits -- pop up.

This approach works for circuits but not for a stretchable battery. A lot of space is needed in between components for the "pop-up" interconnect to work. Circuits can be spaced out enough in an array, but battery components must be packed tightly to produce a powerful but small battery. There is not enough space between battery components for the "pop-up" technology to work.

Huang's design solution is to use metal wire interconnects that are long, wavy lines, filling the small space between battery components. (The power travels through the interconnects.)

The unique mechanism is a "spring within a spring": The line connecting the components is a large "S" shape and within that "S" are many smaller "S's." When the battery is stretched, the large "S" first stretches out and disappears, leaving a line of small squiggles. The stretching continues, with the small squiggles disappearing as the interconnect between electrodes becomes taut.

"We call this ordered unraveling," Huang said. "And this is how we can produce a battery that stretches up to 300 percent of its original size."

The stretching process is reversible, and the battery can be recharged wirelessly. The battery's design allows for the integration of stretchable, inductive coils to enable charging through an external source but without the need for a physical connection.

Huang, Rogers and their teams found the battery capable of 20 cycles of recharging with little loss in capacity. The system they report in the paper consists of a square array of 100 electrode disks, electrically connected in parallel.

###

Northwestern University: http://www.northwestern.edu

Thanks to Northwestern University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127035/Clever_battery_completes_stretchable_electronics_package

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Morrissey: 'If More Men Were Homosexual, There Would Be No Wars'

Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway, who's been outspoken about her support for her gay brother, <a href="http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/anne-hathaway-1" target="_hplink">told Chelsea Handler in Interview</a>, "The other thing I want to say about Jersey is they need to get on the New York bandwagon and legalize gay marriage." She continued, "But I think everybody should do that. It's not a specifically Jersey thing."

Brad Pitt

Though it was revealed recently that Pitt and longtime partner Angelina Jolie <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/brad-pitt-angelina-jolie-engaged-jeweler_n_1424139.html" target="_hplink">are now engaged</a> (they previously said they would not get married until marriage was an option for all people), the actor has been a staunch supporter of the LGBT community. In 2009 he donated $100,000 to fighting Proposition 8, the California law which made same-sex marriage illegal in the state. Pitt said: <blockquote>"Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/spielberg_makes_like_pitt_supports/30446" target="_hplink">my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.</a>"</blockquote> Pitt also recently starred in a production of Dustin Lance Black's play "8," based on the Prop 8 trial.

Cyndi Lauper

Lauper launched her Give a Damn Campaign to raise awareness for the struggles of gay and transgender youth. "For far too long, dogma and fear have torn apart too many families,<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cyndi-lauper/give-a-damn_b_1000046.html" target="_hplink">" she wrote in The Huffington Post in 2011</a>. "It is a time when the heart must lead the way when your child shares this personal and life-changing moment with you."

Clint Eastwood

In a 2011 interview with GQ Eastwood said: "These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don't give a f*** about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We're making a big deal out of things we shouldn't be making a deal out of. They go on and on with all this bulls*** about "sanctity" -- don't give me that sanctity crap! <a href="http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201110/leonardo-dicaprio-clint-eastwood-gq-september-2011-cover-story-article#ixzz1dEBChGb4" target="_hplink">Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want."</a>

Drew Barrymore

Barrymore <a href="http://www.justjared.com/2009/05/27/drew-barrymore-gay-marriage-rally/" target="_hplink">stepped out to support gay marriage</a> after the California Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Proposition 8 in 2009, saying "I am who I am because of the people who influenced me growing up, and many of them were gay. No one has any right to tell anyone what makes a family."

Charles Barkley

During an interview on SiriusXM radio, Barkley was asked how he felt about gay players in the locker room. Barkley responded <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/05/media-watch-charles-barkley-on-gay-athletes----we-dont-care/1#.T4wuIZrLx1M" target="_hplink">that a gay player would only be judged based</a> on "whether he can play or not. If somebody is gay, that's their own business. But it bothers me how people try to say that jocks are not going to like a gay. ... I think gay people should be allowed to get married and God bless them, that's their own business. Listen, if a guy can't play that's the only time we don't want to play with him. We don't care about all that extracurricular stuff."

Kate Winslet

"I like the diversity that my children are exposed to every day," Kate Winslet <a href="http://www.vmagazine.com/2011/09/kate-winslet/?page=2" target="_hplink">told V magazine in 2011</a>. "I love the way their brains work. Joe [her son] turns to me the other day and says, 'One day, I will have a girlfriend. But I might have a boyfriend. If I'm gay.' He's 7! And I said, 'You might have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, darling.' And he said, 'Which would you prefer?' And I said, 'My love, that would be entirely up to you, and it doesn't make any difference to me.'"

Sean Avery

Not only has the New York Rangers hockey star come out in support of gay marriage (see the video above), when asked about <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/sports/hockey/2011/02/03/17146546.html" target="_hplink">what he'd do if there were a gay player in the locker room</a> he said: <blockquote>"I'll stand beside him in the dressing room while he tells his teammates he is gay. Maybe if Sean Avery is there, they would have less of a problem with it."</blockquote>

Daniel Radcliffe

The "Harry Potter" star has long been an advocate for LGBT causes including <a href="http://www.thetrevorproject.org/" target="_hplink">The Trevor Project</a>, which helps LGBT youth who are dealing with suicidal thoughts. Radcliffe, who was <a href="http://www.out.com/entertainment/2010/08/08/daniel-radcliffe-and-our-lady-j-odd-couple" target="_hplink">featured on the cover of gay men's magazine Out</a> with transgender musician and friend Our Lady J, will play gay poet Allen Ginsberg in an upcoming biopic.

