NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks open little changed on Friday but remained on track for a third straight week of gains, while a pair of strong corporate earnings helped the Nasdaq register a small advance.
Equities have rallied this week, with the S&P 500 recently undergoing a five-day streak of record closing highs. Investors expect shares to continue trending higher given the Federal Reserve's accommodative monetary environment and encouraging data on the labor market, including jobless claims on Thursday and last week's payroll report.
"We're getting more constructive on the second half of the year as both the market and the economy are picking up," said Terry DuFrene, investment specialist for JP Morgan Private Bank in New Orleans. "While it has caught us by surprise how much markets have come up, and we might see a decline of 5 percent, we don't see any meaningful pullback ahead."
Clothing retailer Gap Inc was the top gainer on the S&P 500, rising 4 percent to $40.37 after reporting strong results.
Nvidia Corp and Priceline.com Inc led the Nasdaq's rise a day after their results. Both companies beat profit expectations, even as Priceline gave a second-quarter outlook that disappointed.
Nvidia jumped 3.5 percent to $14.42 while Priceline rose 3.4 percent to $762.26.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 12.20 points, or 0.08 percent, at 15,070.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.05 points, or 0.00 percent, at 1,626.62. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 7.65 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,416.82.
For the week, the Dow is up 0.7 percent, the S&P is 0.8 percent higher and the Nasdaq has gained 1.2 percent. It is the third week of gains for all three indexes.
Boeing Co said late Thursday it had succeeded in getting its factories to churn out 787 Dreamliners at a faster pace this week, a change that came sooner than expected and positions the plane maker to possibly deliver more of the high-tech jet than forecast. Shares of the Dow component were flat at $94.71.
Energy shares may face pressure on Friday as crude oil dropped 2.1 percent on signs of rising supply. Cabot Oil & Gas fell 1.4 percent to $66.71 while Hess Corp was down nearly 2 percent to $69.57.
The group, along with other cyclical sectors closely tied to the pace of economic growth, was among the biggest gainers in the recent rally, spurred by an improved global outlook.
JPMorgan's DuFrene said he was advocating that clients rotate into cyclical shares from defensive stocks.
"A lot of them haven't gotten much price movement this year, but that's temporary. They'll pick up later on and be receptive to improving conditions."
Molycorp Inc reported a first-quarter loss that widened from the prior year, though revenue rose sharply, sending shares up 17 percent to $6.56.
Pain Therapeutics Inc plummeted 48 percent to $2.76 after it said that Pfizer Inc , its marketing partner for painkiller Remoxy, was yet to decide on continuing to seek regulatory approval for the drug.
With 89 percent of the S&P 500 having reported, 66.7 percent have topped profit expectations, above the average since 1994 of 63 percent. However, only 46.4 percent have beaten revenue expectations, well under the average since 2002 of 62 percent.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday the shadow banking system continued to pose a threat to financial stability, and that bank funding markets might still not be able to cope with a major default.
"Big Banks Push Against Tighter Rules," says the headline in this piece from the Wall Street Journal. 'Twas ever thus, but now, "big banks" are doing so more overtly, and with more gusto, and with all kinds of interesting people helping them out. Per the WSJ:
The banks have hired longtime, influential Washington hands to deflect regulatory and political pressure to strengthen their finances and to sell assets. Regulators and some lawmakers have raised concern that large banks remain "too big to fail" and could require another government bailout in the event of a new financial meltdown.
The effort by banks marks a lobbying turning point for the industry, which adopted a mostly low-profile stance to new regulations in the wake of the financial crisis.
Of course, most of us are nominally invested in the idea that the Obama administration is working to keep the excesses of these banks in check. I mean, just today, Bloomberg reminded everyone that President Barack Obama greeted the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act thusly: ?Because of this reform, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street?s mistakes...There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts -- period.?
So, it would be quite reasonable to extract the notion, from that statement, that the Obama White House is fully on board with keeping tight rules on banks in place. Interestingly enough, however, someone who worked very hard to ensure Obama would be reelected to a second term does not appear to agree. Let's go back to that Wall Street Journal piece:
Regulators and lawmakers increasingly are signaling that more work is needed to lessen the risk posed by large, complex banks, including bigger capital cushions and minimum amounts of expensive long-term debt.
The moves by banks include pushing back against bipartisan legislation sponsored by Sens. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, and Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, that would sharply increase capital cushions at large banks to the point where most analysts expect firms would be forced to shrink.
Stephanie Cutter, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, and Ed Gillespie, a former Bush administration official, are providing strategic advice to Bank of America on several issues, including efforts to break up the banks. Morgan Stanley recently hired Michele Davis, a top aide to former Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, to help bolster the firm's credibility in Washington.
So, Stephanie Cutter (who I guess may also soon be repping Bank Of America's point of view on a rebooted "Crossfire" for CNN?) is working to undermine "tight rules" on banks? That seems like an odd thing for someone who supported Obama's reelection to do. Or does it? Is the implication here that Obama would not sign Brown-Vitter? Or that he contends that "bigger capital cushions" are not required?
It could mean that the White House isn't all that sincere about reining in the banks, maybe. It could also mean that the Obama White House will be battling its own adviser in the parking lot with tridents. I've not heard back from Cutter since I emailed her to ask, "HUH WHAT NOW?" But the day is young.
