Patients of Tulsa doctor line up to get tested

TULSA, Okla. (AP) ? About 150 to 200 patients of a Tulsa oral surgeon accused of unsanitary practices queued outside a health clinic Saturday, hoping to discover whether they had been exposed to hepatitis or the virus that causes AIDS.

Letters began going out in stages Friday to 7,000 patients who had seen Dr. W. Scott Harrington during the past six years ? warning them that poor hygiene at his clinics created a public health hazard. The one-page letter said how and where to seek treatment but couldn't explain why Harrington's allegedly unsafe practices went on for so long.

Testing for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and the virus that causes AIDS began at 10 a.m. Saturday, but many arrived early and stood through torrential downpours.

Kari Childress, 38, showed up at the Tulsa Health Department North Regional Health and Wellness Center at 8:30 a.m., mainly because she was nervous.

"I just hope I don't have anything," said Childress, who had a tooth extracted at one of Harrington's two clinics five months ago. "You trust and believe in doctors to follow the rules, and that's the scariest part."

Inspectors found a number of problems at the oral surgeon's clinics in Tulsa and suburban Owasso, according to the state Dentistry Board, which filed a 17-count complaint against Harrington pending an April 19 license revocation hearing. According to the complaint, needles were reinserted into drug vials after being used on patients, expired drugs were found in a medicine cabinet and dental assistants administered sedatives to patients, rather than the doctor.

One patient, Orville Marshall, said he didn't meet Harrington until after he had two wisdom teeth pulled about five years ago at the Owasso clinic. A nurse inserted the IV for his anesthesia; Harrington was there when Marshall came to.

"It's just really scary, it makes you doubt the whole system, especially with how good his place looked," said Marshall, 37.

An instrument set reserved for use on patients with infectious diseases was rusty, preventing its effective sterilization, and the office autoclave ? a pressurized cleaner ? was used improperly and hadn't been certified as effective in at least six years, according to the complaint.

Dr. Matt Messina, a practicing dentist in Cleveland and a consumer adviser for the American Dental Association, said creating a safe and hygienic environment is "one of the fundamental requirements" before any dental procedure can be performed.

"It's not hard. It just takes effort," he said.

Weekly autoclave testing can be performed for less than $400 annually, according to the website of the Autoclave Testing Services of Pearl River, New York.

Autoclaves themselves typically can be purchased for $1,000 to $8,000, depending on their size and features. And an average dental practice can expect to pay more than $40,000 a year in equipment, tools and supplies alone, according to several dental organizations.

Attempts to reach Harrington have been unsuccessful. No one answered the door Thursday at his home, which property records show is worth more than $1 million. His practice a few miles away, in a tony section of the city where plastic surgeons operate and locals congregate at bistros and stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, has a fair-market value of around $851,000.

His malpractice lawyer, Jim Secrest II, did not respond to phone messages left Thursday or Friday. A message at Harrington's Tulsa office said it was closed and an answering service referred callers to the Tulsa Health Department.

State epidemiologist Kristy Bradley and Tulsa Health Department Director Bruce Dart sent letters Friday to all 7,000 patients they found in Harrington's records, urging them to be screened. More patients may be at risk, but Harrington's files go back only to 2007.

Nursing student Anisa Lewis, 22, said Harrington had a good reputation in the community, and her friends recommended his practice when she had to get her wisdom teeth taken out in 2005.

"I'm a little nervous because I read the complaints filed against him, and in nursing school, we're taught how to handle and clean our instruments, she said. "It was very shocking to read some of the allegations," which she called "far beyond the pale of the precautions you're supposed to be taking."

Susan Rogers, the executive director of the state Dentistry Board, said her agency has a budget of around $1 million, much of that generated from license renewal fees and dentist certification. It also has only five employees to monitor more than 2,000 dentists.

The state Dentistry Board's website revealed part of the problem.

"With three incoming telephone lines and essentially one person handling the phones, emails, snail mail, renewals, new license/permit applications, walk ins ... we will miss phones calls," the website says.

"So follow the instructions on the message," the site says. "We will respond to your request as soon as we can in the order in which it is received, but it will take time. We appreciate your patience."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/patients-tulsa-doctor-line-tested-154913563.html

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Students use math, models to track lung cancer growth | Daily Trojan

Student researchers in the Viterbi School of Engineering are putting math and medicine hand in hand to better track the spread of lung cancer in the human body.

The project, which was started ? four years ago by researchers from USC, Scripps Clinic, The Scripps Research Institute, University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, aims to use mathematical models and algorithms created by Viterbi in order to analyze the science and medicine behind cancer cell growth.

Viterbi Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Paul Newton, the lead and corresponding author of this study, said the researchers hope to build computational and mathematical models to design clinical trials and inform doctors of different kinds of treatment scenarios.

?The ultimate goal [of this research] is to develop computer simulations and mathematical models that are typically designed for individual patients,? Newton said. ?We want models where we take data from an individual patient, which would be something like blood samples and circulating tumor cell counts and also their whole genome, and we would like to have models of each individual person to see how they will develop over time.?

Newton said that the current model is a ensemble-based model that is based on thousands of patients. The ultimate goal is to get individual data and do patient-specific modeling.

?This is the beginning stage of developing more sophisticated computational models for the spread of cancer,? Newton said. ?We have the first stage of this whole project, which is a five-year stage.?

Newton said the project faces several challenges, namely translating the research to actual treatments.

?One [challenging aspect] is to overcome the language barrier between the medical world and the science and engineering world,? Newton said. ?In general, doctors do not think the way scientists and engineers think. They focus on the treatment of the disease. Also, [another challenge is] to overcome the differences in kinds of questions a doctor would ask versus the kinds of questions an applied mathematician like me would ask.?

Newton said that two graduate students and two undergraduate students from Viterbi are participating in this project as well.

Angie Lee, a graduate student in aerospace and mechanical engineering who is participating in the project, said the project is significant for the advancement of cancer research because engineers and applied mathematicians can bring together information from various disciplines to better understand how cancer affects patients.

?I build models of circulating tumor cells in flow in the bloodstream,? Lee said. ?It?s been exciting to witness how my models can assist cell biologists, experimentalists and even physicians in understanding the flow physics of various cancer processes in the body.?

Though Lee said some people find it strange that an engineer is doing cancer research, she noted that the interdiscipinary research opportunity, and the project?s pragmatic benefits were compelling on a personal level.

?This project first caught my eye as something that would be both useful and enjoyable throughout my tenure at USC,? Lee said. ?I didn?t want to end up with a project that I didn?t enjoy, and it was an added bonus to work on something that could be useful on a very large scale.?

Mher Almasian, a junior majoring in civil engineering who worked on the project, said combining engineering and medicine could not just save time but also money.

?The central concept behind all fields of engineering is not just being able to find solutions, but being able to do so given various constraints and doing it in the most efficient and cost-effective manner,? Almasian said. ?Applying engineering and math to the field of medicine would naturally lead to the knowledge and resources available in medicine being applied in the most effective and efficient way.?

