CARACAS, Venezuela ? A tanker truck filled with gasoline crashed and burst into flames on Thursday in Venezuela, engulfing several cars and a bus and killing at least 13 people.
The tanker truck tipped over and spilled gasoline, which ignited and burned seven vehicles, Caracas fire chief William Martinez said.
Rescue workers pulled victims' bodies from the blackened vehicles.
Martinez said the tanker truck driver apparently lost control on the highway in Caracas but the cause of the accident was unclear.
At least 16 people were injured in the accident, national police chief Luis Fernandez said.
The 30-year-old truck driver, Tulio Estenique, was unhurt and was arrested, prosecutors said in a statement. He is to be arraigned and is under investigation for his responsibility in causing the accident.
Prosecutors said that according to witnesses the truck was speeding.
Recent economic data shows improvement in the job and the housing markets, but should investors be cautious? Sharing advice as investors head into 2012, with Eric Thorne, Bryn Mawr Trust Wealth Mgmt. and David Kelly, JPMorgan Funds.
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European shares turned negative on Thursday in choppy low volume trade as investors were wary about a sale of longer-term debt in Italy, with Italian funding costs remaining close to levels deemed unsustainable.
As the year 2011 comes to a close, some might wonder what is looming sky-wise for 2012? What celestial events might we look forward to seeing??
I've selected what I consider to be the top 12 "skylights" for this coming year, and list them here in chronological order. Not all these events will be visible from any one locality ... for the eclipses, for instance, you'll probably have to do some traveling ... but many can be observed from the comfort of your backyard.
Hopefully your local weather will cooperate on most, if not all, of these dates. Clear skies!
Jan. 4: Quadrantid meteor shower peaks
This meteor shower reaches its peak in the predawn hours of Jan. 4 for eastern North America. The Quadrantid meteor shower is a very short-lived meteor display, whose peak rates only last several hours. The phase of the moon is a bright waxing gibbous, normally prohibitive for viewing any meteor shower, but the moon will set by 3 a.m., leaving the sky dark for a few hours until the first light of dawn; that's when you'll have the best shot at seeing many of these bluish-hued meteors.?
From the eastern half of North America, a single observer might count on seeing as many as 50 to 100 "Quads" in a single hour. From the western half of the continent the display will be on the wane by the time the moon sets, with hourly rates probably diminishing to around 25 to 50 meteors.
Feb. 20 to March 12: Best evening apparition of Mercury
In February and March, the "elusive" innermost planet Mercury moves far enough from the glare of the sun to be readily visible soon after sunset. Its appearance will be augmented by two other bright planets (Venus and Jupiter), which also will be visible in the western sky during this same time frame.
Mercury will arrive at its greatest elongation from the sun March 5. It will be quite bright (-1.3 to zero magnitude) before this date and will fade rapidly to +1.6 magnitude thereafter. Astronomers measure the brightness of objects in terms of magnitude, with lower numbers corresponding to brighter objects.
March 3: Mars arrives at opposition
On March 3, Earth will be passing Mars as the two planets wheel around the sun in their respective orbits. Because Mars reaches aphelion ? its farthest point from the sun ? on Feb. 15, this particular opposition will be an unfavorable one. In fact, two days after opposition, Mars will be closest to Earth at a distance of 62.6 million miles.
Compare this with the August 2003 opposition when Mars was only 34.6 million miles away.? Nonetheless, even at this unfavorable opposition the fiery-hued Mars will be an imposing naked-eye sight, shining at magnitude -1.2, just a bit dimmer than Sirius, the brightest star, and will be visible in the sky all night long. ? ?
March 13: Brilliant 'double planet'
The two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, team up to make for an eye-catching sight in the western sky soon after sunset. They will be separated by 3 degrees on this evening, Venus passing to the northwest (upper right) of Jupiter and shining nearly eight times brighter than "Big Jupe." Although they will gradually go their separate ways after this date, on March 25 and 26, a crescent moon will pass by, adding additional beauty to this celestial scene.
More space news from msnbc.com
Probes may find remnants of moon's lost sibling
Two identical NASA space probes are due to arrive at the moon this weekend to learn what is inside Earth's companion and how it formed.
China reveals its space plans up to 2016
First meteor shower of 2012 comes next week
Russian officials rattled by breach at rocket plant
May 5: Biggest full moon of 2012
The moon turns full at 11:35 p.m. ET, and just 25 minutes later it will arrive at its closest point to Earth in 2012, at a distance of 221,801 miles. Expect a large range in ocean tides (exceptionally low to exceptionally high) for the next few days. [Photos: 'Supermoon' of 2011]
May 20: Annular eclipse of the sun
The path of annularity for this eclipse starts over eastern China and sweeps northeast across southern and central Japan. The path continues northeast then east, passing just south of Alaska's Aleutian Island chain. The path then turns to the southeast, making landfall in the western United States along the California-Oregon coast. It will pass over central Nevada, southern Utah, northern Arizona, the extreme southwest corner of Colorado and most of New Mexico before coming to an end over northern Texas.
Since the disk of the moon will appear smaller than the disk of the sun, it will create a "penny on nickel" effect, with a fiery ring of sunlight shining around the moon's dark silhouette. Locations that will witness this eerie sight include Eureka and Reading, Calif.; Carson City, Reno and Ely, Nev.; Bryce Canyon in Utah; Arizona's Grand Canyon; Albuquerque and Santa Fe in N.M., and just prior to sunset for Lubbock, Tex.
A partial eclipse of the sun will be visible over a large swath of the United States and Canada, including Alaska and Hawaii, but no eclipse will be visible near and along the Atlantic Seaboard.
June 4: Partial eclipse of the moon
This partial lunar eclipse favors the Pacific Ocean; Hawaii sees it high in the sky during the middle of its night. Across North America the eclipse takes place between midnight and dawn. The farther east one goes, the closer the time of moonset coincides with the moment that the moon enters the Earth's dark umbral shadow.