By the way, here is a fun fact that pertains to why tighter rules on banks, specifically those designed to prevent "Too Big To Fail" failures, might be of pertinent interest to normal human Americans. Per Bloomberg, today:
The firms that rate the creditworthiness of banks say the likelihood of a government rescue hasn?t gone away. Because of the implicit promise of bailouts, Moody?s Investors Service, the second-largest U.S. ratings company, has boosted the scores for the six banks. Each increase in credit grade makes borrowing less expensive.
In a March 27 report, Moody?s displays a bar chart of its credit ratings for the banks in blue. In green bars, it shows Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo would be rated two grades lower if the taxpayer backstop didn?t exist. Moody?s boosted Morgan Stanley?s score by two grades for the same reason, even though it had downgraded that bank in June 2012.
The scores for Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan (JPM) are three grades lower in the green bars.
Debt sold by the holding companies of Bank of America and Citigroup (C), the second- and third-biggest U.S. banks by assets, would fall to junk status without the implicit government guarantee, Moody?s Senior Vice President David Fanger says.
?They have a high probability of government support,? Fanger says.
"Government guarantee" means "taxpayer guarantee," in the above construction. Taxpayer wealth is, to the banks' perspective, an implied asset on their balance sheet. So it's no wonder they don't worry about being overleveraged, and want to resist further regulations.
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Cleveland kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro in a booking photo, May 8, 2013.
By Bill Briggs and Maggie Fox, NBC News
An Ohio prosecutor who on Thursday pledged to seek murder charges against the Cleveland kidnapping suspect for allegedly pummeling the pregnant stomach of one of his reported victims ? causing her to frequently miscarry ? may ultimately struggle to prove the blows led to those fetuses' deaths, said one former federal prosecutor.
To secure a guilty verdict for fetal homicide, prosecutors typically have to show that a killer clearly meant to murder the unborn baby by assaulting the mother in a way that would trigger an early end to the pregnancy.
But proving intent is not the challenge facing the prosecutor in?Cuyahoga County, said Heidi Rummel, a law professor at the University of Southern California.?
"The hardest part, I imagine, would be proving causation ? you have to show the actions actually caused the death. And years after the fact that might be somewhat of a challenge," added Rummel, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. and in Los Angeles. "We don't know how far along (the victim) was. It's hard to know for sure if it was a miscarriage or not. But the intent seems pretty clear based on the facts I've read."?
Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty has vowed to seek charges against suspect Ariel Castro for each act of sexual violence, rape, kidnapping, assault and ?each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies that the offender perpetuated against the hostages during this decade-long ordeal.?
Castro already is charged with four counts of kidnapping ? three for the women he is accused of abducting and one for a baby that one of the women bore in captivity.?One of the three women, Michelle Knight, has told investigators that Castro impregnated her at least five times, and that he starved her and punched her repeatedly in the stomach to force her to miscarry, according to a Cleveland police report.
McGinty specifically cited a provision of Ohio law that defines it as aggravated murder when someone causes, ?with prior calculation and design,? the unlawful termination of another person?s pregnancy.
?This child kidnapper operated a torture chamber and private prison in the heart of our city,? McGinty said. ?The horrific brutality and torture that the victims endured for a decade is beyond comprehension.?
McGinty's decision falls in line with?fetal homicide laws on the books in at least 38 states.
The penalties for killing unborn babies via assaults on the mother vary depending on the location of the crime: in Kansas, any unborn fetus is considered a human following fertilization; in Colorado, offenders can be prosecuted only if they are shown to have known that the mother was pregnant, reports the?National Conference of State Legislatures.
The case in Ohio is unique, but the issue of charging someone with murder for killing an unborn baby has been colored by the abortion rights debate.
Anti-abortion groups have pushed for laws declaring any fetus to be an unborn human. However, supporters of abortion rights argue that such law would not only make the procedure illegal, but they could make also it possible to prosecute pregnant women for endangering their babies in a variety of ways ??and could even put them on trial after suffering a miscarriage.
Rummel, meanwhile, also has handled the cases of many incarcerated women in California who, she said, were convicted of crimes that stemmed from abusive relationships. Some of those woman later told her that their husbands or boyfriends routinely punched or kicked them in their stomachs after they became pregnant.?
"It's not an unusual story in intimate-partner battering situations that men do this," Rummel said. "When an intimate partner does it, you never hear about it.?But?when a stranger does it, the whole county is in a uproar. It's tragic whenever it happens."
LONDON (AP) ? British film director Bryan Forbes, whose work includes the original 1970s horror classic "The Stepford Wives," has died at age 86 after a long illness, a family spokesman said Wednesday.
Matthew D'Ancona said Forbes died surrounded by his family at his home in Surrey.
Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke in 1926 in London. He began his film career as an actor, playing a number of supporting roles in British films in the 1940s and 1950s, but he soon found more success in screenwriting, and later directing.
He made his debut as director in "Whistle Down the Wind," the 1961 movie about children who come across an escaped convict and mistake him for Jesus.
Forbes went on to make films such as "King Rat," a tale of survival in a prisoner-of-war camp, and "The Stepford Wives," a thriller about sinisterly perfect suburban housewives.
He was screenwriter for "Chaplin," the 1992 biopic of Charlie Chaplin starring Robert Downey Jr., and also wrote several novels. His latest book, "The Soldier's Story," was published last year.
Forbes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 for services to the arts.
He is survived by his wife, the actress Nanette Newman, and two daughters.
Police search the Cleveland house where the three missing women were found. (David Maxwell)
The Cleveland home where three women were allegedly held captive for nearly a decade had padlocked doors inside, photos from Ariel Castro's son Anthony show.