Julianne Moore

"I think it's a very basic human rights issue," Moore, who played one half of a lesbian couple in 2010's "The Kids Are Alright,"<a href="http://www.wwd.com/eye/parties/calvin-klein-fetes-americans-for-marriage-equality-5400017" target="_hplink"> told Women's Wear Daily.</a> "Everybody has the right to marry the person they love and be represented as a couple and family....It's something that people will look back on in years to come and say, 'I can't believe it took so long for us to recognize this.' It'll be like segregation and giving women the right to vote."

Steven Spielberg

Brad Pitt wasn't the only one to donate to the fight against Prop 8. In 2008 Steven Spielberg also plunked down $100,000 in hopes of defeating the anti-marriage equality bill. Spielberg, who made the donation with his wife Kate Capshaw, said: "By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation. <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/spielberg_makes_like_pitt_supports/30446#ixzz1sDFjEXxY" target="_hplink">Such discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any other.</a>"

Miley Cyrus

In August 2011, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/miley-cyrus-why-i-got-my-gay-marriage-tattoo_n_1253130.html" target="_hplink">Cyrus tattooed</a> a small "equals" sign on her middle finger, in support of same-sex marriage. She later told Glamour that the idea of not being able to marry the person you love more than anything in the world makes her "feel sick to her stomach."

Sean Penn

Penn played the role of slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk and was awarded an Oscar for his incredible portrayal. During his acceptance speech Penn said: <blockquote>"I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."</blockquote>

Pink

Pink chose to set the video for her 2010 hit "Raise Your Glass" at a gay wedding. "I threw my best friend's wedding in my backyard -- [she] is gay and she married her wife, and it was absolutely beautiful," <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1649597/pinks-raise-your-glass-video-celebrates-gay-marriage.jhtml" target="_hplink">she told MTV News</a>. "At the end of it, her mom said, 'Why can't this be legal?' and started crying. It was just the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen, so that's why I'm doing it in my video. "

Russell Simmons

The entertainment mogul has long been an ally to the LGBT community. In a 2009 Huffington Post blog written as an open letter to then NY Governor David Paterson, Simmons said: <blockquote>"You have recently done this in showing support for the legalization of gay marriage. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-simmons/dear-governor-paterson-an_b_188307.html" target="_hplink">History will show you are right</a> and will we support you on this issue."</blockquote>

Natalie Portman

Portman and husband Benjamin Millepied <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/natalie_portman_benjamin_millepied_say/245874" target="_hplink">were among the stars</a> who signed Freedom to Marry's "I Do" open letter, which called on President Obama to declare his support for marriage equality.

Zach Wahls

The son of two lesbians, Wahls gave an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/01/zach-wahls-iowa-student-marriage-equality_n_1123020.html" target="_hplink">incredible pro-gay marriage, pro-gay parenting speech</a> in front of the Iowa House of Representatives in February of 2011. The speech was so inspiring that it went viral on the Internet not just in February of 2011 but then again nearly 11 months later in December of 2011. Up next, Wahls will serve as co-chair for "The Outspoken Generation," the Family Equality Council's national youth advocacy initiative <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/zach-wahls-outspoken-generation-ella-robinson-gay-parents_n_1408703.html" target="_hplink">involving the young adult children of LGBT parents.</a> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/zach-wahls-outspoken-generation-ella-robinson-gay-parents_n_1408703.html

Jennifer Aniston

Following New York's historic passage of a same-sex marriage bill in June 2011, Jennifer Aniston <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666491/jennifer-aniston-gay-marriage-vote.jhtml" target="_hplink">told MTV News:</a> "It's great! I thought it was unbelievable. So exciting in this time and that it happens to be Gay Pride weekend. What a great weekend."

George Clooney

In a recent interview with "the Advocate," the longtime LGBT ally, addressed rumors about his own sexuality and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/george-clooney-advocate-gay-rumors-marriage-brad-pitt_n_1310901.html" target="_hplink">affirmed his dedication to supporting his gay friends</a>: <blockquote>"I think it's funny, but the last thing you'll ever see me do is jump up and down, saying, 'These are lies!' That would be unfair and unkind to my good friends in the gay community," Clooney said. "I'm not going to let anyone make it seem like being gay is a bad thing. My private life is private, and I'm very happy in it. Who does it hurt if someone thinks I'm gay? I'll be long dead and there will still be people who say I was gay. I don't give a sh*t."</blockquote>

Hudson Taylor

The wrestling star and Division I wrestling coach recently launched Athlete Ally, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which aims to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hudson-taylor/gay-college-sports-coaches_b_1210651.html" target="_hplink">educate and empower straight allies in sports</a> to speak out against homophobia and transphobia.