In fact, over the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada, the only evidence of this eclipse will be a slight shading on the moon's left edge (the faint penumbral shadow) before moonset. Over the Canadian Maritimes, the moon will set before the eclipse begins. At maximum, more than one-third of the moon's lower portion (37.6 percent) will be immersed in the umbra.
June 5: Rare transit of Venus across the sun
The passage of Venus in front of the sun is among the rarest of astronomical events, rarer even than the return of Halley's Comet every 76 years. Only six transits of Venus are known to have been observed by humans before: in 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and, most recently, in 2004.
The next one will occur in the year 2114. When Venus is in transit across the solar disk, the planet appears as a distinct, albeit tiny, round black spot with a diameter just 1/32nd of the sun. This size is large enough to readily perceive with the naked eye.?
HOWEVER ... prospective observers are warned to take special precautions (as with a solar eclipse) when attempting to view the silhouette of Venus against the blindingly brilliant solar disc.
The beginning of the transit will be visible from all of North America, Greenland, extreme northern and western portions of South America, Hawaii, northern and eastern portions of Asia including Japan, New Guinea, northern and eastern portions of Australia, and New Zealand. The end will be visible over Alaska, all of Asia and Indonesia, Australia, Eastern Europe, the eastern third of Africa, and the island nation of Madagascar.
Aug. 12: Perseid meteor shower
The Perseids are considered to be among the best of the annual displays thanks to its high rates of up to 90 per hour for a single observer, as well as its reliability. Beloved by summer campers and often discovered by city dwellers who might be spending time in the country under dark starry skies. [10 Perseid Meteor Shower Facts]
Last summer a bright moon wrecked the shower by blotting out many of the fainter streaks, but in 2012 the moon will be three days past last quarter phase on this peak morning ? a fat waning crescent presenting only a minor nuisance for prospective observers.
Nov. 13: Total eclipse of the sun
The first total solar eclipse since July 2010. Virtually the entire path of totality falls over water. At the very beginning, the track cuts through Australia's Northern Territory just to the east of Darwin, then across the Gulf of Carpentaria, then through northern Queensland, passing over Cairns and Port Douglas before heading out to sea.
The rest of the eclipse path, including the point of the maximum duration of totality (4 minutes, 2 seconds) is, unfortunately, pretty much wasted by falling over the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Dec. 13-14: Geminid meteor shower
If there is one meteor display guaranteed to put on a very entertaining show it is the Geminid meteor shower. Now considered by most meteor experts to be at the top of the list, surpassing in brilliance and reliability even the August Perseids.
Bundle warmly against the winter chill; you can start observing as soon as darkness falls on the evening of Dec. 13 as Gemini starts coming up above the eastern horizon and continue through the rest of the night. Around 2 a.m. when Gemini is almost directly overhead, you might see as many as two meteor sightings per minute ? 120 per hour! And the moon is new, meaning that it will not be a factor at all.
Dec. 25: Christmas evening and Jupiter
On Christmas, many will be looking skyward and wondering what that brilliant silvery "star" is hovering just above the waxing gibbous moon. It's not a star (or Santa returning to the North Pole), but the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, serving as a sort of holiday ornament with our nearest neighbor in space to cap off a year of interesting and predictable sky events that we all can enjoy!
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.
? 2011 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.
APIA, Samoa?? The weekend came sooner than usual for the tiny South Pacific island nation of Samoa.
When the clock struck midnight Thursday, the country skipped over Friday and moved 24 hours ahead ? straight into Saturday, Dec. 31.
Samoans gathered around a main clock tower in the capital of Apia for the historic moment, applauding in celebration as the midnight hour struck to the wail of sirens and burst of fireworks. Drivers circled the clock tower blaring their horns, and prayer services were held across the country.
Samoa aimed to align its time zone with key trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region by shifting west of the international date line.
Related: This week, Samoa will skip Friday
The time jump means that Samoa's 186,000 citizens, and the 1,500 in the three-atoll United Nations dependency of Tokelau, which also shifted, will now be the first in the world to ring in the new year, rather than the last.
The date line dance came 119 years after U.S. traders persuaded local Samoans to align their islands' time with nearby U.S.-controlled American Samoa and the U.S. to assist their trading with California.
But the time zone put Samoa and Tokelau nearly a full day behind neighboring Australia and New Zealand, which are increasingly important trading partners.
In June, the Samoan government passed a law to move Samoa west of the international date line, which separates one calendar day from the next and runs roughly north-to-south through the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Under a government decree, all those scheduled to work on the nonexistent Friday will be given full pay for the missed day of labor.
In addition to the economic advantages, the time jump is also expected to make the everyday rituals of family life a little more pleasant. Like many small Pacific island states, more of Samoa's people live permanently in other countries. About 180,000 Samoans live in New Zealand and 15,000 in Australia. The date line switch means that families split between the island nation and Australia or New Zealand can now celebrate important events such as birthdays at the same time.
"We've got to remember that over 90 percent of our people emigrate to New Zealand and Australia. That's why it is absolutely vital to make this change," Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi told The Associated Press just hours before the country catapulted into the future.
Video: Island nation of Samoa skips Friday (on this page)
Officials have begun work on changing maps, charts and atlases to reflect Samoa's new date line position. A postage stamp, featuring the phrase "into the future," has also been created to mark the switch.
Although generally embraced by most Samoans, the date change wasn't expected to happen without a few little glitches. Digicel, the most popular mobile phone service provider in Samoa, said the company would have to update its systems immediately after the time jump, leaving phone service dead for about 15 minutes.
"The interruption will only take a few minutes so we can adjust our system," CEO Pepe Fiaailetoa Fruean said. "So I would like to inform all of our customers to have alternative communication means available in case of an emergency."