Mary Stepanyan, a senior majoring in human development and aging, said her work on the project has shown her first hand how important interdisciplinary research in medicine.

?It?s important to use different areas of study, such as math or engineering, in medicine if it could lead to more efficient ways of studying human health disease,? Stepanyan said. ?This study is a great example of how people can combine different areas of study and improve the well-being of human health in the future.?

Source: http://dailytrojan.com/2013/03/28/students-use-math-models-to-track-lung-cancer-growth/

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Memories of near death experiences: More real than reality?

Mar. 27, 2013 ? University of Li?ge researchers have demonstrated that the physiological mechanisms triggered during NDE lead to a more vivid perception not only of imagined events in the history of an individual but also of real events which have taken place in their lives! These surprising results - obtained using an original method which now requires further investigation - are published in PLOS ONE.

Seeing a bright light, going through a tunnel, having the feeling of ending up in another 'reality' or leaving one's own body are very well known features of the complex phenomena known as 'Near-Death Experiences ' (NDE), which people who are close to death can experience in particular. Products of the mind? Psychological defence mechanisms? Hallucinations? These phenomena have been widely documented in the media and have generated numerous beliefs and theories of every kind. From a scientific point of view, these experiences are all the more difficult to understand in that they come into being in chaotic conditions, which make studying them in real time almost impossible. The University of Li?ge's researchers have thus tried a different approach.

Working together, researchers at the Coma Science Group (Directed by Steven Laureys) and the University of Li?ge's Cognitive Psychology Research (Professor Serge Br?dart and Hedwige Dehon), have looked into the memories of NDE with the hypothesis that if the memories of NDE were pure products of the imagination, their phenomenological characteristics (e.g., sensorial, self referential, emotional, etc. details) should be closer to those of imagined memories. Conversely, if the NDE are experienced in a way similar to that of reality, their characteristics would be closer to the memories of real events.

The researchers compared the responses provided by three groups of patients, each of which had survived (in a different manner) a coma, and a group of healthy volunteers. They studied the memories of NDE and the memories of real events and imagined events with the help of a questionnaire which evaluated the phenomenological characteristics of the memories. The results were surprising. From the perspective being studied, not only were the NDEs not similar to the memories of imagined events, but the phenomenological characteristics inherent to the memories of real events (e.g. memories of sensorial details) are even more numerous in the memories of NDE than in the memories of real events.

The brain, in conditions conducive to such phenomena occurring, is prey to chaos. Physiological and pharmacological mechanisms are completely disturbed, exacerbated or, conversely, diminished. Certain studies have put forward a physiological explanation for certain components of NDE, such as Out-of-Body Experiences, which could be explained by dysfunctions of the temporo-parietal lobe. In this context the study published in PLOS ONE suggests that these same mechanisms could also could also 'create' a perception - which would thus be processed by the individual as coming from the exterior - of reality. In a kind of way their brain is lying to them, like in a hallucination. These events being particularly surprising and especially important from an emotional and personal perspective, the conditions are ripe for the memory of this event being extremely detailed, precise and durable.

Numerous studies have looked into the physiological mechanisms of NDE, the production of these phenomena by the brain, but, taken separately, these two theories are incapable of explaining these experiences in their entirety. The study published in PLOS ONE does not claim to offer a unique explanation for NDE, but it contributes to study pathways which take into account psychological phenomena as factors associated with, and not contradictory to, physiological phenomena.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Li?ge, via AlphaGalileo.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Marie Thonnard, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Serge Br?dart, Hedwige Dehon, Didier Ledoux, Steven Laureys, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse. Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e57620 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057620

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

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/nU6TwYi_i1I/130327190359.htm

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BP to go ahead with $500 million North Sea investment

By Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters) - British Oil major BP is to proceed with a $500 million (330.4 million pounds)-plus investment plan in the remote Shetland Islands, another shot in the arm for North Sea oil.

Though North Sea production has fallen by about two thirds since 2000 and a surprise tax increase in 2011 led to dire predictions about the region's future, industry body Oil & Gas UK in February forecast a pick-up in production from 2014, fuelled by a surge in investment.

The new investment by BP could bring a huge add-on project at its Clair field and will be welcomed by a British government eager to slow the decline in North Sea production after dramatic falls in the past two years undermined attempts to kickstart growth.

BP said on Thursday that it will drill at least five appraisal wells in the giant Clair field off the west coast of the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland, to discover whether it is worth further development.

BP and its Clair partners, fellow oil majors Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, in 2011 said they were investing 4.5 billion pounds in a second phase of development for the field, which first started pumping oil in 2005.

"If successful, the appraisal programme could pave the way for a third phase of development at Clair - this is now a real possibility," BP's North Sea regional president Trevor Garlick said in a statement.

Big oil companies have looked beyond the North Sea in recent years, favouring new oil provinces with more potential, but the rich geology of the areas around the Shetland Islands have kept them hooked.

BP's plan for Clair follows other recent new investments in the North Sea, including a $7 billion project announced by Norway's Statoil in December and a 1.6 billion pound investment by Canada's Talisman Energy two months earlier.

BP, which has the biggest stake in Clair at nearly 29 percent, said that it has already started drilling the first appraisal well and it could complete up to 12 wells over two years, depending on the results of the first wells.

(Editing by David Goodman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bp-ahead-500-million-north-sea-investment-000806572--finance.html

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Mountain pine beetle genome decoded

Mar. 26, 2013 ? The genome of the mountain pine beetle -- the insect that has devastated British Columbia's lodgepole pine forests -- has been decoded by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre.

This is a first for the mountain pine beetle and only the second beetle genome ever sequenced. The first was the red flour beetle, a pest of stored grains. The genome is described in a study published Tuesday in the journal Genome Biology.

"We know a lot about what the beetles do," says Christopher Keeling, a research associate in Prof. Joerg Bohlmann's lab at the Michael Smith Laboratories. "But without the genome, we don't know exactly how they do it."

"Sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome provides new information that can be used to help manage the epidemic in the future."

The genome revealed large variation among individuals of the species -- about four times greater than the variation among humans.

"As the beetles' range expands and as they head into jack pine forests where the defensive compounds may be different, this variation could allow them to be more successful in new environments," says Keeling.

Researchers isolated genes that help detoxify defence compounds found under the bark of the tree -- where the beetles live. They also found genes that degrade plant cell walls, which allow the beetles to get nutrients from the tree.

Keeling, Bohlmann and their colleagues also uncovered a bacterial gene that has jumped into the mountain pine beetle genome. This gene codes for an enzyme that digests sugars.

"It might be used to digest woody tissue and/or the microorganisms that grow in the beetle's tunnels underneath the bark of the tree," said Keeling. "Gene transfers sometimes make organisms more successful in their environments."

This study involved researchers from the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Alberta.