The photos, obtained by London's Daily Mail, show padlocked doors leading to the basement, attic and garage. In one photo from 2001, Ariel Castro is seen standing in his kitchen in front of one of the padlocked doors. Michelle Knight, one of the women found inside the home Monday, went missing the year before.
Ariel Castro, 52, and brothers Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, were arrested on Monday, suspected of kidnapping the women?Knight, now 32, Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, said to be 23?and holding them captive inside the home. A 6-year-old girl believed to be Berry's daughter was also found there.
"If it's true that he took [Berry] captive and forced her into having sex with him and having his child and keeping her hidden and keeping them from sunlight, he really took those girls' lives," Anthony Castro told the newspaper. "He doesn't deserve to have his own life anymore. He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of her life. I'm just thankful they're alive."
[Related: Son of suspect wrote article about missing woman in 2004]
The son, who said he was not close to his father and that Ariel had abused his mother before the couple separated, recalled that "the house was always locked."
"There were places we could never go," he said. "There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage."
Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who helped free the women, said the front door appeared to have an elaborate lock on it, too.
[Also see: Neighbor who rescued kidnapped women speaks]
"I'm trying to get the door open, I can't, because he torture-chambered it some kind of way and locked it up," Ramsey told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday. "So I did what I had to do and kicked the bottom of the door, and she crawled out of it."
Investigators removed the door on Tuesday along with other evidence from inside the house, and cadaver dogs were used to search for the remains of other potential victims.
Police say they also found ropes and chains in a search of the home.
With Swansea?s comeback slamming the brakes on Wigan?s recent surge, it?s given a touch of distance between the relegation zone and the middle of the table.? A touch.
However, watching how each team?s fortunes changed with every goal that hit the back of the net shows just how closely packed this season?s relegation battle is, and how many squads are involved.
Fans of about 7 teams are shaking in their boots, knowing at any moment, it could be their club that out of nowhere winds up in that 18th position come the final day?s whistle.
Take Fulham, for instance.? Just one month ago, they beat arch rivals Queens Park Rangers and recently after drew with Aston Villa to go on 40 points, 9 ahead of the drop zone with 6 to play. 40 had always been the generic safe number, and it seemed things were well past them.? Not so.
Now, after 4 successive losses, the Whites remain at that ?magic number? of 40, with fixtures left against Liverpool and at Swansea, and just 2 goals scored by their own players over those 4 matches (actually 2 goals in their last 6 altogether).? They?re in 12th still, but somehow in this mess still very much a candidate to go down, especially considering the form.
On the other side of the coin, we have Aston Villa.? Fresh off their near-miss last season having stayed up by 2 points, they seemed back in the thick of things this year as well.? It was only 2 months ago they sat in 18th place, and had completed a stretch of 11 matches where they mustered a miserable 6 points, which started with an 8-0 shellacking at Stamford Bridge all the way back in December. Now, Villa have picked up 16 points in the 8 matches since, losing just twice during that span.
Those two teams are currently even on 40 points.
Queens Park Rangers and Reading are already down, leaving one spot left.? Just one.
But that one could be anybody from the pool of Wigan, Newcastle, Norwich, Sunderland, Southampton, Aston Villa, or Fulham. All those clubs sit just a measly 5 points apart.? Had Wigan held on for the win (they were up 1-0 and 2-1), the difference between 18th and 12th would have been two points.
Let?s repeat that: had Wigan held on, the distance between 18th and 12th would have been just two points.
That?s how important every goal is in the final matches of the season.? Hold on tight folks.
NEW YORK?West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday he's optimistic that a revised bipartisan bill to expand background checks for gun sales will pass the Senate.
"We really need five votes," Manchin, a Democrat, said during an interview at the Atlantic's New York Ideas Festival. The original bill, which Manchin co-sponsored with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, failed in a 54-46 Senate vote last month.
A new bill, Manchin said, is in the works. "Oh, it's coming back," he said.
Manchin said he needs to educate law-abiding gun owners who support the legislation but don't trust the government.
"The big problem is that they're afraid that this is the first step because they've seen overreach," he said.
The background check bill, Manchin said, not only protects Second Amendment rights, but expands them.
Other detractors said the bill might infringe on gun transfers between family members. "It doesn't at all," Manchin said.
The Democratic senator also scoffed at talk of the "culture war" discussed at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston over the weekend as cage-rattling rhetoric.
"What you saw was the division that's going on across the country," Manchin, a gun owner and member of the NRA, said. "I don't know why we can't sit and talk and work together as Americans."
Manchin said the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., affected his views.
"If Newtown didn't change you, nothing will," Manchin said. "It made you think, 'Can we do something a little better?'"
Twenty-six people, including 20 children, were killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Manchin added: "None of those families came to my office and asked to repeal the Second Amendment." They asked him to make it harder for people who are bent on killing to get guns.
May 5, 2013 ? Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a group of proteins that are mutated in about one-fifth of all human cancers. The finding suggests that the proteins, which are members of a protein complex that affects how DNA is packaged in cells, work to suppress the development of tumors in many types of tissues.
The broad reach of the effect of mutations in the complex, called BAF, rivals that of another well-known tumor suppressor called p53. It also furthers a growing notion that these so-called chromatin-regulatory complexes may function as much more than mere cellular housekeepers.