Being a day behind the rest of the Asia-Pacific region has meant that when it's dawn Sunday in Samoa, it's already dawn Monday in adjacent Tonga and nearly dawn Monday in nearby New Zealand and Australia, as well as prominent east Asian trade partners such as China.
The original shift to the east side of the line was made in 1892, when Samoa celebrated July 4 twice, giving a nod to Independence Day in the U.S.
The date line drawn by mapmakers is not mandated by any international body. By tradition, it runs roughly through the 180-degree line of longitude, but it zigzags to accommodate the choices of Pacific nations on how to align their calendars.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
LUBBOCK, Texas - The mother of a Texas firefighter who died reaching to snag a baseball thrown by Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton this past summer said Wednesday she wants the star player to keep tossing souvenirs into the stands.
SuZann Stone said that taking home a game ball is a special memory. Her plea to Hamilton was in a letter sent not long after 39-year-old Shannon Stone died when he tumbled over a railing and plunged 20 feet onto concrete July 7 during a game at Rangers Ballpark.
Shannon Stone was trying to catch the ball for his 6-year-old son, Cooper, who witnessed the incident.
The late firefighter's mother says it would be a shame for Hamilton to quit tossing balls to fans.
"I just didn't want him to stop," SuZann Stone said. "How sad that would be because that's what little boys and their daddies go for. This was just an accident."
The mother's letter to Hamilton was first reported in the New York Times Magazine.
Rangers spokesman John Blake said attempts were being made to reach Hamilton for comment.
Shannon Stone had been a firefighter in Brownwood for 18 years. He and Cooper had gone to the game with the intent of getting a souvenir ball. They even stopped on the way to the game to buy a new glove for Cooper.
SuZann Stone was watching the game on television that night, scanning the stands where Cooper had told her they would be sitting. She didn't see the fall and learned of her son's death from his brother.
SuZann Stone knows how special it is to get a ball at a Rangers game. When Shannon Stone was about 12 or 13, she and her husband took him to a Rangers game where he got to watch his favorite player ? third baseman Buddy Bell.
"That was Shannon's hero at the time," she said.
Bell hit a foul ball that looked like it wouldn't be anywhere close to where the family was sitting. But the wind caught it and it came down nearby where the Stones were sitting. Getting that souvenir meant the world to her son, SuZann Stone said, coming from his favorite player.
She said she hasn't heard back from Hamilton since writing to him.
"Really, I didn't expect that I would. I wanted him to let him know our heartfelt sorrow for him," she said. "No way did we feel he was responsible for the accident. He was doing a really nice thing and it just didn't turn out right."
Cooper is doing as well as can be expected, his grandmother said. He and his mother, Jenny Stone, continue to get "phenomenal" support from Brownwood residents and firefighters.
"We have good days and we have bad days but through the holidays it's been pretty hard," SuZann Stone said.
The family's faith helps lessen the pain of her son's death, she said.
"We will see him again," SuZann Stone said. "Until that time it just leaves a pretty big void in our lives."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Former FB Heath Evans was outspoken about the Browns Wednesday / (Photo by Matthew Sharpe/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND (92.3 The Fan) ? Count NFL Network analyst and former NFL fullback Heath Evans as someone who doesn?t appear to be a big fan of Mike Holmgren and his current regime with the Browns.
Evans, who played for the Seahawks, Dolphins, Saints and Patriots, came on with the ?Bull and Fox? on 92.3 The Fan on Wednesday, and opened some eyes wondering if Holmgren is truly the answer for the Browns.
?I?m not sure if Mike Holmgren?s the guy to actually turn this thing around in Cleveland,? Evans said. ?There is so much more of a bigger need than replacing Colt McCoy in Cleveland.?
Count Evans as a fan of McCoy, but at the same time he feels that an offense that leads the team in drops is a huge reason why the QB hasn?t gotten the credit he?s deserved this season.
?If you take away half the drops, Colt McCoy is right in the middle of half the quarterbacks right now,? Evans said.
The analyst was asked more about Holmgren, who he played under while with the Seahawks. While saying that there was a lot of dysfunction while with Seattle, Evans said on ?Bull and Fox? that Holmgren simply hasn?t adopted to the style of today?s NFL.
?Mike Holmgren tries to squeeze everybody into that system, I?ve got news for ya, the west coast system is not a world beater anymore,? Evans said. ?In the 80?s early 90?s it caught everybody off guard the crossing routes all the mix and matches. Now if you?ve got good DC?s and disciplined players on the defensive side of the football it?s not beating anybody.?
While Evans doesn?t appear to be a big fan of Holmgren, one coach he does admire is Bill Belichick, who still is looking for another Super Bowl ring with the Pats. Evans says that unlike Holmgren, Belichick has adopted to today?s NFL style.
?We were a game plan team in New England, they still are,? Evans said. ?That?s why a majority of the time they come out on the winning side of the football.?
Evans says a big issue with Holmgren is how he forces the issue with players. He says that on the offensive side of the ball, the Browns are way to simple, and it goes back to what Holmgren has done with the roster.
?I think Mike just has a problem for seeing what each individual player can add to a team, instead of trying to stuff everybody into a system,? Evans said. ?I watch this offensive football team (the Browns) and I can call most of the plays.?
Then there?s the saga with running back Peyton Hillis. The bruiser ran himself into injuries that cost him six games this year, and Evans says from the people he?s spoken to about it, Hillis may not have been as banged up as he claimed to be.
?I just hear a lot of mixed emotion from players coming out of there about his position,? Evans said. ?You talk about guys questioning if he could have played, so many different things that have stirred up my thought process, hamstrings are funny things. This guys gets right back on the field and has big games, hamstrings don?t act that way.?