Characteristics of the mountain pine beetle genome

• 12 pairs of chromosomes
• Approximately 13,000 genes
• The mountain pine beetle separated from the red flour beetle -- the only other beetle genome sequenced to date -- about 230 million years ago. According to Keeling, "the two insects have about the same relatedness as a pine tree and a head of lettuce."
• The mountain pine beetle is closely related to other significant pests in North American forests such as the southern pine beetle, Douglas-fir beetle, eastern larch beetle, and spruce beetle. Insights gained from sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome can be transferred to these beetles, and other forest insect pests around the world.

Mountain pine beetle epidemic

The mountain pine beetle has infested over 18 million hectares of lodgepole pine in British Columbia -- an area more than five times larger than Vancouver Island -- causing enormous damage to the environment and forest industry. In recent years, the insect has moved further north and east, over the Canadian Rockies, and is now approaching the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. It is also beginning to infest other pine trees -- jack pine, a jack-lodgepole hybrid, limber pine, and the endangered whitebark pine. Jack pine boreal forests extend from Alberta to the Atlantic provinces. The mountain pine beetle also lives in Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona and South Dakota.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of British Columbia.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Christopher I Keeling, Macaire MS Yuen, Nancy Y Liao, T Roderick Docking, Simon K Chan, Greg A Taylor, Diana L Palmquist, Shaun D Jackman, Anh Nguyen, Maria Li, Hannah Henderson, Jasmine K Janes, Yongjun Zhao, Pawan Pandoh, Richard Moore, Felix AH Sperling, Dezene PW Huber, Inanc Birol, Stephen JM Jones, Joerg Bohlmann. Draft genome of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, a major forest pest. Genome Biology, 2013; 14 (3): R27 DOI: 10.1186/gb-2013-14-3-r27

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/6phY8FTccr8/130327093612.htm

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Backstreet Boys Harlem Shake Video: Better Late Than Never!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/backstreet-boys-harlem-shake-video-better-late-than-never/

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In snub to Assad, opposition takes Syria's Arab summit seat

By Sami Aboudi and Yara Bayoumy

DOHA (Reuters) - To applause from Arab heads of state, a foe of Bashar al-Assad took Syria's vacant seat at an Arab summit on Tuesday, deepening the president's diplomatic isolation and diverting attention from rifts among his opponents.

Speaking at an annual gathering of Arab leaders in the Gulf state of Qatar, Moaz Alkhatib said he had asked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for American forces to help defend rebel-controlled northern parts of Syria with Patriot surface-to-air missiles now based in Turkey. NATO swiftly rebuffed the idea.

"It was a historic meeting," said Syrian opposition spokesman Yaser Tabbara. "It's a first step towards acquiring full legal legitimacy."

The 22-nation League lent its support to giving military aid to Syrian rebels. A summit communique offered some of its toughest language yet against Assad, affirming member states had a right to offer assistance "including military, to support the steadfastness of the Syrian people and the Free Army".

Alkhatib said the United States, which has given non-military aid to Syrian rebels, should play a bigger role in helping end the two-year-old conflict in Syria, blaming Assad's government for what he called its refusal to solve the crisis.

"I have asked Mr. Kerry to extend the umbrella of the Patriot missiles to cover the Syrian north and he promised to study the subject," he said, referring to NATO Patriot missile batteries sent to Turkey last year to protect Turkish airspace.

"We are still waiting for a decision from NATO to protect people's lives, not to fight but to protect lives," he added, addressing a body that barred Assad's government in late 2011.

Responding to Alkhatib's remarks, an official of the Western military alliance at its headquarters in Brussels said: "NATO has no intention to intervene militarily in Syria."

Turkey, which reported a mortar landing harmlessly on its border on Tuesday, said it was up to the rest of NATO to decide if members wanted to expand the remit of the Patriot batteries.

Michael Stephens, a researcher based in Qatar for Britain's Royal United Services Institute, said acceding to Alkhatib's request would effectively put NATO at war with Damascus.

DEFENSIVE DEPLOYMENT

NATO's current deployment of three Patriot missile batteries in southern Turkey is intended to be purely defensive. The Patriots are designed to shoot down hostile missiles in mid-air.

Alkhatib, a Sunni Muslim cleric, took Syria's seat at the summit for the first time despite announcing on Sunday that he would step down as leader of the Syrian National Coalition.

Behind him sat Ghassan Hitto, the prime minister of a provisional opposition government that plans to run rebel-held area, and fellow senior opposition official George Sabra.

Alkhatib made a blunt call on other Arab leaders to "fear God in dealing with your people" and free political prisoners - a departure from anodyne tradition at the League.

But he also criticized what he called Western failure to bring an end to the conflict, and said an influx of foreign Islamist fighters should not be used by the West as a pretext to deny Syrians meaningful help. He denounced the presence in Syria of Iranians and Russians he said were backing the government.

Speaking at a news conference at the end of the summit: Qatar Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani defended the summit's support for arming the rebels, saying that while it was not a "preferable" policy there appeared little alternative.

"We have done all we could to find a peaceful solution," he said. "Unfortunately this solution did not come because ... the regime was betting on a solution by force."

But Kofi Annan, the former U.N. chief who tried to mediate an end to the fighting, said he expected little outside military intervention. He told an audience in Geneva: "We left it too late." He added: "The Syrian people ... are waiting for the killing to stop ... As late as it is, we have to find a way of pouring water on the fire, rather than the other way around."

He described as a "gross underestimate" the United Nations figure of 70,000 killed in a conflict that began with anti-Assad protests and turned into a sectarian-tinged armed insurrection.

The war in Syria has divided world powers, paralyzing action at the U.N. Security Council. The Arab world is also split, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar the most fervent foes of Assad, and Iraq, Algeria and Lebanon the most resistant to calls for his removal.

The conflict echoes strains between Sunni Muslims, notably in the Gulf, and Shi'ites, in Iraq, Lebanon and non-Arab Iran, whose faith is related to that of Assad's Alawite minority.

Syrian rebels again fired mortar rounds into central Damascus on Tuesday. State television said several people had been wounded by "terrorist" mortar bombs that landed in the Syrian Arab News Agency SANA compound in the Baramkeh district.

State television said a suicide car bomber killed and wounded several people in northeastern Damascus, although opposition activists said the blast could have been a mortar.

Syrian state TV did not cover the Arab League meeting in Qatar, airing a program on makeup for women instead.

A group of pro-Assad hackers signing themselves the Syrian Electronic Army claimed an attack on an Arab League website that directed readers to a picture of Assad and derided the League's Egyptian secretary-general for his "loyalty to the sheikhs".

INTERNAL DISARRAY

Alkhatib's decision to quit, which he blamed on the world's failure to back the armed revolt against Assad also appeared to be motivated by internal disputes in the alliance. It undermined the alliance's claim to provide a coherent alternative to Assad.

Liberals saw it as a protest against what they view as the rising influence of hardline Islamists in the Qatari-backed umbrella group set up in Doha in November.