Josh Hutcherson

Hutcherson is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/josh-hutcherson-glaad-vanguard-award_n_1428460.html" target="_hplink">the youngest person to ever be honored by GLAAD with the Vanguard Award for his work with the LGBT community</a>, which includes the founding of Straight But Not Narrow, a campaign that "is primarily directed to the young, straight male by using comedy and their peers to positively influence their views on LGBT teens." The teen, who filmed a video for SBNN (see above) told SamaritanMag.com, "...[the campaign] hits close to home for me. I have a lot of gay friends in Los Angeles. My roommate's gay and I lost two uncles when I was young to AIDS, so it's an important cause in my family."

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/morrissey-homosexual-men-wars_n_2773989.html

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বুধবার, ২৭ ফেব্রুয়ারী, ২০১৩

Marissa Mayer telecommuting ban: Will Yahoo! rebound by being less green?

Marissa Mayer has raised eyebrows in Silicon Valley by issuing a ban on working from home at Yahoo! It's not the only digital company discouraging telecommuting, despite its energy savings.

By David J. Unger,?Correspondent / February 26, 2013

Marissa Mayer, chief executive officer of Yahoo!, smiles during the 43rd Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland. Ms. Mayer has banned Yahoo! employees from working at home.

Laurent Gillieron/Keystone/AP/File

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Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!, has told her employees they must come in to work.

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Wary of crises, Americans tune out budget cut talk

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio wraps up a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, where he and GOP leaders challenged President Obama and the Senate to avoid the automatic spending cuts set to take effect in four days. Boehner complained that the House, with Republicans in the majority, has twice passed bills that would replace the across-the-board cuts known as the "sequester" with more targeted reductions, while the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, has not acted. He is followed by Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kansas is at left. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., and the Senate GOP leadership, face reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, to answer questions on the looming automatic spending cuts, following the weekly Republican strategy session. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. answers questions on the looming automatic spending cuts following a Democratic strategy session, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Reid also responded to House Speaker John Boehner who used salty language earlier in the day to prod the Senate to act on legislation to replace the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to warn just what could happen if automatic budget cuts kick in. Americans are reacting with a collective yawn.

They know the shtick: Obama raises the alarm, Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of holding a deal hostage, there's a lot of yelling on cable news, and then finally, when everyone has made their points, a deal is struck and the day is saved.

Maybe not this time. Two days before $85 billion in cuts are set to hit federal programs with all the precision of a wrecking ball, there are no signs that the White House and Republicans in Congress are even negotiating. Both sides appear quietly resigned to the prospect that this is one bullet we just may not dodge.

Still, for all the grim predictions, Americans seem to be flipping the channel to something a little less, well, boring. They wonder, haven't we been here before?

It's like deja vu, says Patrick Naylon, who runs an audiovisual firm in San Francisco: "The same stuff, over and over again."

Texas native Corby Biddle, 53, isn't losing sleep over the cuts. No way the government will let vital services collapse, he said as he visited tourist attractions this week in downtown Atlanta.

"It will get resolved. They will kick the can down the road," Biddle said.

Usually, that's exactly what happens. Even the cuts behind the current panic were originally supposed to kick in on Jan. 1 ? part of the fiscal-cliff combo of spending cuts and tax hikes that economists warned could nudge the nation back into recession. For all the high drama, lawmakers finally acted on New Year's Day, compromising on taxes and punting the spending cuts to March 1.

And the blunt instrument known as the "sequester" that's set to deliver the cuts? That too was the progeny of another moment of government-by-brinksmanship, a concession that in 2011 made possible the grand bargain that saved the U.S. from a first-ever default on its debt.

Even if the current cuts go through, the impact won't be immediate. Federal workers would be notified next week that they will have to take up to a day every week off without pay, but the furloughs won't start for a month due to notification requirements. That will give negotiators some breathing room to keep working on a deal.

But you can only cry wolf so many times before people just stop paying attention.

"I know you guys must get tired of it," Obama told a crowd in Virginia on Tuesday. "Didn't we just solve this thing? Now we've got another thing coming up?"

Three out of 4 Americans say they aren't following the spending cuts issue very closely, according to a Pew Research Center poll released this week. It's a significant drop from the nearly 4 in 10 who in December said they were closely following the fiscal-cliff debate.

Public data from Google's search engine shows that at its peak in December, the search term "fiscal cliff" was about 10 times as popular as "sequestration" has been in recent days. Even "debt ceiling," not a huge thriller for the web-surfing crowd, maxed out in July 2011 at about three times the searches the sequester is now getting.

"We're now approaching the next alleged deadline of doom. And voters, having been told previously that the world might end, found it did not in the past and are becoming more skeptical that it will in the future," said Peter Brown of the nonpartisan Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

And let's face it: When it comes to policy issues that can really put an audience to sleep, "sequestration" is right up there with filibuster reform, chained CPI and carried interest.

For all the angst about layoffs, furloughs and slashes to government contracts, the markets don't seem to be rattled, either. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, after falling below 13,000 at the height of the fiscal cliff debacle, has been buoyant ever since, spending the last month hovering just below 14,000.

"I shrug my shoulders because I don't believe any of those severe cuts will go through," said Karen Jensen, a retired hospital administrator who stopped to talk in New York's Times Square. "Life goes on as it has before."

But if the Obama administration hasn't managed to convince Americans these spending cuts could be the real deal, it's not for lack of trying.

Each day the cuts grow nearer sees a new dire warning from the White House about another government function that will take a hit if they go into effect ? what White House chief of staff Denis McDonough has called a "devastating list of horribles." Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency will be forced to furlough 5,000 border patrol agents. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said 70,000 preschool kids could be removed from Head Start. Fewer air traffic controllers could mean 90-minute delays or longer in major cities, and visiting hours at all 398 national parks are likely to be cut, the administration has said.