Evans says while he has not actual proof that Hillis was tanking it, there?s a number of reasons to believe that the running back was only looking out for his best interest when thinking about the future.
?Can I comment with facts? No, but there?s a lot coming out of that locker room that has raised my ear and made me say what is truly going on there,? Evans said.
The future of the Browns is for sure up in the air. The team is heading towards a likely 12 loss season, and with it, Evans said Wednesday that things need to change for the team to finally take a step to the next level.
?There?s some dysfunction there if the Cleveland Browns want to be successful have to be corrected, especially in that division,? Evans said.
College of Engineering Guindy (CEG), Anna University will conduct Techofes 2012 from 15th to 18th, February 2012.
Techofes' 12 is the annual cultural fest of college of engineering, Guindy Anna University happening in the month of February, with a footfall of more than 40,000 every year. Techofes is held for four nights and thee days and draws students from nearly 300 colleges across Tamilnadu and over 100 colleges across India. Techofes attracts around 30,000 students every year.
Techofes'12 is organized by the Students Association and Arts Society, an elected, student-run, non-profit organization. With an approximate strength of 600, this team works on conceptualization to successful execution every year, with no assistance from any event management company or professionals.
Techofes'12, now in its thirty sixth editions, has snowballed to become one of the biggest fests in India. The festival draws the best talents of South India to its competitions, covering areas ranging from music and drama to literary, games, arts and quizzing. There are several events focussed on building social responsibility amongst the youth. Professional shows and workshops by various groups and prodigies from all over the country are an added attraction. Techofes is all about bigger, more enthusiastic participation, high performance competitions, amazing pro shows, innovative workshops and attractive prizes.
Events:
Pro-nite
Choreo-nite
Star attraction
Rock show
Competitions
Literary events
Dramatic events
Dance & Music
Art
Public speaking
Film/movie making
Photography contests
Treasure Hunts
Multiple category quizzes
Workshops in the arts and other areas
Professional shows, entertaining guest lectures and Celebrity concerts
Venue: ?College of Engineering Guindy (CEG), Anna University, Chennai, Tamilnadu
SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China's listed banks are expected to raise over 100 billion yuan ($15.78 billion) through equity financing next year as they face pressure to replenish capital due to rapid loan growth and tighter regulation, the China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday.
Citing analysts, the official paper said banks facing such pressure included Agricultural Bank of China (601288.SS) (1288.HK), Industrial Bank Co Ltd (601166.SS) and Bank of Communications (601328.SS) (3328.HK).
Banks are also expected tap the debt market for funding, it said.
The bulk of the expected equity financing would be funded by government shareholders, the paper said. Listed banks raised more than 270 billion yuan via equity financing in 2010 and nearly 290 billion yuan worth of debt this year, according to the article.
Chinese banks will be under fundraising pressure because new lending next year is expected to exceed 8 trillion yuan -- a level necessary to support economic expansion -- potentially weakening lenders' balance sheets, the newspaper said.
Major Chinese banks, or systematically important ones, would be required to have minimum capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 11.5 percent, while smaller banks must have at least 10.5 percent, according to rules published by the banking regulator in August.
However it is still unclear when they will be implemented.
China International Capital Corp estimates banks' assets to expand by around 14 percent next year and that would reduce the average CAR of listed domestic banks to around 10.7 percent, meaning some lenders would be under pressure to raise money, the paper said.
South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung will be working hand in hand with Sony after the former purchased the latter?s shares of S-LCD, turning this joint venture into its wholly-owned subsidiary. This agreement will see Samsung pick up all of Sony?s shares of S-LCD Corporation (?S-LCD?), where around $935 million is paid to Sony by Samsung. A new strategic agreement is also drawn up so that the competitiveness of both companies will be increased, and Sony and Samsung are able to forge a new future thanks to cooperative engineering efforts that are focused on LCD panel technology.
What does Sony gain from this joint venture? They can cash out on their S-LCD shares, while securing a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, where it will be based on market prices, and they do shed the headache of operating a manufacturing facility, which can end up being rather costly in the end as well. As for Samsung, whole ownership of S-LCD would hopefully translate to increased flexibility, speed and efficiency in panel production and business operations. Don?t you just love win-win situation? [Press Release]
A major university has decided to migrate to Google Apps for Education as its cloud-based email and calendar provider. The decision by the University of California at Berkeley represents a substantial victory for Google's cloud-based platform in its ongoing effort to catch Microsoft Office 365.
Google contends that its approach was built entirely with the cloud in mind, while Microsoft has expanded and optimized its widely-used local apps to the cloud. In an attempt apparently to garner greater market share, Google offers its solution to educational institutions for free, although the University said it looked at other factors besides price.
Transition Time
The entire campus community, including students, faculty, and staff, will migrate to Google Apps next year. The current CalMail system, which recently suffered an outage, and CalAgenda will remain in effect until the transition is completed.
Microsoft software will still be used on campus, as local installations under a site license agreement.
Both Advantageous
With regard to its comparison of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps, the University said in a statement that both products are feature rich and offer advantages over the current environment. However, the analysis concluded that the Google offering would be a better overall fit for the campus at this time.
In the category of Speed of Migration and Deployment, for instance, the evaluation gave the advantage to Google. One of the stated advantages in this factor was that, with a "multiple Google Apps instances" model, they could allow for large subdomains to independently plan and execute their own migrations.
Support of Migration and Deployment also went to Google, at least in part because of support the University hopes to receive from peer institutions, including UC Santa Cruz and the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. The University pointed out that the University of Nebraska has not yet completed its migration to Microsoft Office 365, although the process began during the summer.
Not All Thumbs Up for Google
While the Berkeley decision represents a win for Google, actual implementation represents the next hurdle. In fact, Google Apps has had a number of failed migrations. Last week, the City of Los Angeles announced that its police department was abandoning plans to migrate to the 'Google Apps for Government' cloud platform because of FBI security concerns. Reports indicate the L.A. Police Department will remain indefinitely on Novell GroupWise apps, although other city departments will use the Google platform.