Jane Kinninmont, of Britain's Chatham House think-tank, said Qatar and the other Gulf states had been frustrated that the United States in particular and also European powers had not done more to help the Syrian opposition.

"The Gulf countries contrast this to the Iraq war which many of them were quite dubious about," she said. "And they see a U.S. that's far less interventionist today, even though there's a much greater case for and immediate humanitarian need."

(Additional reporting by Mirna Sleiman and William Maclean, Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Oliver Holmes and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-opposition-expected-syria-seat-arab-summit-080255252.html

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Researchers discover sex-selection process of multi-sexed organism Tetrahymena

Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
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Contact: Shelly Leachman
shelly.leachman@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-8726
University of California - Santa Barbara

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) It's been more than 50 years since scientists discovered that the single-celled organism Tetrahymena thermophila has seven sexes. But in all that time, they've never known how each cell's sex, or "mating type," is determined.

Now they do.

By identifying Tetrahymena's long-unknown mating-type genes, a team of UC Santa Barbara biologists, with research colleagues at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and at the J. Craig Venter Institute, also uncovered the unusual process of DNA rearrangements required for sex determination in this organism. The discovery has potential human health implications ranging from tissue transplantation to cancer treatment, including allorecognition the ability of an organism to distinguish its own tissues from those of another which can be a first line of defense against infection and illness.

The findings are published today in the journal PLOS Biology.

"We were surprised every day in this study," said Marcella D. Cervantes, a postdoctoral researcher in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB), and first author of the study. "It's never what we think. We would never have guessed a gene pair would be required in this process."

In the paper, "Selecting One of Several Mating Types through Gene Segment Joining and Deletion in Tetrahymena thermophila," the scientists show that in this multi-sexed, single-celled organism, the sex of the progeny is randomly determined by site-specific recombination events that assemble one complete gene pair and delete all others.

"We found a pair of genes that have a specific sequence which is different for each mating type," said Eduardo Orias, a research professor emeritus and part of a UCSB team that also included project scientist Eileen P. Hamilton, of MCDB, and Michael J. Lawson, a doctoral candidate in biomolecular science and engineering. "They are very similar genes clearly related to one another, going back probably to a common ancestor but they have become different. And each is different in a specific way that determines the mating type of the cell."

Each unicellular Tetrahymena boasts two nuclei: the germline nucleus and the somatic nucleus. Genetic information for progeny cells is stored in the former, a sort-of reservoir genome analogous to ovaries or testes in humans; genes are expressed in the latter, the "working" nucleus.

The germline nucleus contains a tandem array of similarly organized but incomplete gene pairs one for each mating type. (Although Tetrahymena have seven sexes, the particular cell line used in this study has just six.)

Sex of progeny cells is determined during mating, when fertilization results in a new germline and somatic nucleus that are made using contributions from the germline nuclei of both parents. In the new somatic nucleus, a complete gene pair is assembled when DNA segments from opposite ends of that tandem array are fused to one incomplete pair, and all the other pairs or potential pairs, as it were are excised, leaving the new cell with one gene pair, and one mating type.

These programmed, site-specific genome rearrangements, occurring at opposite ends of the selected gene pair, are "highly reliable and precise," explained Orias, who has been studying Tetrahymena for more than 50 years. They're also predictable to a point. That recombination, as it's known, will occur is certain; in fact, it must, the scientists said. Yet the exact outcome of that process is somewhat counterintuitive.

"The mating type of the 'parents' has no influence whatsoever on the sex of the progeny," Orias said. "It's completely random, as if they had a roulette wheel with six numbers and wherever the marble ends up is what they get. By chance, they may have the same mating type as the parents but it's only by chance. It's a fascinating system."

Given that Tetrahymena is a model organism similar enough to higher organisms to inform study of even human biological processes the discovery of said system could one day pave the way for important applications.

"By understanding this process better in Tetrahymena, what we learn ultimately may be of use in medicine," Orias said. "Tetrahymena has about as many genes as the human genome. For thousands of those genes you can recognize the sequence similarity to corresponding genes in the human genome with same biological function. That's what makes it a valuable organism to investigate important biological questions."

###

Funding for this research comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Tri-Counties Blood Bank Santa Barbara Foundation.

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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.

Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Shelly Leachman
shelly.leachman@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-8726
University of California - Santa Barbara

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) It's been more than 50 years since scientists discovered that the single-celled organism Tetrahymena thermophila has seven sexes. But in all that time, they've never known how each cell's sex, or "mating type," is determined.

Now they do.

By identifying Tetrahymena's long-unknown mating-type genes, a team of UC Santa Barbara biologists, with research colleagues at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and at the J. Craig Venter Institute, also uncovered the unusual process of DNA rearrangements required for sex determination in this organism. The discovery has potential human health implications ranging from tissue transplantation to cancer treatment, including allorecognition the ability of an organism to distinguish its own tissues from those of another which can be a first line of defense against infection and illness.

The findings are published today in the journal PLOS Biology.

"We were surprised every day in this study," said Marcella D. Cervantes, a postdoctoral researcher in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB), and first author of the study. "It's never what we think. We would never have guessed a gene pair would be required in this process."

In the paper, "Selecting One of Several Mating Types through Gene Segment Joining and Deletion in Tetrahymena thermophila," the scientists show that in this multi-sexed, single-celled organism, the sex of the progeny is randomly determined by site-specific recombination events that assemble one complete gene pair and delete all others.

"We found a pair of genes that have a specific sequence which is different for each mating type," said Eduardo Orias, a research professor emeritus and part of a UCSB team that also included project scientist Eileen P. Hamilton, of MCDB, and Michael J. Lawson, a doctoral candidate in biomolecular science and engineering. "They are very similar genes clearly related to one another, going back probably to a common ancestor but they have become different. And each is different in a specific way that determines the mating type of the cell."

Each unicellular Tetrahymena boasts two nuclei: the germline nucleus and the somatic nucleus. Genetic information for progeny cells is stored in the former, a sort-of reservoir genome analogous to ovaries or testes in humans; genes are expressed in the latter, the "working" nucleus.

The germline nucleus contains a tandem array of similarly organized but incomplete gene pairs one for each mating type. (Although Tetrahymena have seven sexes, the particular cell line used in this study has just six.)

Sex of progeny cells is determined during mating, when fertilization results in a new germline and somatic nucleus that are made using contributions from the germline nuclei of both parents. In the new somatic nucleus, a complete gene pair is assembled when DNA segments from opposite ends of that tandem array are fused to one incomplete pair, and all the other pairs or potential pairs, as it were are excised, leaving the new cell with one gene pair, and one mating type.

These programmed, site-specific genome rearrangements, occurring at opposite ends of the selected gene pair, are "highly reliable and precise," explained Orias, who has been studying Tetrahymena for more than 50 years. They're also predictable to a point. That recombination, as it's known, will occur is certain; in fact, it must, the scientists said. Yet the exact outcome of that process is somewhat counterintuitive.