The White House has circulated 51 reports ? one for each state, plus the District of Columbia ? localizing the effects of the cuts. On Tuesday, Obama took his cautionary tale to a shipbuilding site in Newport News, Va., calling attention to how the cuts could impede the military. The White House says in Virginia alone, about 90,000 civilians working for the Defense Department would be furloughed, for a nearly $650 million reduction in gross pay.

"The president needs to stop campaigning, stop trying to scare the American people, stop trying to scare the states," Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said Monday after governors from both parties met with Obama behind closed doors. "Now's the time to cut spending. It can be done without jeopardizing the economy. It can be done without jeopardizing critical services."

The age-old Republican desire for a scaled-back federal government makes it clear why, on the one hand, the GOP isn't scrambling to avert the cuts ? especially when Obama insists on more tax revenues in any deal to turn them off. On the other hand, Obama is banking on polls that show if the cuts go through, Republicans are likely to bear most of the blame.

Both parties agree that if you're going to cut spending, an indiscriminate mechanism like the sequester is the wrong way to do it. After all, the whole point of the endeavor was to set in motion ramifications so unbearable that lawmakers would be forced to come together and hash out a better plan before the deadline.

Count James Ford of Louisville, Ky., among those still holding out hope.

"They'll come up with something to keep the thing going," he said. "They always do."

___

Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Jake Pearson in New York and Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-27-US-Budget-Battle-Crisis-Fatigue/id-6f49e5b15f2341808dfb6b99bd6f0468

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Exercises To Help You Retain Your Memory - Memory Training

If there were simple ways to boost your memory, would they be of interest to you? Thankfully, lots of methods of protecting your memory and retaining everything you learn exist. The article below has some powerful suggestions to save your memory.

Don?t overload yourself with too much information at one time. Spend several short study sessions learning the information you must remember. Don?t try and learn all there is to learn in one sitting. It can overwhelm your mind, and you can forget nearly all of it. Study in short sessions, and your brain can remember better.

Include fatty Omega-3 acids into your diet to help boost memory capabilities. These fatty acids are present in your brain and adding supplements or fishes to your diet will help your memory. Eat foods that are high in unsaturated fat, like salmon and other fish.

Exercise will help you maintain your memory. When you exercise, the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain is improved, and this keeps your brain healthy. Keeping your body healthy will keep your brain healthy. Improved brain health will help to improve your memory. Exercise has the added advantage of lowering your risk of diseases, like diabetes, which impair memory as a secondary effect.

A helpful tool for increasing your ability to memorize is to link the bits of information together in your mind with a common trait or factor. Connecting pieces of related or non-related information logically together will facilitate recall. For example, if a student is trying to recall the periodic table symbol for lead, he could memorize ?peanut butter (Pb) equals lead.? This association is so off the wall that it is easy to memorize.

Exercise is as good for your memory as it is for your body. Exercise helps to improve your memory, at the same time that it improves your health. In addition, when you are exercising you will increase oxygen flow to the brain, and reduce your risk of developing a disorder. Exercise also enhances the activation of chemicals that are essential for protecting the cells of the brain.

Listening to classical music can help to improve memory function. Music that is calming eases stress, and allows you to focus more clearly on the matter at hand. Try taking a warm bath and lighting some candles, while listening to classical music.

When mastering new information, connect it with something you already know and can access easily. For instance, your birthplace or your mother?s maiden name. This establishes a tie between something you already know to something that is new, and this increases the likelihood that it will be committed to long-term memory. If you relate information, it will help you remember things in a more timely fashion.

Stress can make you forgetful. When you are trying to learn new information or need to recall where an item is located, try to relax. Don?t focus on your frustration, but calmly think of the thing that you are trying to remember.

It can be extremely agitating to find that you can?t remember something. A tip for aiding your memory is clearing your mind for a minute. If searching for something, take a moment to breathe deeply, remove extraneous thoughts, and then start looking with a fresh perspective.

Adapt your diet to meet the nutritional needs of your brain. Healthy fats are important for brain health. Avoid trans fats, but add things like fresh fish, nuts, and flax seed or olive oil to your diet.

Something as simple as doubting yourself can have a huge negative impact on your ability to remember. Many people are resigned to the fact that old age will bring memory loss. This is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expecting memory deterioration could potentially damage your memory. When others start doubting your ability to remember things, you may begin to believe them. When you think positive and think you have a good memory then you can help yourself stay positive and sharp.

Do not cram for when studying. Give yourself plenty of breaks. The study style of cramming makes information recall exceptionally difficult during the test time, since you cut your brain short of badly needed processing time. Don?t overdo the break, though. Make sure that you don?t take so many breaks that you don?t leave yourself time for proper review. It is therefore important that you allow a decent amount of time before a test to study, rather than trying to cram it all in just before.

Improving Memory-saving tips and tactics aren?t overly complicated. Most of what you learned here is all fairly common-sense stuff, dealing with a lot of repetition and other retention practices. However, you cannot take this advice lightly just because it?s simpler than you assumed. Be sure that you?re using the tips here if you want to save your memory.

Source: http://memory.training-hq.com/exercises-to-help-you-retain-your-memory-7/

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The Captain's Log ? Intramurals: Changing the face of competitive ...