On the plus side, Google won the Ease of Tools Development in the UC Berkeley comparison, as well as migration of Mailman migration lists, and Administration.
Google also won the comparison for Integration with Collaboration Tools, although Berkeley noted that both Google and Microsoft offer "a more integrated collaborative environment than what currently exists on campus."
Advantage Microsoft Office 365
The University analysis gave points to Microsoft for its high-level of integration between the Office 365 components, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.
While integration between Office 365 and third-party apps was available through PowerShell and Exchange Web Services APIs, the University noted that it does not widely support those technologies.
Microsoft scored higher than Google Apps on Authentication, in part because Google does not allow all passwords and authentication information to be kept on-site.
Microsoft also won On-Premise Integration with email or calendar software, which Google Apps does not offer.
In User Familiarity, Google took the win for Overall, for Current Google Users, and for Users with Multiple Berkeley Accounts, while Microsoft won for current Outlook and Exchange Users. Mobile Integration was determined to be a draw.
As the next step, the University is hoping to make its move from CalMail to Gmail within six to ten weeks.
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) ? A resident of a city in western Libya says at least two people were killed after gunmen ransacked a home in search of a regime figure once loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.
Basem al-Tarhoni says angry residents in Tarhouna retaliated by torching the headquarters of some 100 fighters who helped topple the longtime leader from power.
Tarhouna was widely seen as a Gadhafi favorite, and its dominant tribe, also called Tarhouna, held many positions in the Libyan military. The city's residents are viewed with suspicion by former rebels.
Such clashes are a major challenge for Libya's new rulers.
The clashes took place on the same day security ministers announced a program for integrating former rebels in civil institutions. The ministers gave few details and offered no timetable for disarming fighters.
Source: www.nytimes.com --- Sunday, December 25, 2011 Sudanese Military officials said they killed Khalil Ibrahim, a feared rebel leader who mounted an assault from Darfur to the doorstep of the capital, Khartoum. ...
Back in May, followers of Harold Camping were preparing for the coming rapture. For some, that preparation included someone to look after their pets.
At the time, animal lover Bart Centre, the creator of Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, had 259 clients whose pets he promised to look after in the event that they were raptured in the next 10 years. Those clients paid $135 for the first pet and $20 for each additional pet.
Clearly, the rapture didn?t happen as predicted on May 21. Centre tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that, with the exception of a few demands for refunds, there wasn?t a lot of fallout from the religious event, or nonevent, rather.
?I had to disappoint them and let them know we don?t do refunds,? Centre says.
There might not have been much fallout to Centre?s business from the rapture not happening, but there was some fallout, in the form of complaints, when NPR first told Centre?s story. Many criticized him and said that he was taking advantage of people, but Centre says that?s not the case.
?I do not advertise my business. My business is advertised by the media and by word of mouth,? Centre says. ?I don?t threaten people with the rapture coming; I outright tell them I do not believe in the rapture.?
Centre says that does not negate the possibility that they could be right and he could be wrong, so he?s offering a service to people who love their pets and believe the rapture is going to happen.
?I?m not in a position to say to them, ?It?s not going to happen and you?re foolish,?? he says. ?If this is what they believe, then I will give them piece of mind.?
Centre says business has been a little slow and he?s added only a few clients since May. But he expects that around October 2012, close to when the Mayan calendar ends and what many people believe signifies the coming rapture, business might just pick up again. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]
Actor ALEC BALDWIN has given up his plans to run for the post of New York Mayor in 2013 after losing his "appetite" for the role. The actor revealed earlier this year (11) that he was considering swapping acting for politics and wanted to run in the 2013 election as a Democrat in a bid to succeed current mayor Michael Bloomberg. But now Baldwin has decided against the idea, revealing on his weekly WNYC radio podcast, "I?ve lost my appetite." The actor is blaming other candidates for putting him off with their eagerness to land the position. He adds, "They?re like a guy on a date that you can tell he just can?t wait to get his hand up your blouse before even the lights go out in the theatre. They?re all just so horny for it." Baldwin is also keen to keep his role on hit U.S. sitcom 30 Rock, because he no longer believes it would be worth quitting his career to attempt to make a change in society. He adds, "Give this up (the show) for what? I give up money and fame and position and success; I give up this wonderful life I have now in exchange for the chance to ?really change things?? "Yeah, I?m not quite sure you can anymore. I?ve got a good job. Am I doing To Kill a Mockingbird? No. I?m doing a sitcom. But we have fun, and it?s a family."
Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Representative Denny Rehberg of Montana has been an aggressive advocate for the coal and minerals mining industry, a big employer in Montana.
South African reserves facing unprecedented elephant populations could turn to immunocontraception to slow growth
By Rose Eveleth
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December 22, 2011?|
Too Many Elephants Elephants in Addo Elephant National Park, in South Africa, gather around the watering hole.Image: Clive Reid, Flickr
In South Africa they have a problem, a big one: too many elephants.
For most of the 1900s extensive poaching threatened to wipe out the country?s elephants. In response, conservationists established reserves throughout the region and relocated as many herds as they could. Now those herds are doing quite well. So well, in fact, that they?re causing problems. Wildlife managers are currently facing a dilemma: how to deal with too many elephants. While some advocate for culling the giants, a group of scientists has outlined a different plan to control their populations: contraception.
Rather than simply setting a quota and culling the extras, immunocontraception could be a tool to allow land managers to control elephant populations in response to conditions on the ground such as food availability. "The approach now has to be much more dynamic and look at the influence the animals are having on the land," says Robert Slotow, a biologist at the Amarula Elephant Research Program in Durban, South Africa. His team recently published a paper in PLoS ONE describing how scientists might be able to use immunocontraception?a vaccine that gets the body to make antibodies that target sperm receptors on the surface of the egg cell. Slotow and his team outlined an immunocontraception schedule that would halt the growth of herds in a South African park and even out their population structure.