"The mating type of the 'parents' has no influence whatsoever on the sex of the progeny," Orias said. "It's completely random, as if they had a roulette wheel with six numbers and wherever the marble ends up is what they get. By chance, they may have the same mating type as the parents but it's only by chance. It's a fascinating system."

Given that Tetrahymena is a model organism similar enough to higher organisms to inform study of even human biological processes the discovery of said system could one day pave the way for important applications.

"By understanding this process better in Tetrahymena, what we learn ultimately may be of use in medicine," Orias said. "Tetrahymena has about as many genes as the human genome. For thousands of those genes you can recognize the sequence similarity to corresponding genes in the human genome with same biological function. That's what makes it a valuable organism to investigate important biological questions."

###

Funding for this research comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Tri-Counties Blood Bank Santa Barbara Foundation.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uoc--rd032613.php

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Research reveals protective properties of influenza vaccines

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Collaborating scientists from Nationwide Children's Hospital, Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified an important mechanism for stimulating protective immune responses following seasonal influenza vaccinations. The study was published in Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

While seasonal influenza vaccines protect 60 to 90 percent of healthy adults from "the flu," the mechanisms providing that protection are still not well understood.

The study led by Octavio Ramilo, MD, chief of Infectious Diseases and an investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children's Hospital and professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University (OSU) College of Medicine, and Hideki Ueno, MD, PhD, an investigator at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research at Baylor University, demonstrates how certain T cells in the blood are stimulated to provide protective antibody responses with seasonal flu vaccines.

Antibodies are produced by specific white blood cells or B cells, which serve as an immune defense against foreign bodies such as the influenza virus. Helper T cells, another type of white cell, are essential for the generation of B cells.

Blood samples before and after influenza vaccination from three groups of healthy study participants were analyzed for antibody responses. The groups included two sets of adults, one receiving flu vaccines during the 2009-2010 winter and the other receiving vaccination during the 2011-2012 winter. The third group included children receiving the flu vaccine during the 2010-2011 winter.

Analyses show that a temporary increase in a unique subset of helper T cells expressing the co-stimulator molecule ICOS adds to the immune response by helping B cells produce influenza-specific antibodies.

Results indicated that at day seven following the administration of a flu vaccine in all groups, stimulated T cells were evident, contributing to the development of the immune response.

The T cells positively correlated with increased antibodies against each flu virus strain examined, with the exception in the children's group against the swine-origin H1N1 virus.

"Given that seasonal influenza vaccines induce antibody responses mainly through boosting the recall response of the immune system, this lack of correlation might reflect the lack of H1N1 specific immunity in some children," explains study co-author Emilio Flano, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children's and an associate professor of Pediatrics at OSU College of Medicine.

"This is consistent with the fact that these children had not been vaccinated or naturally exposed to the H1N1 virus prior to being vaccinated during the 2010-2011 winter," said study co-author Santiago Lopez, MD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity and a resident at Nationwide Children's.

Further experiments demonstrated that this unique subset of helper T cells can boost production of existing antibodies that fight flu by stimulating memory B cells, but do not help production of new antibodies by na?ve B cells.

"We're gratified that our study provides evidence of one of the essential events associated with the immune response following seasonal influenza vaccination," says Dr. Ramilo. "Understanding these processes is a key step toward developing more effective vaccines."

###

Nationwide Children's Hospital: http://www.NationwideChildrens.org

Thanks to Nationwide Children's Hospital for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 24 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127459/Research_reveals_protective_properties_of_influenza_vaccines

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Family Handyman Magazine Only $4.99/Year - Mom on Dealz

March 25th, 2013 | Add a Comment

Despite our weather, the calendar says that Spring has sprung. ?With Spring comes home improvements so this magazine deal is perfect!

Today only, subscribe to Family Handyman Magazine for only $4.99 per year (75% off)! You can order up to 4 years at this price! Just enter coupon code MOMONDEALZ.

Family Handyman Magazine is for people who take an active interest in home improvement, yard and garden care, maintenance and repair, and remodeling. Family Handyman also features information on woodworking, auto maintenance, energy efficiency, and decorating.
This offer expires at Monday 03/25/13 11:59 PM EST EST

This post may contain an affiliate link.

Filed under: Coupons

Source: http://www.momondealz.com/family-handyman-magazine-only-4-99year-6/

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Yahoo! Continues To Attack Mobile, Buys News Gathering And Delivery Startup Summly, App Will Close

Yahoo! has picked up the pace on pretty much everything since Marissa Mayer became CEO, especially mobile acquisitions. Just five days ago, the company acquired social recommendation company Jybe and the former Yahoo employees that come along with it. Today, it announced the acquisition of mobile news gathering and delivery startup, Summly. The app itself is gorgeous, allowing you to skim and share news quickly with some really intuitive gestures. Summly’s founder, Nick D’Aloisio, is just seventeen years old and the company had raised $1.53M from the likes of Horizons Ventures, betaworks, Shakil Khan, Matt Mullenweg, Troy Carter and even Yoko Ono. Summly was also working with News Corp on summarizing their content. A Yahoo! spokesperson says that the entire Summly team is joining the company in the next few weeks and that the app itself will close, which is a bummer for those who have been enjoying it over the past few months. The Summly service will be woven into of Yahoo’s mobile “experience,” the company said. This move has apparently been in the works for a while according to an article in December by AllThingsD. Here’s what Yahoo’s Senior Vice President of Mobile and Emerging Products, Adam Cahan, had to say on its official blog about the deal, which is technically not yet complete: Today, we?re excited to share that we?re acquiring Summly, a mobile product company founded with a vision to simplify the way we get information, making it faster, easier and more concise. At the age of 15, Nick D?Aloisio created the Summly app at his home in London. It started with an insight — that we live in a world of constant information and need new ways to simplify how we find the stories that are important to us, at a glance. Mobile devices are shifting our daily routines, and users have changed not only what, but how much information they consume. Yet most articles and web pages were formatted for browsing with mouse clicks. The ability to skim them on a phone or a tablet can be a real challenge — we want easier ways to identify what?s important to us. Summly solves this by delivering snapshots of stories, giving you a simple and elegant way to find the news you want, faster than ever before. For publishers, the Summly technology provides a new approach to drive interest in stories and reach a generation

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/nKp4VfDebTQ/

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How to view leaderboards, achievements, and more with Game Center on iPhone and iPad

If you play a lot of multiplayer games on your iPhone or iPad and have a Game Center account, you can easily create matches and play against your friends. Game Center is also great for tracking achievements inside a game as well as leaderboard standings between you and your friends.

Not sure how to access them? Follow along.

1. Launch the Game Center app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on the Games tab in the bottom navigation.
3. Find the game that you'd like to view leaderboards and achievements for and tap on its name. Notice that some may not have any and that's typically dependent upon whether or not that specific game has support for them built-in.
4. Here you can toggle between leaderboards, achievements, and who is playing that game out of your friends. Tapping into any of the leaderboards or achievements will show you how you rank against all your friends.