"Although we knew that this complex was likely to play a role in preventing cancer, we didn't realize how extensive it would be," said postdoctoral scholar Cigall Kadoch, PhD. "It's often been thought that these complexes play supportive, maintenance-like roles in the cell. But this is really changing now."
Kadoch shares lead authorship of the study with postdoctoral scholar Diana Hargreaves, PhD. Gerald Crabtree, MD, professor of developmental biology and of pathology, is the senior author of the study, published online May 5 in Nature Genetics.
Chromatin-regulatory complexes work to keep DNA tightly condensed, while also granting temporary access to certain portions for replication or to allow the expression of genes necessary for the growth or function of the cell.
Members of Crabtree's laboratory have been interested in BAF complexes and their function for many years. Recently, they reported in the journal Nature that switching subunits within these complexes can convert human fibroblasts to neurons, which points to their instructive role in development and, possibly, cancer.
"Somehow these chromatin-regulatory complexes manage to compress nearly two yards of DNA into a nucleus about one one-thousandth the size of a pinhead," said Crabtree, who is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "And they do this without compromising the ability of the DNA to be replicated and selectively expressed in different tissues -- all without tangling. In 1994 we reported that complexes of this type were likely to be tumor suppressors. Here we show that they are mutated in nearly 20 percent of all human malignancies thus far examined."
The researchers combined biochemical experiments with the data mining of 44 pre-existing studies to come to their conclusions, which would not have been possible without the advent of highly accurate, genome-wide DNA sequencing of individual human tumor samples. Interestingly, mutations to certain subunits, or particular combinations of mutations in the complex's many subunits, seem to herald the development of specific types of cancer -- favoring the development of ovarian versus colon cancer, for example.
The importance of the BAF complex as a tumor suppressor is further emphasized by the fact that, in some cases, a mutation in one subunit is sufficient to initiate cancer development.
"For example," said Kadoch, "a type of mutation called a chromosomal translocation in the gene encoding one of these newly identified subunits, SS18, is known to be the hallmark of a cancer called synovial sarcoma. It is clearly the driving oncogenic event and very often the sole genomic abnormality in these cancers." Kadoch and Crabtree published a study in March in Cell uncovering the mechanism and functional consequences of BAF complex perturbation in synovial sarcoma.
The startling prevalence of mutations in the BAF complex was discovered when Kadoch conducted a series of experiments to determine exactly which proteins in the cell were true subunits of the complex. (The exact protein composition of the large complex varies among cell types and species.) Kadoch used an antibody that recognized one core component to purify intact BAF complexes in various cell types, including embryonic stem cells and skin, nerve and other cells. She then analyzed the various proteins isolated by the technique.
Using this method, Kadoch identified seven proteins previously unknown to be BAF components. She and Hargreaves then turned to previously published studies in which the DNA from a variety of human tumors had been sequenced to determine how frequently any of the members of the complex were mutated.
The results, once the newly discovered members were included, were surprising: 19.6 percent of all human tumors displayed a mutation in at least one of the complex's subunits. In addition, for some types of cancers (such as synovial sarcoma), every individual tumor sample examined had a mutation in a BAF subunit. The results suggest that the BAF complex, when unmutated, plays an important protective role against the development of cancer in many different tissues.
The researchers are now focused on learning how the mutations affect the tumor-suppressing activity of the BAF complex.
"We certainly want to further our understanding of the mechanism behind these findings," said Hargreaves. "Do they promote cancer development by inhibiting the proper progression of the cell cycle? Or perhaps they affect how the complex is positioned on the DNA. We'd like to determine how to recapitulate some of these mutations experimentally to see what types of defects they introduce into the complex."
Other Stanford authors of the study include postdoctoral scholar Courtney Hodges, PhD, and former lab members Laura Elias, PhD, and Lena Ho, PhD.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
President Obama has single-handedly kept thousands of American workers in their jobs by spawning dozens of best-selling books about how awful he is. ?He can ignore almost all of them, and so can you, if your goal is to learn something new about the Obama presidency. But every once in a while, a book comes along that it would be foolish for Obama, or anyone else, to disregard. Vali Nasr's The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy In Retreat, is the most trenchant criticism of the Obama administration I've yet read. Nasr was an adviser to diplomat Richard Holbooke before the latter died of a heart attack, and he writes from a perspective sympathetic to Obama's broad goals. He was a participant, a player, at the table of power, he is intellectually well-equipped to survey the totality of Obama's policies from orientation to execution. ?What he finds is not heart-warming.
Put aside his parochial complaints about Holbrooke being marginalized by Obama's close circle of White House advisers. What emerges from the rest of the book is a portrayal of a president with extreme myopia, a condition that hides behind the skirt of long-term strategic thinking.
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Specifically:
1. Obama wanted to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions without military action -- a good thing, in Nasr's mind, but he failed to conceive a strategy that did anything but drive the Iranians to pursue a more aggressive nuclear strategy of their own. Rather than containing a nuclear Iran, Obama chose to accept the "improbable goal" of becoming convinced that Iran could actually be pressured out of the nuclear game, bought into the game that Arab rivals of the Persian country and Israel were playing, ?and several times spurned real outreach by Iranians who were ready to engage with America on the nuclear issue. So critical was the goal of giving Obama a political victory by getting Russia and China on board with harsh economic sanctions that the U.S. bribed itself into a thicket of problems with both countries down the road, angered Iranians who had no connection to the regime, isolated Turkey and Brazil's good-faith and not-completely-crazy second-track nuclear bargaining strategy, and seemed to go back on its word several times. Nasr believes that Iran's nuclear cravings are too deep to be filled by sanctions.