Marie Albiges/The Captain?s Log

Make way, varsity sports?intramurals are quickly becoming the go-to physical activity for students with any ounce of athleticism and competition.
Intramurals, run by the Recreation Services Department, are friendly athletic competitions between the students of Christopher Newport University in the sports of basketball, dodgeball, softball, kickball, volleyball, flag football and soccer. Popular among sororities and fraternities, former athletes and club sports members, former high school athletes and fans of sports, you can be sure the sports fields and Freeman Center are highly populated during any weeknight.
Students form teams or sign up as ?free agents? to be randomly placed on a team, for the cost of $20 per team. A team can have up to 15 players, and there are five weeks of competition, with one by-week so the students can rest. The games are played weeknights from 7-11 p.m. on the athletic fields and in the Freeman Center. During playoffs, a numbered system is used so that the top seeded teams play against the lowest seeded teams. Seeds are determined by the winning record of each team and the strength of the schedule in a division. Each sport is split into divisions and time slots.
Joy Kearney, director of recreational activities since 2008, says that intramurals and the Recreation Services Department have grown tremendously, with an average of 1500 students participating and forming teams each year.
?Every sport is extremely popular,? Kearney says.
Students arrive for registration at the beginning of each semester up to an hour early to ensure their team gets a time slot. Kearney tries to offer as many spots as possible, even adding in a 7 p.m. time slot for soccer and dodgeball.
Many teams make multiple appearances in different sports, racking up points for the Captain?s Cup, a competition to see which team can win the most intramurals in a season. Teams that Kearney has seen repetitively in the past few years include SigEp Raiders, the Rainmakers, the English Muffins and the Jumping Jackalopes.
Kearney, the supervisors and the program assistants stress the importance of sportsmanship in every game. Although competition can get pretty intense, Kearney wants to maintain a friendly, manageable atmosphere. Teams get rated on their level of sportsmanship during every game and cannot advance to the finals if they do not have a score above four.
Tyren Johns, who has worked with and played intramurals for two-and-a-half years, is currently the supervisor for basketball and flag football. He has also played on teams for flag football, basketball and dodgeball and is a two-time basketball intramural champion.
?It?s a good way to get away from schoolwork, have fun and be competitive with other students,? Johns says. ?I love the atmosphere that intramural recreation brings to the students.? He says that students take a lot of pride in their team and thrive from the competition. ?It really is all about the shirt,? Johns says, referring to the coveted intramural champion shirts that each member of the winning team receives. Rec Services? new slogan, which is the design of the shirts this year, is ?I got 99 problems but my game ain?t one.?
Prospective plans for the future of intramurals include adding the sports of floor hockey and ultimate Frisbee in tournaments along with the current tournaments of badminton and table tennis.
The playoffs for this season?s intramural games begin the week after Spring Break.

Source: http://www.thecaptainslog.org/2013/sports/intramurals-changing-the-face-of-competitive-sports/

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The Pinnacle at EdenHill Uses Social Media to Create Online ...

Featured in the Comal County Business Journal | February 12, 2013

Future Pinnacle at EdenHill residents use social media to develop an online neighborhood.

NEW BRAUNFELS ? While traditional media still plays a key role in the lives of seniors, online media is rapidly growing among this demographic.

According to the latest 2012 research of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, ?53 percent of American adults age 65 and older use the Internet or email; 34 percent of [those] Internet users use social networking sites such as Facebook, and 18 percent do so on a typical day.?

Baby Boomers, who are the emerging senior population, have an even greater dependency on online media. The Pew Internet and American Life Project also reports 80 percent of Boomers are online, and among that 80 percent, 51 percent engage in social networking.

As EdenHill geared up in the summer of 2010 to launch its expansion and redevelopment, which includes the addition of The Pinnacle at EdenHill, a 103-unit independent living complex, the sales and marketing staff had the foresight to lay down the roots of a ?new community? long before the building took shape.

Tags: ccrc, Comal County Business Journal, continuing care retirement community, edenhill, EdenHill Communities, New Braunfels, senior living, Senior Retirement, Things to do in New Braunfels | Category: Activities |

Source: http://www.edenhill.org/intheloop/the-pinnacle-at-edenhill-uses-social-media-to-create-online-neighborhood/

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Apple joins Facebook, others, in support of same-sex marriage

Apple is joining more than sixty companies, including Facebook and Intel, in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8, a California law that prohibits same-sex marriage by defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. According to Bloomberg, the group that Apple is joining argues that the California ban, along with those in effect in 41 other states, negatively impacts both company morale and recruiting.

?No matter how welcoming the corporate culture, it cannot overcome the societal stigma institutionalized by Proposition 8 and similar laws,? the companies will argue, according to a copy of the brief provided by Orrick Herrington Sutcliffe LLP, the law firm representing the group.

This filing is one of many recent actions by this group and others designed to sway judicial opinion in favor of gay marriage. As for Apple in particular, they have a history of supporting this cause. When Proposition 8 was on the ballot in 2008, Apple issued a statement in support of same-sex marriage, asking voters to reject the measure. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 26, with a decision expected in June of this year.