Achievements are also a great place to look to see what you've unlocked and achieved in different games. Sometimes I like to go back even after beating a game and try to unlock the achievements that I wasn't able to get the first time around.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/iBAqf-GX2Wk/story01.htm

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Ephemeral vacuum particles induce speed-of-light fluctuations

Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sophia Grein
sophia.grein@springer.com
49-622-148-78414
Springer

New research shows that the speed of light may not be fixed after all, but rather fluctuates

Two forthcoming EPJ D papers challenge established wisdom about the nature of vacuum. In one paper, Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud, located in Orsay, France and his colleagues identified a quantum level mechanism for interpreting vacuum as being filled with pairs of virtual particles with fluctuating energy values. As a result, the inherent characteristics of vacuum, like the speed of light, may not be a constant after all, but fluctuate. Meanwhile, in another study, Gerd Leuchs and Luis L. Snchez-Soto, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, Germany, suggest that physical constants, such as the speed of light and the so-called impedance of free space, are indications of the total number of elementary particles in nature.

Vacuum is one of the most intriguing concepts in physics. When observed at the quantum level, vacuum is not empty. It is filled with continuously appearing and disappearing particle pairs such as electron-positron or quark-antiquark pairs. These ephemeral particles are real particles, but their lifetimes are extremely short.

In their study, Urban and colleagues established, for the first time, a detailed quantum mechanism that would explain the magnetisation and polarisation of the vacuum, referred to as vacuum permeability and permittivity, and the finite speed of light. This finding is relevant because it suggests the existence of a limited number of ephemeral particles per unit volume in a vacuum. As a result, there is a theoretical possibility that the speed of light is not fixed, as conventional physics has assumed. But it could fluctuate at a level independent of the energy of each light quantum, or photon, and greater than fluctuations induced by quantum level gravity. The speed of light would be dependent on variations in the vacuum properties of space or time. The fluctuations of the photon propagation time are estimated to be on the order of 50 attoseconds per square meter of crossed vacuum, which might be testable with the help of new ultra-fast lasers.

Leuchs and Sanchez-Soto, on the other hand, modelled virtual charged particle pairs as electric dipoles responsible for the polarisation of the vacuum. They found that a specific property of vacuum called the impedance, which is crucial to determining the speed of light, depends only on the sum of the square of the electric charges of particles but not on their masses. If their idea is correct, the value of the speed of light combined with the value of vacuum impedance gives an indication of the total number of charged elementary particles existing in nature. Experimental results support this hypothesis.

###

Reference

M. Urban et al. (2013), The quantum vacuum as the origin of the speed of light, European Physical Journal D, DOI 10.1140/epjd/e2013-30578-7

Gerd Leuchs and Luis L. Snchez-Soto (2013), A sum rule for charged elementary particles, European Physical Journal D, DOI 10.1140/epjd/e2013-30577-8

For more information, please visit http://www.epj.org

The full-text article is available to journalists on request.

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sophia Grein
sophia.grein@springer.com
49-622-148-78414
Springer

New research shows that the speed of light may not be fixed after all, but rather fluctuates

Two forthcoming EPJ D papers challenge established wisdom about the nature of vacuum. In one paper, Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud, located in Orsay, France and his colleagues identified a quantum level mechanism for interpreting vacuum as being filled with pairs of virtual particles with fluctuating energy values. As a result, the inherent characteristics of vacuum, like the speed of light, may not be a constant after all, but fluctuate. Meanwhile, in another study, Gerd Leuchs and Luis L. Snchez-Soto, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, Germany, suggest that physical constants, such as the speed of light and the so-called impedance of free space, are indications of the total number of elementary particles in nature.

Vacuum is one of the most intriguing concepts in physics. When observed at the quantum level, vacuum is not empty. It is filled with continuously appearing and disappearing particle pairs such as electron-positron or quark-antiquark pairs. These ephemeral particles are real particles, but their lifetimes are extremely short.

In their study, Urban and colleagues established, for the first time, a detailed quantum mechanism that would explain the magnetisation and polarisation of the vacuum, referred to as vacuum permeability and permittivity, and the finite speed of light. This finding is relevant because it suggests the existence of a limited number of ephemeral particles per unit volume in a vacuum. As a result, there is a theoretical possibility that the speed of light is not fixed, as conventional physics has assumed. But it could fluctuate at a level independent of the energy of each light quantum, or photon, and greater than fluctuations induced by quantum level gravity. The speed of light would be dependent on variations in the vacuum properties of space or time. The fluctuations of the photon propagation time are estimated to be on the order of 50 attoseconds per square meter of crossed vacuum, which might be testable with the help of new ultra-fast lasers.

Leuchs and Sanchez-Soto, on the other hand, modelled virtual charged particle pairs as electric dipoles responsible for the polarisation of the vacuum. They found that a specific property of vacuum called the impedance, which is crucial to determining the speed of light, depends only on the sum of the square of the electric charges of particles but not on their masses. If their idea is correct, the value of the speed of light combined with the value of vacuum impedance gives an indication of the total number of charged elementary particles existing in nature. Experimental results support this hypothesis.

###

Reference

M. Urban et al. (2013), The quantum vacuum as the origin of the speed of light, European Physical Journal D, DOI 10.1140/epjd/e2013-30578-7

Gerd Leuchs and Luis L. Snchez-Soto (2013), A sum rule for charged elementary particles, European Physical Journal D, DOI 10.1140/epjd/e2013-30577-8

For more information, please visit http://www.epj.org

The full-text article is available to journalists on request.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/s-evp032513.php

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Why your business should go Social ? EntrepreneurHeat