The problem
In the wild, two things control elephant populations: natural mortality and environmental conditions. Calves and full-grown animals get sick and die from all kinds of things, from predation to viruses. And when the environment is unfavorable?during years of drought or food shortages, for instance?females will put off having babies. In closed systems like conservation parks, however, neither of those controls is in place. The fences around the park keep out new animals and pathogens, and controlled park conditions make sure that there is ample food. Mothers keep having babies, and the death rate seems to slow to a crawl.
But simply letting the population boom isn?t an option either. Herds can reduce forests to grasslands by trampling plants and uprooting trees as they feed. There is concern that the elephants are pushing out other species. Kruger National Park, the oldest elephant reserve in South Africa, has about 15,000 elephants. The sustainable number estimated for the park is probably more like 7,500. One way that Kruger dealt with its growing population was to relocate juveniles to other parks in South Africa, which temporarily solved the problem in Kruger but created issues elsewhere. These smaller parks suddenly had a bunch of elephants that were all the same age, which leads to a young, fast-growing population. Now those smaller parks are having the same challenge?too many elephants.
In 2008 South Africa announced it would lift the 1994 ban on elephant culling to deal with increasing populations, although to date the cull has not happened. Culling itself is controversial: some argue it?s a way to utilize a resource and profit from the skin, meat and ivory provided by elephants, whereas others contend that the killing is barbaric and unnecessary.
?All these things that people want to talk about?deer gnawing on your shrubbery, culling elephants?they?re symptoms of the larger problem, which is reproduction,? says Jay Kirkpatrick, director of the Science and Conservation Center at ZooMontana and longtime advocate for immunocontracpetion. And if you want to curb reproduction, he says, contraception is one option.
Contact: Jennifer Marcus jmarcus@cnsi.ucla.edu 310-267-4839 University of California - Los Angeles
Innovative machine learning method anticipates neurocognitive changes, similar to predictive text-entry for cell phones, Internet search engines
At UCLA's Laboratory of Integrative Neuroimaging Technology, researchers use functional MRI brain scans to observe brain signal changes that take place during mental activity. They then employ computerized machine learning (ML) methods to study these patterns and identify the cognitive state or sometimes the thought process of human subjects. The technique is called "brain reading" or "brain decoding."
In a new study, the UCLA research team describes several crucial advances in this field, using fMRI and machine learning methods to perform "brain reading" on smokers experiencing nicotine cravings.
The research, presented last week at the Neural Information Processing Systems' Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging workshop in Spain, was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is interested in using these method to help people control drug cravings.
In this study on addiction and cravings, the team classified data taken from cigarette smokers who were scanned while watching videos meant to induce nicotine cravings. The aim was to understand in detail which regions of the brain and which neural networks are responsible for resisting nicotine addiction specifically, and cravings in general, said Dr. Ariana Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow in the Integrative Neuroimaging Technology lab and the study's lead author.
"We are interested in exploring the relationships between structure and function in the human brain, particularly as related to higher-level cognition, such as mental imagery," Anderson said. "The lab is engaged in the active exploration of modern data-analysis approaches, such as machine learning, with special attention to methods that reveal systems-level neural organization."
For the study, smokers sometimes watched videos meant to induce cravings, sometimes watched "neutral" videos and at sometimes watched no video at all. They were instructed to attempt to fight nicotine cravings when they arose.
The data from fMRI scans taken of the study participants was then analyzed. Traditional machine learning methods were augmented by Markov processes, which use past history to predict future states. By measuring the brain networks active over time during the scans, the resulting machine learning algorithms were able to anticipate changes in subjects' underlying neurocognitive structure, predicting with a high degree of accuracy (90 percent for some of the models tested) what they were watching and, as far as cravings were concerned, how they were reacting to what they viewed.
"We detected whether people were watching and resisting cravings, indulging in them, or watching videos that were unrelated to smoking or cravings," said Anderson, who completed her Ph.D. in statistics at UCLA. "Essentially, we were predicting and detecting what kind of videos people were watching and whether they were resisting their cravings."
In essence, the algorithm was able to complete or "predict" the subjects' mental states and thought processes in much the same way that Internet search engines or texting programs on cell phones anticipate and complete a sentence or request before the user is finished typing. And this machine learning method based on Markov processes demonstrated a large improvement in accuracy over traditional approaches, the researchers said.
Machine learning methods, in general, create a "decision layer" essentially a boundary separating the different classes one needs to distinguish. For example, values on one side of the boundary might indicate that a subject believes various test statements and, on the other, that a subject disbelieves these statements. Researchers have found they can detect these believedisbelieve differences with high accuracy, in effect creating a lie detector. An innovation described in the new study is a means of making these boundaries interpretable by neuroscientists, rather than an often obscure boundary created by more traditional methods, like support vector machine learning.
"In our study, these boundaries are designed to reflect the contributed activity of a variety of brain sub-systems or networks whose functions are identifiable for example, a visual network, an emotional-regulation network or a conflict-monitoring network," said study co-author Mark S. Cohen, a professor of neurology, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA's Staglin Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and a researcher at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
"By projecting our problem of isolating specific networks associated with cravings into the domain of neurology, the technique does more than classify brain states it actually helps us to better understand the way the brain resists cravings," added Cohen, who also directs UCLA's Neuroengineering Training Program.
Remarkably, by placing this problem into neurological terms, the decoding process becomes significantly more reliable and accurate, the researchers said. This is especially significant, they said, because it is unusual to use prior outcomes and states in order to inform the machine learning algorithms, and it is particularly challenging in the brain because so much is unknown about how the brain works.