Source: Bloomberg

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/KTCxTMvurg0/story01.htm

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Experts: Pistorius violated basic firearms rules

FILE - In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 Olympic athlete, Oscar Pistorius, in court in Pretoria, South Africa, for his bail hearing charged with the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Even if Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star violated basic gun-handling regulations by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it, exposing himself to the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

FILE - In this photo taken Thursday Feb. 14, 2013 a police officer holds a gun that was alledgedly used in the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp, at the home of athlete Oscar Pistorius, at the Boschkop police station east of Pretoria. Even if Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star violated basic gun-handling regulations by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it, exposing himself to the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide. (AP Photo/Pretoria News, Phill Magakoe, File) SOUTH AFRICA OUT

FILE - In this photo taken Wednesday Feb. 20 2013 two Tuesday newspaper headlines carrying the news of Olympian Athlete Oscar Pistorius' applications for six firearms are photographed in Johannesburg. Pistorius applied for licenses for six guns a few weeks before he shot and killed his girlfriend and Pistorius says the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp was accidental. Prosecutors have charged him with premeditated murder. Afrikaans newspaper headline left, reads "Police refuse Oscar weapon, gets 9mm license after appeal". Even if Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star violated basic gun-handling regulations by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it, exposing himself to the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell-File)

FILE - In this frame grab from CCTV footage leaked to M-Net's Carte Blanche program which viewed Sunday Feb 24, 2013, shows Reeva Steenkamp entering the secured access to the Silverwoods housing estate, home of Olympian athlete Oscar Pistorius, some hours before she was shot and killed at Pistorius' home. Even if Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star violated basic gun-handling regulations by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it, exposing himself to the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide. (AP Photo/M-Net Carte Blanche, File)

FILE - In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius stands in the dock during his bail hearing at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa. Even if Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star violated basic gun-handling regulations by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it, exposing himself to the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe-File)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Even if Oscar Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star athlete violated basic gun-handling regulations and exposed himself to a homicide charge by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it.

Particularly jarring for firearms instructors and legal experts is that Pistorius testified that he shot at a closed toilet door, fearing but not knowing for certain that a nighttime intruder was on the other side. Instead of an intruder, Pistorius' girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was in the toilet cubicle. Struck by three of four shots that Pistorius fired from a 9 mm pistol, she died within minutes. Prosecutors charged Pistorius with premeditated murder, saying the shooting followed an argument between the two. Pistorius said it was an accident.

South Africa has stringent laws regulating the use of lethal force for self-protection. In order to get a permit to own a firearm, applicants must not only know those rules but must demonstrate proficiency with the weapon and knowledge of its safe handling, making it far tougher to legally own a gun in South Africa than many other countries where a mere background check suffices.

Pistorius took such a competency test for his 9 mm pistol and passed it, according to the South African Police Service's National Firearms Center. Pistorius' license for the 9 mm pistol was issued in September 2010. The Olympic athlete and Paralympic medalist should have known that firing blindly, instead of at a clearly identified target, violates basic gun-handling rules, firearms and legal experts said.

"You can't shoot through a closed door," said Andre Pretorius, president of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council, a regulatory body for South African firearms instructors. "People who own guns and have been through the training, they know that shooting through a door is not going to go through South African law as an accident."

"There is no situation in South Africa that allows a person to shoot at a threat that is not identified," Pretorius added. "Firing multiple shots, it makes it that much worse. ...It could have been a minor ? a 15-year-old kid, a 12-year-old kid ? breaking in to get food."

The Pistorius family, through Arnold Pistorius, uncle of the runner, has said it is confident that the evidence will prove that Steenkamp's death in the predawn hours of Feb. 14 was "a terrible and tragic accident."

In an affidavit to the magistrate who last Friday freed him on bail, Pistorius said he believed an intruder or intruders had gotten into his US$560,000 (?430,000) two-story house, in a guarded and gated community with walls topped by electrified fencing east of the capital, Pretoria, and were inside the toilet cubicle in his bathroom. Believing he and Steenkamp "would be in grave danger" if they came out, "I fired shots at the toilet door" with the pistol that he slept with under his bed, he testified.

Criminal law experts said that even if the prosecution fails to prove premeditated murder, firing several shots through a closed door could bring a conviction for the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide, a South African equivalent of manslaughter covering unintentional deaths through negligence.

Johannesburg attorney Martin Hood, who specializes in firearm law, said South African legislation allows gun owners to use lethal force only if they believe they are facing an immediate, serious and direct attack or threat of attack that could either be deadly or cause grievous injury.

According to Pistorius' own sworn statement read in court, he "did not meet those criteria," said Hood, who is also the spokesman for the South African Gun Owners' Association.

"If he fired through a closed door, there was no threat to him. It's as simple as that," he added. "He can't prove an attack on his life ... In my opinion, at the very least, he is guilty of culpable homicide."

The Associated Press emailed a request for comment to Vuma, a South African reputation management firm hired by the Pistorius family to handle media questions about the shooting.

The firm replied: "Due to the legal sensitivities around the matter, we cannot at this stage answer any of your questions as it might have legal implications for a case that still has to be tried in a court of law." Vuma said on Monday it referred the AP's questions to Pistorius' legal team, which by Tuesday had not replied.

Culpable homicide covers unintentional deaths ranging from accidents with no negligence, like a motorist whose brakes fail, killing another road user, "to where it verges on murder or where it almost becomes intentional," said Hood. Sentences ? ranging from fines to prison ? are left to courts to determine and are not set by fixed guidelines.