Note: This is the second article in the 7 part series on social media contributed by Xerago. First article here. Businesses taking to social media marketing has been quite the rage for a while. While large multinational corporations took to social media marketing like moths to a flame, other companies have been slower in following. For those who haven?t yet tested the social media marketing waters yet, here?s what you need to know about the upside of indulging in social media marketing. Connect Incorporating a social media strategy along with your traditional marketing activities can open up newer lines of communication with your target audiences. Engaging customers and potential customers is effortless and quick with social media. Apart from improving conversations with audiences, social media marketing facilitates relationship building across the globe with peers from your industry or potential partners. Your competitors/customers are there: While you?re sticking to the good old, tried and tested marketing plan, consider the fact that your pesky competitor is getting one up on you at Facebook, Twitter, Google + and other popular social networking websites. In all likelihood, your customers expect your presence there as well. So when your target audience and your competitors are in the same space (social media), why would you still be elsewhere? Your organization could benefit from online presence Getting online can help you share the unseen side of your organization with your customers ? the affable side. For instance, uploading photographs of employees at candid moments has become quite popular. This lets customers see the people who work tirelessly to cater to their needs. It also makes the organization seem more human. Taking ?reach? to exponential levels With social media marketing, while you plan to reach a specific audience, chances are your reach will extend beyond the levels you aimed for. For starters, you will attract potential customers in addition to existing customers. Also your followers will tend to take the conversation offline, thereby bringing awareness about your brand to those who might not have been looking for you at all. Image management One of the most essential reasons to adopt a social media marketing plan is to be considered a thought leader. In social media, thought leaders are the messiahs, so to speak, and very clearly have an edge over everyone else. On the flip side, having a presence on social networking websites helps you be aware of conversations about your brand instantly. This enables quick feedback from customers. Disgruntled customers can also be appeased when good customer service is integrated with social media. Reputation management can be carried out with ease. Still not convinced? Here are some quick pointers: Consider this: 30% of the world?s population is online and the internet as a marketing channel reaches the largest number of people from varied demographics The channel requires a low technical investment, has a great ROI and a low learning curve It is a fairly simple way to increase your website traffic and search engine ranking Lead generation and, thereby, sales can be improved Connecting with media becomes easier Promoting events becomes quicker and more effective 58% of small business owners reported a decrease in marketing costs after they migrated to social media Considering the impressive advantages that social media marketing brings and the negligible investment it requires in terms of time and money, it?s hardly a surprise that businesses are hopping onto the bandwagon rather merrily. Go on, get aboard the social media bandwagon! The next article will be uploaded next wednesday on what social media is NOT.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht ? lists / @sectorheat

Tagged as: expert talk, resources, social-media

Follow us @entrepreneurht - lists / @sectorheat

Source: http://www.entrepreneurheat.com/2013/03/13/why-your-business-should-go-social/

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Ultisky.com Reveals The Best Way To Make Money For Internet ...

Ultisky.com announced the best way to make money for Internet Entrepreneurs today. Providing a lifestyle testimony for what it takes to succeed online and how others can achieve the same level of success. Revealing how Peng Joon's the Work From No Home System was a major boost for their business models.

http://ultisky.com/best-way-tomake-money-work-from-no-home-system-lifestyle-testimony/

According to Kyle Ransom, founder of Ultisky.com the reason he created a special lifestyle testimony page was because he feels very lucky everyday. Ransom says that he enjoys not running a traditional business and the comforts of not having to punch a time clock. He feels most people have to drag themselves to work every single day and do a job that they hate.

Ransom credits Peng Joon and the Work From No Home System as a great enhancement tool that can help grow business models. He stresses every business must learn how to compete online as well as in the mobile market. Citing that the Work From No Home System is ideal to assist serial Internet Entrepreneurs who have sold hundreds of online products to newbies starting from scratch.

?It's very important that any Internet Entrepreneur learn to conduct their own due diligence to decide if a system or method will add value to their business model,? stated Kyle Ransom.

Continuing Ransom expresses that the secret formula to make money online in a bad economy is having the right information. Urging that most people don't put themselves in the position to be at the right place and at the right time. Challenging that if more people learned the secrets of how to apply varies methods in their business models they can achieve a higher level of success.

On the Ultisky.com website visitors may sign up for a V.I.P email list to learn valuable information about the best ways to make money online.

http://ultisky.us1.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=b1c3ece940aef17ee288cbcef&id=ab07f0dc0c

For more information please contact Ultisky.com directly via their website at http://ultisky.com .

Source: http://ultiskyinc.pressdoc.com/41055-ultisky-com-reveals-the-best-way-to-make-money-for-internet-entrepreneurs

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Science Explains Why You Should Be Friends Before Dating | Care2 ...

In an article published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, researchers found that couples who value their friendship over other aspects of their relationships report greater romance and sexual satisfaction over couples who look to their partners mostly for sexual gratification.

This probably doesn?t surprise anyone but it?s great to have the research to back it up. But why do you think a friendship with your significant other will actually increase the odds you will have long-lasting love?

When I surveyed 100 happy couples for my book, Secrets of Happy Couples: Loving Yourself, Your Partner, and Your Life, friendship and quality time together are in the top 20 factors the couples themselves said are important to their relationship success. Adding those two responses together, 70 percent of respondents found those to be important factors.

When I think of reasons people cheat, I often hear things like, ?She never supports me.? ?He didn?t want to spend time with me.? ?She doesn?t understand me.? ?He never really listens when I talk to him.? ?I don?t even think s/he likes me.? ?S/he is always complaining.?

Aren?t all these statements really the opposite of the core of friendship? Think about how you are with your friends. You tell each other everything (are there things you keep secret from your partner?). You look forward to being together (are there times you dread spending time with your partner?). You freely give your time, energy and attention to your friends (do you do the same with your partner?).

It?s rare that we criticize our friends. In fact, we often do the opposite. We really listen to them, attempting as best we can to understand their position. Even when we think our friend might be wrong, we defend him or her, nonetheless. We would never publically put down our friends. We support them through dark times and encourage them to always be the person they are meant to be. (In order to get a blueprint for being the person you want to be in relationships, my eBook on Relationships from the InsideOut is on sale this month at The Relationship Center. Check it out.)

Too often in our romantic relationships, we play a different role. Not in the beginning of the relationship, though. In the beginning, we treat our partner like the best friend we ever had. If you still have a solid friendship with your long-term partner, congratulate yourselves and celebrate your friendship this week. You will likely be together for a very long time.

If, however, your relationship has gotten off track and you realize you aren?t being the best friend you could be to your partner, why not change that now? You don?t even need their commitment to do the same for you. Ask yourself, ?What kind of person do I want to be in my relationship with my most significant relationship of choice?? Take a long look in the mirror and ask, ?Is that the person I am being right now??

If the answer to those questions is no, then think about performing a random act of kindness in your relationship. One of the best gifts we can give our partners is the gift of total acceptance of who they are without expecting anything in return.

Don?t think, Why should I do this if s/he isn?t going to do it too? Is that how you treat your friends? You have recognized you are not being the person you want to be in your relationship. You are the only one who can change that. Your partner may notice and respond accordingly or she or he may continue being exactly the same. It doesn?t really matter. What?s most important is that you take control of the one thing you can control in your relationship?what you do!

Start today and you will feel better and there?s a great chance your relationship will improve dramatically as a result. Put the friendship back in your relationship now!

To stay in touch with Kim, go to The Relationship Center, sign up for her email list, and receive her free report on Relationships from the InsideOut.

Written by Kim Olver for YourTango.com.

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More Juicy Content From YourTango:

Tips For Healthy Relationships

Looking For A Soulmate?

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Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/science-explains-why-you-should-be-friends-before-dating.html

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Ruling Brings 'Several New Twists' to Legal ... - Christianity Today

In a ruling noted by Religion Clause for bringing "several new twists" to the ongoing legal fight over the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) contraceptive mandate, a Pennsylvania federal district court has ruled that a for-profit business owner may proceed with his lawsuit even as the court dismissed the case of Geneva College and another for-profit business owner in the same ruling.