Machine learning typically involves two steps: a "training phase" in which the computer evaluates a set of known outcomes say, a bunch of trials in which a subject indicated belief or disbelief and a second, "prediction" phase in which the computer builds a boundary based on that knowledge.
In future research, the neuroscientists said, they will be using these machine learning methods in a biofeedback context, showing subjects real-time brain readouts to let them know when they are experiencing cravings and how intense those cravings are, in the hopes of training them to control and suppress those cravings.
But since this clearly changes the process and cognitive state for the subject, the researchers said, they may face special challenges in trying to decode a "moving target" and in separating the "training" phase from the "prediction" phase.
###
The California NanoSystems Institute is an integrated research facility located at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. Its mission is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations in nanoscience and nanotechnology; to train a new generation of scientists, educators and technology leaders; to generate partnerships with industry; and to contribute to the economic development and the social well-being of California, the United States and the world. The CNSI was established in 2000 with $100 million from the state of California. The total amount of research funding in nanoscience and nanotechnology awarded to CNSI members has risen to over $900 million. UCLA CNSI members are drawn from UCLA's College of Letters and Science, the David Geffen School of Medicine, the School of Dentistry, the School of Public Health and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. They are engaged in measuring, modifying and manipulating atoms and molecules the building blocks of our world. Their work is carried out in an integrated laboratory environment. This dynamic research setting has enhanced understanding of phenomena at the nanoscale and promises to produce important discoveries in health, energy, the environment and information technology.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
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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.
Contact: Jennifer Marcus jmarcus@cnsi.ucla.edu 310-267-4839 University of California - Los Angeles
Innovative machine learning method anticipates neurocognitive changes, similar to predictive text-entry for cell phones, Internet search engines
At UCLA's Laboratory of Integrative Neuroimaging Technology, researchers use functional MRI brain scans to observe brain signal changes that take place during mental activity. They then employ computerized machine learning (ML) methods to study these patterns and identify the cognitive state or sometimes the thought process of human subjects. The technique is called "brain reading" or "brain decoding."
In a new study, the UCLA research team describes several crucial advances in this field, using fMRI and machine learning methods to perform "brain reading" on smokers experiencing nicotine cravings.
The research, presented last week at the Neural Information Processing Systems' Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging workshop in Spain, was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is interested in using these method to help people control drug cravings.
In this study on addiction and cravings, the team classified data taken from cigarette smokers who were scanned while watching videos meant to induce nicotine cravings. The aim was to understand in detail which regions of the brain and which neural networks are responsible for resisting nicotine addiction specifically, and cravings in general, said Dr. Ariana Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow in the Integrative Neuroimaging Technology lab and the study's lead author.
"We are interested in exploring the relationships between structure and function in the human brain, particularly as related to higher-level cognition, such as mental imagery," Anderson said. "The lab is engaged in the active exploration of modern data-analysis approaches, such as machine learning, with special attention to methods that reveal systems-level neural organization."
For the study, smokers sometimes watched videos meant to induce cravings, sometimes watched "neutral" videos and at sometimes watched no video at all. They were instructed to attempt to fight nicotine cravings when they arose.
The data from fMRI scans taken of the study participants was then analyzed. Traditional machine learning methods were augmented by Markov processes, which use past history to predict future states. By measuring the brain networks active over time during the scans, the resulting machine learning algorithms were able to anticipate changes in subjects' underlying neurocognitive structure, predicting with a high degree of accuracy (90 percent for some of the models tested) what they were watching and, as far as cravings were concerned, how they were reacting to what they viewed.
"We detected whether people were watching and resisting cravings, indulging in them, or watching videos that were unrelated to smoking or cravings," said Anderson, who completed her Ph.D. in statistics at UCLA. "Essentially, we were predicting and detecting what kind of videos people were watching and whether they were resisting their cravings."
In essence, the algorithm was able to complete or "predict" the subjects' mental states and thought processes in much the same way that Internet search engines or texting programs on cell phones anticipate and complete a sentence or request before the user is finished typing. And this machine learning method based on Markov processes demonstrated a large improvement in accuracy over traditional approaches, the researchers said.
Machine learning methods, in general, create a "decision layer" essentially a boundary separating the different classes one needs to distinguish. For example, values on one side of the boundary might indicate that a subject believes various test statements and, on the other, that a subject disbelieves these statements. Researchers have found they can detect these believedisbelieve differences with high accuracy, in effect creating a lie detector. An innovation described in the new study is a means of making these boundaries interpretable by neuroscientists, rather than an often obscure boundary created by more traditional methods, like support vector machine learning.
"In our study, these boundaries are designed to reflect the contributed activity of a variety of brain sub-systems or networks whose functions are identifiable for example, a visual network, an emotional-regulation network or a conflict-monitoring network," said study co-author Mark S. Cohen, a professor of neurology, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA's Staglin Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and a researcher at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
"By projecting our problem of isolating specific networks associated with cravings into the domain of neurology, the technique does more than classify brain states it actually helps us to better understand the way the brain resists cravings," added Cohen, who also directs UCLA's Neuroengineering Training Program.
Remarkably, by placing this problem into neurological terms, the decoding process becomes significantly more reliable and accurate, the researchers said. This is especially significant, they said, because it is unusual to use prior outcomes and states in order to inform the machine learning algorithms, and it is particularly challenging in the brain because so much is unknown about how the brain works.
Machine learning typically involves two steps: a "training phase" in which the computer evaluates a set of known outcomes say, a bunch of trials in which a subject indicated belief or disbelief and a second, "prediction" phase in which the computer builds a boundary based on that knowledge.
In future research, the neuroscientists said, they will be using these machine learning methods in a biofeedback context, showing subjects real-time brain readouts to let them know when they are experiencing cravings and how intense those cravings are, in the hopes of training them to control and suppress those cravings.