The tough standards for legally acquiring a gun were instituted in part because of a wave of weapons purchases after the end of racist white rule in 1994, said Rick De Caris, a former legal director in the South African police. Under South Africa's white-minority apartheid regime, gun owners often learned how to handle firearms during military service. Many of the new gun owners had little or no firearms training, which brought tragic results, De Caris said.

"People were literally shooting themselves when cleaning a firearm," said De Caris, who helped draft the Firearms Control Act of 2000.

Prospective gun owners must now take written exams that include questions on the law, have to show they can safely handle and shoot a gun and are required to hit a target the size of a glossy magazine in 10 of 10 shots from seven meters (23 feet), said Pretorius of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council.

In his affidavit, Pistorius said he wasn't wearing his prosthetic limbs "and felt extremely vulnerable" after hearing noise from the toilet.

"I grabbed my 9 mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom, I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch-dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed," he testified.

Legal experts said they are puzzled why Pistorius apparently didn't first fire a warning shot to show the supposed intruder he was armed. Also unanswered is why, after he heard noise in his bathroom that includes the toilet cubicle, Pistorius still went toward the bathroom ? toward the perceived danger ? rather than retreat back into his bedroom.

"He should have tried to get out of the situation," said Hood, the attorney.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-26-Pistorius%20Shooting-Closed%20Door/id-d87a1cb6e5344be9ba8b91b6a40043ae

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UFC 157?s Three Stars: Ronda Rousey, Robbie Lawler and Dennis Bermudez shine

UFC 157 completed the rare trick of living up to its intense hype. Who stood out as stars?

No. 1 star ? Ronda Rousey: Is there any better word to describe Rousey than star? After months of Rousey appearing on television, in magazines and on every site on the internet, she showed she's more than a media darling. Rousey not only escaped a submission attempt by Liz Carmouche, but also finished the fight with just 11 seconds to go in the first round. That's a star.

No. 2 star ? Robbie Lawler: Looking at this fight card, would you ever have guessed that Lawler would emerge as a star? Before returning to the UFC on Saturday, he lost three of his last five bouts. He was up against Josh Koscheck, who was eager to get a big win after losing to Johny Hendricks. But the power in Lawler's hands knocked Koscheck out in the first round, and earned Lawler a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus.

No. 3 star ? Dennis Bermudez: When the preliminary fights started, the Honda Center wasn't even half full. The UFC's tailgate was still going strong in the parking lot. But as Bermudez's bout with Matt Grice wore on, I noticed the stands filling up. Perhaps they heard about the Fight of the Year candidate happening inside, with Bermudez throwing everything he had at Grice, and Grice not only withstanding the punches but coming back with big punches of his own. They each took home a $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus.

Who were your three stars from the night? Tell in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-157-three-stars-ronda-rousey-robbie-lawler-143258534--mma.html

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Italy faces post-vote stalemate, spooking investors

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian stock market fell and state borrowing costs rose on Tuesday as investors took fright at political deadlock after a stunning election that saw a protest party lead the poll and no group had a clear majority in parliament.

"The winner is: Ingovernability" ran the headline in Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, reflecting the stalemate the country would have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies would be forced to work together to form a government.

In a sign of where that might lead, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi indicated his center-right might be open to a grand coalition with the center-left bloc of Pier Luigi Bersani, which will have a majority in the lower house thanks to a premium of seats given to the largest bloc in the chamber.

Results in the upper house, the Senate, where seats are awarded on a region-by-region basis, indicated the center-left would end up with about 119 seats, compared with 117 for the center-right. But 158 are needed for a majority to govern.

Any coalition government that may be formed must have a working majority in both houses in order to pass legislation.

World financial markets reacted nervously to the prospect of a stalemate in the euro zone's third-largest economy with memories still fresh of the crisis that took the 17-member currency bloc to the brink of collapse in 2011.

The Milan bourse was down more than four percent at its opening and the spread between yields on 10-year Italian and German government bonds widened to 338.7 basis points, the highest since December 10. An ally of conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Italy to stick with reforms pursued by the outgoing technocratic emergency government of Mario Monti.

However, the poor showing by Prime Minister Monti's centrist bloc reflected a weariness with austerity that was exploited by both Berlusconi and comic Beppe Grillo; his anti-establishment 5-Star Movement won more votes than any other single party, taking 25 percent nationally. Bersani's allies helped his center-left bloc win the lower house by just 125,000 votes.

Berlusconi, a media magnate whose campaigning all but eroded Bersani's once commanding lead, said he was not worried about market reaction and played down the significance of the spread.

In a telephone call to a morning television show, he said: "Italy must be governed." He ruled out a deal with Monti but said he "must reflect" on a possible deal with the center left: "Every (political side) must be prepared to make sacrifices."

The euro skidded to an almost seven-week low against the dollar in Asia on fears about the euro zone's debt crisis. It fell as far as $1.3042, its lowest since January 10.

Another indication of investors' reaction to the results will come later on Tuesday when the Treasury auctions 8.75 billion euros in 6-month bonds.

Bersani claimed victory in the lower house and said it was obvious that Italy was in "a very delicate situation".

Grillo, however, showed no immediate willingness to negotiate. Commentators said all his adversaries underestimated the appeal of a grassroots movement that called itself a "non-party", particularly its allure among young Italians who find themselves without jobs and the prospect of a decent future.