SEE MORE: How big of a deal is the new Benghazi testimony?
2. The lack of a grand strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey; instead, treating every moving piece as secondary to tactical counter-terrorism concerns. Particularly brutal is the way that Obama bungled, repeatedly, the Pakistan account, insisting on policies that empowered the very irritants (like the Pakistani intelligence service's connections with Afghanistan tribal elements) that they were set up to contain. He also refused Iranian offers to engage on the future of Afghanistan. (The White House worried that talking to Iran on anything other than the nuclear issue "would show weakness").?
3. Put in place a strategy in Yemen that basically allowed President Saleh to rule without officially ruling, and tied itself down by becoming far too over-reliant on the Yemeni government for counter-terrorism cooperation.?
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4. Obama over relies on the CIA, which is, in some ways, like a country within a country, and has a foreign policy that it often contrary to the one the official U.S. government espouses. Example from just this past week: The U.S. wants Afghanistan's?government to be seen as legitimate. The CIA wants to give Hamid Karzai literally bags of cash, just to, you know, have cash.
5. His non-strategy strategy in dealing with the Arab Spring, which was based on the idea that the idea of any American imprint on the future of the Arab World would be seen as too heavy-handed? Indeed the White House has bragged about how few American flags were seen burning in Arab Spring street protests. That's fine, and one marker of the internal dynamics, but, as Nasr says: "What sort of strategy are we following when we aggressively push for democracy in Egypt while we double down on support for the region's anti-democratic yet none-too-stable royal regimes?" Yes, it's true that U.S. over-involvement in the Middle East is antithetical to Obama's way of thinking. But under-involvement, particularly as these countries try to re-order their economies and political systems, could have the effect of empowering a far more insidious and sharp-edged Islamism that will threaten regional and global peace even more than the status-quo-anti-Spring.
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I have some problems with Nasr's account, including his minimization of Obama's own commitment to global non-proliferation, which is one reason why it would be folly for Iran to nuclearize under Obama's watch, and with his reading of Iran's repeated efforts to negotiate with the U.S. as something other than a consequence of successful economic and covert pressure.
But find many of his arguments to be compelling. Russia and China were given keys to the vault in order to get them on board with economic sanctions; in many ways, U.S. policy is pushing rogue countries right into "the bosom" of China and Russia. Consider: "Does it make sense that American spends blood and treasure to keep the Persian Gulf secure while China gets cheap oil -- at our behest?" and "The price for Russian cooperation from here on out will likely be facilitating Russian dominance over energy supplies to Europe," which basically guarantees that Western Europe has to rely MORE on Russia, and by overtly neglecting the Russian government's horrible human rights record of the past decade??
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It's hard to say exactly what strategies Nasr would have had the President pursue outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan; the book is constructive with its criticism but rather silent in meaningful ways, like what containment of Iran would actually look like, or what our counter-terrorism policy in Yemen ought to be.
It's still the best anti-Obama book out there. And I do hope that Obama himself reads it.?
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May 5, 2013 ? A new study led by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK has, for the first time, used genome sequencing technology to track the changes in a bacterial population following the introduction of a vaccine. The study follows how the population of pneumococcal bacteria changed following the introduction of the 'Prevnar' conjugate polysaccharide vaccine, which substantially reduced rates of pneumococcal disease across the U.S. The work demonstrates that the technology could be used in the future to monitor the effectiveness of vaccination or antibiotic use against different species of bacterial pathogens, and for characterizing new and emerging threats.
The study appears online May 5, 2013 in Nature Genetics.
"This gives an unprecedented insight into the bacteria living and transmitting among us," said co-author William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH. "We can characterize these bugs to an almost unimaginable degree of detail, and in so doing understand better what helps them survive even in the presence of an effective vaccine."
Pneumococcal disease is caused by a type of bacteria called Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is present in many people's noses and throats and is spread by coughing, sneezing, or other contact with respiratory secretions. The circumstances that cause it to become pathogenic are not fully understood. Rates of pneumococcal disease -- an infection that can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, and other illnesses -- dropped in young children following the introduction of a vaccine in 2000. However, strains of the bacteria that are not targeted by the vaccine rapidly increased and drug resistance appears to be on the rise.
The research, led by HSPH co-senior authors Hanage; Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology; and Stephen Bentley, senior scientist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, aimed to better understand the bacterial population's response to vaccination. Whole genome sequencing -- which reveals the DNA code for each bacterial strain to an unprecedented level of detail -- was used to study a sample of 616 pneumococci collected in Massachusetts communities from 2001 to 2007.
This study confirmed that the parts of the bacterial population targeted by the vaccine have almost disappeared, and, surprisingly, revealed that they have been replaced by pre-existing rare types of bacteria. The genetic composition of the new population is very similar to the original one, except for a few genes that were directly affected by the vaccine. This small genetic alteration appears to be responsible for the large reduction in the rates of pneumococcal disease.
"The widespread use of whole genome sequencing will allow better surveillance of bacterial populations -- even those that are genetically diverse -- and improve understanding of their evolution," said Lipsitch. "In this study, we were even able to see how quickly these bacteria transmit between different regions within Massachusetts and identify genes associated with bacteria in children of different ages."