In essence, the court issued three separate rulings for the college, Seneca Hardwood Lumber Company, and WLH Enterprises, which had all filed jointly against the Department of Health and Human Services, objecting to the mandate that employer-provided health insurance plans cover contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives believed by religious conservatives to induce abortions.

The court acknowledged Geneva College's standing to challenge the mandate but ultimately dismissed the claim because the school actually may be exempt. The Alliance Defense Fund intends to appeal the decision.

Only Seneca Hardwood will be allowed to proceed with its claim as-is. The court held that Seneca itself "has standing to assert its Catholic owners' free exercise rights under the 1st Amendment and RFRA"?a ruling from which other courts have shied away.

And while that may be good news for Seneca Hardwood, WLH appeared to receive an opposite ruling. The court stated that WLH's status as a sole proprietorship means "there is no legal separation between it and its owner ...WLH?s claims are actually [its owner's] claims, [and] as a sole proprietorship does not have standing to bring suit in its own right."

In other words, WLH's owner, Wayne L. Hepler, who is also named as a plaintiff in the suit, can proceed with the claim as long as he asserts the business' rights in his own name?rather than the other way around.

CT has regularly covered the legal battles against the mandate, often launched by unusual plaintiffs.

In February, CT reported that the Obama administration announced changes to the mandate to redefine which religious organizations, including colleges, qualified for exemptions. CT also examined how religious freedom has become the new battleground for personhood debates.

Source: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2013/03/ruling-brings-several-new-twists-to-legal-fight-over-contraceptive-mandate.html

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Senate Democrats prepare government funding bill

FILE - In this Jan. 1, 2013 file photo, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. leaves a Republican caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington. A Senate bill to carry the government through September denies the Obama administration money for implementing new regulations on Wall Street and expansion of government health care subsidies but provides modest additional funding for domestic priorities like Head Start and health research. Looking to next year, House Republicans prepare a now-familiar budget featuring futile gestures to block "Obamacare" and turn Medicare into a voucherlike program for future retirees. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 1, 2013 file photo, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. leaves a Republican caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington. A Senate bill to carry the government through September denies the Obama administration money for implementing new regulations on Wall Street and expansion of government health care subsidies but provides modest additional funding for domestic priorities like Head Start and health research. Looking to next year, House Republicans prepare a now-familiar budget featuring futile gestures to block "Obamacare" and turn Medicare into a voucherlike program for future retirees. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - In this June 5, 2012 file photo, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. takes part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. A Senate bill to carry the government through September denies the Obama administration money for implementing new regulations on Wall Street and expansion of government health care subsidies but provides modest additional funding for domestic priorities like Head Start and health research. Looking to next year, House Republicans prepare a now-familiar budget featuring futile gestures to block "Obamacare" and turn Medicare into a voucherlike program for future retirees. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senate Democrats are preparing a catchall government funding bill that denies President Barack Obama money for implementing signature first-term accomplishments like new regulations on Wall Street and his expansion of government health care subsidies but provides modest additional funding for domestic priorities like health research.

The measure expected to be released Monday is the product of bipartisan negotiations and is the legislative vehicle to fund the day-to-day operations of government through Sept. 30 ? and prevent a government shutdown when current funding runs out March 27.

Passage in the Senate this week would presage an end to a mostly overlooked battle between House Republicans and Obama and his Senate Democratic allies over the annual spending bills required to fund federal agency operations.

The bipartisan measure comes as Washington girds for weeks of warfare over the budget for next year and beyond as both House and Senate Budget Committees this week take up blueprints for the upcoming 2014 budget year.

The first salvo in that battle is coming from House Republicans poised to release on Tuesday a now-familiar budget featuring gestures to block "Obamacare," turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for future retirees and sharply curb Medicaid and domestic agency budgets. Such ideas are dead on arrival with Obama and Democrats controlling the Senate, but will ? in concert with new taxes on the wealthy enacted in January ? allow Republicans to propose a budget that would come to balance within 10 years.

"We think we owe the American people a balanced budget," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said on "Fox News Sunday."

Senate Democrats are countering on Wednesday with a budget plan mixing tax increases, cuts to the Pentagon and relatively modest cuts to domestic programs. The measure would not reach balance, but it would undo automatic budget cuts that started taking effect this month and largely leaves alone rapidly growing benefit programs like Medicare.

The upcoming debate over the long-term budgetary future promises to be stoutly partisan, even as Obama is undertaking outreach to rank-and-file Republicans in hopes of sowing the seeds for a bipartisan "grand bargain" on the budget this year after two failed attempts to strike agreement with House Speaker John Boehner. Obama's budget is already weeks overdue and Press Secretary Jay Carney deflected questions about it Monday, other than to promise that it would "for a period of time" bring deficits below 3 percent of gross domestic product, a measure that many analysts say is sustainable without damaging the economy.

The wrap-up spending bill for the half-completed fiscal year released Monday, however, is another matter entirely. It's a lowest common denominator approach that gives the Pentagon much-sought relief for readiness accounts but adds money sought by Democrats like Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., for domestic programs such as Head Start, health research, transportation and housing.

The Senate measure would award seven Cabinet departments ? including Defense, Commerce, justice, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs ? with their line-by-line detailed budgets, but would leave the rest of the government running on autopilot at current levels. All domestic agencies except for Veterans Affairs would then be subject to a 5 percent across-the-board cut while the Pentagon would bear an 8 percent cut.

Mikulski needs GOP votes to pass the measure through the Senate, which Democrats control with 55 votes but where 60 votes are required for virtually every piece of substantive legislation. Using their leverage, Republicans have denied a White House request for almost $1 billion to help set up state health-care exchanges to implement Obamacare as well as smaller requests for financial regulators to implement the 2010 Dodd-Frank law overhauling regulation of Wall St. and for the IRS to police tax returns.

It is hoped that the pre-negotiated Senate measure could return to the House ? which passed a different catchall spending bill last week ? and pass through that chamber unchanged and be sent on to Obama well in time to avert a politically disastrous government shutdown.

House Republicans weighed in strongly and successfully against a proposal by Mikulski to give the Obama administration greater flexibility to transfer funds between accounts to cope with the across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration. By law, the across-the-board cuts are supposed to be taken in equal measure from front-line programs like air traffic control, meat inspection and the Border Patrol and lower-priority items such as agriculture research and subsidies for airline travel to rural airports.

Even as many Republicans attack the administration for choices such as ending White House tours or canceling early snow removal from Yellowstone National Park, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee in particular fear that giving Obama greater flexibility would erode Congress' control over the federal purse, which is enshrined in the Constitution and zealously guarded.

Thirty-eight Senate Republicans voted last month to give Obama significant flexibility to manage the automatic cuts, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Richard Shelby of Alabama, the party's senior member on the Appropriations Committee.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-11-Budget%20Battle/id-6395c1262b4f4dc885cc01aa12ad4183

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