"NON-PARTY" SURGES TO THE TOP

The 5-star Movement's score of 25.5 percent in the lower house was just ahead of the 25.4 percent for Bersani's Democratic Party, which ran in a coalition with the leftist SEL party, and it won almost 8.7 million votes overall - more than any other single party.

"The 'non-party' has become the largest party in the country," said Massimo Giannini, commentator for the Rome newspaper La Repubblica about Grillo, who mixes fierce attacks on corruption with policies ranging from clean energy to free Internet.

Grillo's surge in the final weeks of the campaign threw the race open, with hundreds of thousands turning up at his rallies to hear him lay into targets ranging from corrupt politicians and bankers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In just three years, his 5-Star Movement, heavily backed by a frustrated generation of young Italians increasingly shut out from permanent full-time jobs, has grown from a marginal group to one of the most talked about political forces in Europe.

RECESSION

"It's a classic result. Typically Italian," said Roberta Federica, a 36-year-old office worker in Rome. "It means the country is not united. It is an expression of a country that does not work. I knew this would happen."

Italy's borrowing costs have come down in recent months, helped by the promise of European Central Bank support but the election result confirmed fears of many European countries that it would not produce a government strong enough to implement effective reforms.

A long recession and growing disillusionment with mainstream parties fed a bitter public mood that saw more than half of Italian voters back parties that rejected the austerity policies pursued by Monti with the backing of Italy's European partners.

Monti suffered a major setback. His centrist grouping won only 10.6 percent and two of his key centrist allies, Pier Ferdinando Casini and lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, both of parliamentarians for decades, were booted out.

"It's not that surprising if you consider how much people were let down by politics in its traditional forms," Monti said.

Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.

Stefano Zamagni, an economics professor at Bologna University said the result showed that a significant share of Italians "are fed up with following the austerity line of Germany and its northern allies".

"These people voted to stick one up to Merkel and austerity," he said.

Even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy that has scarcely grown in two decades.

Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, whom he replaced as the 2011 financial crisis threatened to spin out of control.

But he struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth, and a weak center-left government may not find it any easier.

(Additional reporting by Barry Moody, Gavin Jones, Catherine Hornby, Lisa Jucca, Steven Jewkes, Steve Scherer and Naomi O'Leary; Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Pravin Char and Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/huge-protest-vote-leaves-italy-facing-deadlock-005214049.html

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Thai PM Yingluck may seek Malaysia's help on insurgency

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai authorities and separatist rebels could be inching towards talks after nine years of violence and the loss of more than 5,000 lives in Thailand's Muslim-dominated southern provinces bordering Malaysia.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is meeting her Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday and may seek his help to make contact with rebel groups.

"There are insurgent groups operating within Malaysia and Thailand that want to talk to the Thai government," Paradorn Pattanathabutr, secretary-general of the National Security Council of Thailand (NSC), told Reuters.

"We want Malaysia to facilitate these talks."

The NSC brings together government ministers and officials charged with coordinating security matters with the military. In a 2012 paper it acknowledged a political dimension to the violence and proposed dialogue with the insurgents, but the military, which has a big presence in the south, is lukewarm.

"The military has had regular contact with Malaysia. We are not involved with the meeting on Thursday, because this is a government initiative," Udomchai Thammasarorat, commander of the Fourth Army in southern Thailand, told Reuters.

"Our military strategy is clear and we are making good progress towards resolving the conflict," he said.

Independent analysts see little evidence that the military is winning, despite its success in thwarting an attack on a marine base on February 13 in which 16 insurgents were killed, with no loss of life among the marines.

The rebels have hit back with a string of attacks. Two bombs on Saturday in Narathiwat province, about 1,150 km (715 miles) south of Bangkok, and a drive-by shooting in neighboring Pattani injured five people. An explosion in Pattani's commercial district on February 17 killed two security volunteers.

Yingluck has said she would discuss the southern unrest in Malaysia but government officials are not using the term "peace talks" and some senior ministers are opposed to such an idea.

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobumrung ruled out negotiations with the insurgents, saying that "if insurgent groups come to us with conditions, we will not accept them".

"ENCOURAGING"

The provinces were once part of an independent Malay sultanate before being annexed by Thailand in 1909.

Resistance to Buddhist rule from Bangkok has existed for decades, waning briefly in the 1990s before resurfacing violently in January 2004.

Buddhist monks, teachers and farmers have been singled out as targets in a conflict that has killed 5,300 people, according to Deep South Watch, which monitors the violence.

Thai authorities say the attacks in the south are organized by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) Coordinate, an offshoot of the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front established in the 1960s to seek greater autonomy.

Some within the military and government remain suspicious of Malaysia, accusing it of providing a refuge for insurgents.

"It's encouraging that the Thai government is working seriously on establishing dialogue. But there are doubts about whether Malaysia can play a productive role as mediator," said Matthew Wheeler, a Southeast Asia analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Najib, facing a general election that has to be held by called by the end of April, could benefit from any move towards a settlement.

"For Najib, an agreement with Thailand could be presented as a major foreign policy achievement to show that the southern crisis can be resolved peacefully," said Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch.

(Additional reporting by Pracha Hariraksapitak; Editing by Alan Raybould and Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thai-pm-yingluck-may-seek-malaysias-help-insurgency-110154197.html

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