"In the future, we will be able to monitor evolutionary changes in real-time. If we can more quickly and precisely trace the emergence of disease-causing bacteria, we may be able to better target interventions to limit the burden of disease," said Bentley.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Robotic insects make first controlled flightPublic release date: 2-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Caroline Perry cperry@seas.harvard.edu 617-496-1351 Harvard University
In culmination of a decade's work, RoboBees achieve vertical takeoff, hovering, and steering
Cambridge, Mass. - May 2, 2013 - In the very early hours of the morning, in a Harvard robotics laboratory last summer, an insect took flight. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, it leapt a few inches, hovered for a moment on fragile, flapping wings, and then sped along a preset route through the air.
Like a proud parent watching a child take its first steps, graduate student Pakpong Chirarattananon immediately captured a video of the fledgling and emailed it to his adviser and colleagues at 3 a.m.subject line, "Flight of the RoboBee."
"I was so excited, I couldn't sleep," recalls Chirarattananon, co-lead author of a paper published this week in Science.
The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade's work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
"This is what I have been trying to do for literally the last 12 years," says Robert J. Wood, Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, Wyss Core Faculty Member, and principal investigator of the National Science Foundation-supported RoboBee project. "It's really only because of this lab's recent breakthroughs in manufacturing, materials, and design that we have even been able to try this. And it just worked, spectacularly well."
Inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second, the tiny device not only represents the absolute cutting edge of micromanufacturing and control systems; it is an aspiration that has impelled innovation in these fields by dozens of researchers across Harvard for years.
"We had to develop solutions from scratch, for everything," explains Wood. "We would get one component working, but when we moved onto the next, five new problems would arise. It was a moving target."
Flight muscles, for instance, don't come prepackaged for robots the size of a fingertip.
"Large robots can run on electromagnetic motors, but at this small scale you have to come up with an alternative, and there wasn't one," says co-lead author Kevin Y. Ma, a graduate student at SEAS.
The tiny robot flaps its wings with piezoelectric actuatorsstrips of ceramic that expand and contract when an electric field is applied. Thin hinges of plastic embedded within the carbon fiber body frame serve as joints, and a delicately balanced control system commands the rotational motions in the flapping-wing robot, with each wing controlled independently in real-time.
At tiny scales, small changes in airflow can have an outsized effect on flight dynamics, and the control system has to react that much faster to remain stable.
The robotic insects also take advantage of an ingenious pop-up manufacturing technique that was developed by Wood's team in 2011. Sheets of various laser-cut materials are layered and sandwiched together into a thin, flat plate that folds up like a child's pop-up book into the complete electromechanical structure.
The quick, step-by-step process replaces what used to be a painstaking manual art and allows Wood's team to use more robust materials in new combinations, while improving the overall precision of each device.
"We can now very rapidly build reliable prototypes, which allows us to be more aggressive in how we test them," says Ma, adding that the team has gone through 20 prototypes in just the past six months.
Applications of the RoboBee project could include distributed environmental monitoring, search-and-rescue operations, or assistance with crop pollination, but the materials, fabrication techniques, and components that emerge along the way might prove to be even more significant. For example, the pop-up manufacturing process could enable a new class of complex medical devices. Harvard's Office of Technology Development, in collaboration with Harvard SEAS and the Wyss Institute, is already in the process of commercializing some of the underlying technologies.
"Harnessing biology to solve real-world problems is what the Wyss Institute is all about," says Wyss Founding Director Don Ingber. "This work is a beautiful example of how bringing together scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines to carry out research inspired by nature and focused on translation can lead to major technical breakthroughs."
And the project continues.
"Now that we've got this unique platform, there are dozens of tests that we're starting to do, including more aggressive control maneuvers and landing," says Wood.
After that, the next steps will involve integrating the parallel work of many different research teams who are working on the brain, the colony coordination behavior, the power source, and so on, until the robotic insects are fully autonomous and wireless.
The prototypes are still tethered by a very thin power cable because there are no off-the-shelf solutions for energy storage that are small enough to be mounted on the robot's body. High energy-density fuel cells must be developed before the RoboBees will be able to fly with much independence.
Control, too, is still wired in from a separate computer, though a team led by SEAS faculty Gu-Yeon Wei and David Brooks is working on a computationally efficient brain that can be mounted on the robot's frame.
"Flies perform some of the most amazing aerobatics in nature using only tiny brains," notes coauthor Sawyer B. Fuller, a postdoctoral researcher on Wood's team who essentially studies how fruit flies cope with windy days. "Their capabilities exceed what we can do with our robot, so we would like to understand their biology better and apply it to our own work."
The milestone of this first controlled flight represents a validation of the power of ambitious dreamsespecially for Wood, who was in graduate school when he set this goal.
"This project provides a common motivation for scientists and engineers across the university to build smaller batteries, to design more efficient control systems, and to create stronger, more lightweight materials," says Wood. "You might not expect all of these people to work together: vision experts, biologists, materials scientists, electrical engineers. What do they have in common? Well, they all enjoy solving really hard problems."
"I want to create something the world has never seen before," adds Ma. "It's about the excitement of pushing the limits of what we think we can do, the limits of human ingenuity."
###
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
HARVARD SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES
The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) serves as the connector and integrator of Harvard's teaching and research efforts in engineering, applied sciences, and technology. Through collaboration with researchers from all parts of Harvard, other universities, and corporate and foundational partners, we bring discovery and innovation directly to bear on improving human life and society. For more information, visit: http://seas.harvard.edu.
WYSS INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED ENGINEERING AT HARVARD
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University (http://wyss.harvard.edu) uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Working as an alliance among Harvard's Schools of Medicine, Engineering, and Arts & Sciences, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University and Tufts University, the Institute crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers to engage in high-risk research that leads to transformative technological breakthroughs. By emulating Nature's principles, Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing. These technologies are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and new start-ups. The Wyss Institute recently won the prestigious World Technology Network award for innovation in biotechnology.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Robotic insects make first controlled flightPublic release date: 2-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Caroline Perry cperry@seas.harvard.edu 617-496-1351 Harvard University
In culmination of a decade's work, RoboBees achieve vertical takeoff, hovering, and steering
Cambridge, Mass. - May 2, 2013 - In the very early hours of the morning, in a Harvard robotics laboratory last summer, an insect took flight. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, it leapt a few inches, hovered for a moment on fragile, flapping wings, and then sped along a preset route through the air.
Like a proud parent watching a child take its first steps, graduate student Pakpong Chirarattananon immediately captured a video of the fledgling and emailed it to his adviser and colleagues at 3 a.m.subject line, "Flight of the RoboBee."
"I was so excited, I couldn't sleep," recalls Chirarattananon, co-lead author of a paper published this week in Science.
The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade's work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
"This is what I have been trying to do for literally the last 12 years," says Robert J. Wood, Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, Wyss Core Faculty Member, and principal investigator of the National Science Foundation-supported RoboBee project. "It's really only because of this lab's recent breakthroughs in manufacturing, materials, and design that we have even been able to try this. And it just worked, spectacularly well."
Inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second, the tiny device not only represents the absolute cutting edge of micromanufacturing and control systems; it is an aspiration that has impelled innovation in these fields by dozens of researchers across Harvard for years.
"We had to develop solutions from scratch, for everything," explains Wood. "We would get one component working, but when we moved onto the next, five new problems would arise. It was a moving target."
Flight muscles, for instance, don't come prepackaged for robots the size of a fingertip.
"Large robots can run on electromagnetic motors, but at this small scale you have to come up with an alternative, and there wasn't one," says co-lead author Kevin Y. Ma, a graduate student at SEAS.
The tiny robot flaps its wings with piezoelectric actuatorsstrips of ceramic that expand and contract when an electric field is applied. Thin hinges of plastic embedded within the carbon fiber body frame serve as joints, and a delicately balanced control system commands the rotational motions in the flapping-wing robot, with each wing controlled independently in real-time.
At tiny scales, small changes in airflow can have an outsized effect on flight dynamics, and the control system has to react that much faster to remain stable.
The robotic insects also take advantage of an ingenious pop-up manufacturing technique that was developed by Wood's team in 2011. Sheets of various laser-cut materials are layered and sandwiched together into a thin, flat plate that folds up like a child's pop-up book into the complete electromechanical structure.
The quick, step-by-step process replaces what used to be a painstaking manual art and allows Wood's team to use more robust materials in new combinations, while improving the overall precision of each device.
"We can now very rapidly build reliable prototypes, which allows us to be more aggressive in how we test them," says Ma, adding that the team has gone through 20 prototypes in just the past six months.
Applications of the RoboBee project could include distributed environmental monitoring, search-and-rescue operations, or assistance with crop pollination, but the materials, fabrication techniques, and components that emerge along the way might prove to be even more significant. For example, the pop-up manufacturing process could enable a new class of complex medical devices. Harvard's Office of Technology Development, in collaboration with Harvard SEAS and the Wyss Institute, is already in the process of commercializing some of the underlying technologies.
"Harnessing biology to solve real-world problems is what the Wyss Institute is all about," says Wyss Founding Director Don Ingber. "This work is a beautiful example of how bringing together scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines to carry out research inspired by nature and focused on translation can lead to major technical breakthroughs."
And the project continues.
"Now that we've got this unique platform, there are dozens of tests that we're starting to do, including more aggressive control maneuvers and landing," says Wood.
After that, the next steps will involve integrating the parallel work of many different research teams who are working on the brain, the colony coordination behavior, the power source, and so on, until the robotic insects are fully autonomous and wireless.
The prototypes are still tethered by a very thin power cable because there are no off-the-shelf solutions for energy storage that are small enough to be mounted on the robot's body. High energy-density fuel cells must be developed before the RoboBees will be able to fly with much independence.
Control, too, is still wired in from a separate computer, though a team led by SEAS faculty Gu-Yeon Wei and David Brooks is working on a computationally efficient brain that can be mounted on the robot's frame.
"Flies perform some of the most amazing aerobatics in nature using only tiny brains," notes coauthor Sawyer B. Fuller, a postdoctoral researcher on Wood's team who essentially studies how fruit flies cope with windy days. "Their capabilities exceed what we can do with our robot, so we would like to understand their biology better and apply it to our own work."
The milestone of this first controlled flight represents a validation of the power of ambitious dreamsespecially for Wood, who was in graduate school when he set this goal.
"This project provides a common motivation for scientists and engineers across the university to build smaller batteries, to design more efficient control systems, and to create stronger, more lightweight materials," says Wood. "You might not expect all of these people to work together: vision experts, biologists, materials scientists, electrical engineers. What do they have in common? Well, they all enjoy solving really hard problems."
"I want to create something the world has never seen before," adds Ma. "It's about the excitement of pushing the limits of what we think we can do, the limits of human ingenuity."
###
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
HARVARD SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES
The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) serves as the connector and integrator of Harvard's teaching and research efforts in engineering, applied sciences, and technology. Through collaboration with researchers from all parts of Harvard, other universities, and corporate and foundational partners, we bring discovery and innovation directly to bear on improving human life and society. For more information, visit: http://seas.harvard.edu.
WYSS INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED ENGINEERING AT HARVARD
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University (http://wyss.harvard.edu) uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Working as an alliance among Harvard's Schools of Medicine, Engineering, and Arts & Sciences, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University and Tufts University, the Institute crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers to engage in high-risk research that leads to transformative technological breakthroughs. By emulating Nature's principles, Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing. These technologies are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and new start-ups. The Wyss Institute recently won the prestigious World Technology Network award for innovation in biotechnology.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Supporters of immigration reform rallied across the nation on May Day in lively gatherings that were marred by a burst of violence in Seattle, where police fired pepper spray at rock throwing protesters in clashes that left 18 people arrested.
Thousands joined May Day rallies in dozens of cities from Concord, N.H., to Bozeman, Mont., many of them offering support for legislation under consideration by Congress that would overhaul immigration laws and bring many of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows.
In Salem, Ore., Gov. John Kitzhaber was cheered by about 2,000 people on the Capitol steps as he signed a bill to allow people living in Oregon without proof of legal status to obtain drivers licenses.
Hours after a peaceful march concluded in Seattle, several dozen protesters, some covering their faces with bandanas, began pelting police with rocks and bottles. Officers responded with pepper spray and "flash bang" grenades ? releasing smoke, a flashing light, and a loud noise ? to disburse the crowd.
Eighteen people were arrested and eight officers suffered minor scrapes and bruises, police said.
As the protesters moved through downtown Seattle, they threw street barriers, trash cans and newspaper bins on the streets in an attempt to block advancing police officers. Windows of local businesses were broken and vehicles with people in them were banged around.
The spurt of violence was reminiscent of the gathering a year ago when some protesters broke windows and set fires.
"We're a bigger and better city than this. I look at this and I am disappointed that this is the picture the world sees of us," Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said.
In Vermont, more than 1,000 people assembled on the Montpelier Statehouse lawn. And in New York, thousands of demonstrators marched in downtown Manhattan waving banners and banging on drums in a scene reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street's heyday.
The size of the May Day crowds paled in comparison to the massive demonstrations of 2006 and 2007, during the last serious attempt to introduce major changes to the U.S. immigration system. Despite the large turnouts six years ago, many advocates of looser immigration laws felt they were outmaneuvered by opponents who flooded congressional offices with phone calls and faxes at the behest of conservative talk-radio hosts.
Now, immigrant advocacy groups are focusing heavily on contacting members of Congress, using social media and other technology to target specific lawmakers. Reform Immigration for America, a network of groups, claims more than 1.2 million subscribers, including recipients of text messages and Facebook followers.
Many of Wednesday's rallies featured speakers with a personal stake in the debate. Naykary Silva, a 26-year-old Mexican woman in the country illegally, joined about 200 people who marched in Denver's spring snow, hoping for legislation that would ensure medical care for her 3-year-old autistic son.
"If you want to do something, you do it no matter what," Silva said. "There's still more work to do."
Police in New York restrained several demonstrators, but the marches were peaceful.
Gabriel Villalobos, a Spanish-language talk radio host in Phoenix, said many of his callers believe it is the wrong time for marches, fearful that that any unrest could sour public opinion. Those callers advocate instead for a low-key approach of calling members of Congress.
"The mood is much calmer," said Villalobos, who thinks the marches are still an important show of political force.
In Los Angeles, a band playing salsa classics from the back of a truck led a march up Broadway. Demonstrators waved American flags and signs with messages such as "Stop deportations."
"I've held the same job for six years, but I don't have papers," said Mario Vasquez, a supermarket butcher who brought his two Chihuahuas. "Immigration reform would help me and my family and for everybody here."
In downtown Chicago, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin told thousands of demonstrators that America had a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to change immigration laws.
"We need to seize that opportunity," said the Illinois Democrat, who is part of a bipartisan group of eight senators who introduced the legislation last month.
May Day rallies began in the United States in 2000 during a labor dispute with a restaurant in Los Angeles that drew several hundred demonstrators, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. Crowds grew each year until the House of Representatives passed a tough bill against illegal immigration, sparking a wave of enormous, angry protests from coast to coast in 2006.
The rallies, which coincide with Labor Day in many countries outside the U.S., often have big showings from labor leaders and elected officials.
Demonstrators marched in countries around the world, with fury in Europe over austerity measures and rage in Asia over relentlessly low pay, the rising cost of living and hideous working conditions that have left hundreds dead in recent months alone.
The New York crowd was a varied bunch of labor groups, immigrant activists and demonstrators unaffiliated with any specific cause. Among them was 26-year-old Becky Wartell, who was carrying a tall puppet of the Statue of Liberty.
"Every May Day, more groups that have historically considered themselves separate from one another come together," she said.
In Brea, a Los Angeles suburb, a small group opposed to the legislation stood on a freeway bridge waving signs at motorists. One read, "No Amnesty."
___
Johnson reported from Seattle and Spagat from San Diego. Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Meghan Barr in New York, Morgan True in Concord, N.H., Lauren Gambino in Salem, Ore., Sara Burnett in Chicago, Edwin Tamara in Los Angeles and Alexandra Tilsley in Denver.
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Public release date: 2-May-2013
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