But since this clearly changes the process and cognitive state for the subject, the researchers said, they may face special challenges in trying to decode a "moving target" and in separating the "training" phase from the "prediction" phase.
###
The California NanoSystems Institute is an integrated research facility located at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. Its mission is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations in nanoscience and nanotechnology; to train a new generation of scientists, educators and technology leaders; to generate partnerships with industry; and to contribute to the economic development and the social well-being of California, the United States and the world. The CNSI was established in 2000 with $100 million from the state of California. The total amount of research funding in nanoscience and nanotechnology awarded to CNSI members has risen to over $900 million. UCLA CNSI members are drawn from UCLA's College of Letters and Science, the David Geffen School of Medicine, the School of Dentistry, the School of Public Health and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. They are engaged in measuring, modifying and manipulating atoms and molecules the building blocks of our world. Their work is carried out in an integrated laboratory environment. This dynamic research setting has enhanced understanding of phenomena at the nanoscale and promises to produce important discoveries in health, energy, the environment and information technology.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
[ | 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.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. ? The contents of the home where Michael Jackson lived with his three children just before his death have sold for nearly $1 million at auction.
Darren Julien, president of Julien's Auctions, was unable to provide a more specific figure as he continued to tally the totals Saturday after the daylong auction, which brought in nearly triple the company's pre-auction estimate of $200,000 to $400,000.
Among the highlights: A kitchen chalkboard where Jackson's children wrote "I love daddy," which sold for $5,000, and an armoire upon which Jackson wrote a message to himself on the mirror that fetched $25,750.
The auction also included furniture, artwork and other items from the rented mansion at 100 North Carolwood Drive, where Jackson lived as he prepared for a series of comeback concerts in London before his death in June, 2009.
The headboard from the bed where Jackson died at age 50 was removed from the auction at the family's request, but the rug that was beneath the bed sold for $15,360. The estimate had been $400 to $600.
Julien's Auctions re-created the mansion inside its Beverly Hills showroom and invited fans to fill the space where the bed would have been with a tribute to the late King of Pop. Julien promised to deliver all of the tribute items to Jackson's children and family matriarch Katherine Jackson.
"Michael Jackson has the greatest fans in the world. I can see why he lived for them," Julien said. "They came out every day this week to bring gifts. It's unlike anything we've ever seen as it relates to a celebrity and their fans."
Julien's Auctions has conducted auctions for dozens of celebrities, including Cher, Barbra Streisand, William Shatner and Slash.
Jackson commissioned the company to sell the contents of his Neverland Ranch before the auction was called off in early 2009. Julien's also sold Jackson's famous "Thriller" jacket for $1.8 million earlier this year.
___
AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APSandy.
Working on the premise that science is a world inhabited by joyless stiffs in white coats determined to ground flights of fancy with a dose of ECT, the theatrical production The Bollywood Trip poses a simple enough question: if sanity is measured by our grasp on reality, is it mad to dream?
Opening this week at the Southbank Centre in London, Parminder Singh?s barely restrained musical analysis of madness invites the audience to consider whether it is better to accept an existence weighed down and defined by our limitations, or to embrace the illusory life, where we can be anyone we want to be.
In many ways, Bollywood and psychiatry make natural bedfellows since major flights of fantasy are central themes in both. The Bollywood Trip is a competent enough show that uses its revolving stage floor and skateboard ramp set to ensure fluidity of movement. (Alas, the set also encourages some strike-a-pose mimes). Scenes of straight theatre set in a mental hospital are punctuated, Bollywood-style, with song-and-dance outbursts. This might seem like a surefire recipe for bad taste, yet, with the exception of a cringe-inducing dance sequence in straitjackets, director Rolf Heim manages to portray sympathetically the complexities of mental illness as well as its paradox - that those who are mentally ill occasionally seem to have a better grasp of reality.
The central character, King Haroon, is convinced he is a Bollywood superstar. It is a claim his fellow patients at the psychiatric hospital readily believe. The psychiatrists, naturally, don?t buy it. Yet despite failing to ?cure? a single patient, they stick rigidly to the rulebook, persisting unsuccessfully with group therapy to treat two other patients, who inevitably fall under Haroon?s glitzy spell. The musical never explains what mental condition Haroon?s fellow patients suffer from, other than that they both seem wildly delusional. Still, their characters are fleshed out in a way that gives them more individual personality than many depictions of mental illness on stage or screen.
The tension between creative imagination and hard science that the musical tries to explore is encapsulated in the relationship between Haroon and his psychiatrist Dr Jens Sloth, where the patient coaches the doctor on love, life and the universe.
To illustrate the importance of letting the mind run free, Haroon spells out early on in the show the nine rasas, or the yoga of nine emotions (helpfully mimed by the dancers in case you might be unsure what ?joy? or ?sadness? might look like). Haroon announces that the dream-bashing robot that is Dr Sloth must experience such emotions to be a ?complete human being?, whatever that means.
?Everything is illusion,? Haroon later professes. So if free will gives us choice, why not devote ourselves to the illusion of happiness? This strikes a chord with Dr Sloth, for he is a man in love with the hospital?s nurse Mette, who seems oblivious to his ardour. And when it comes to wooing, no film genre does it with quite as much gusto as Bollywood. In the magical world of Hindi cinema, it?s all about escapism, with free license to burst into song at any point. The Bollywood Trip nearly makes full use of this formula, albeit with a soundtrack that owes its influence more to David Hasselhoff than Hindi classical singers like Mohammed Rafi. Love must overcome rejection, tragedy is inevitable, everyone learns a lesson and all ends happily with a dance ensemble. Even the dull old Dr Sloth ends up boogie-ing down to bhangra in a red sparkly sequin jacket.
But there?s not really a happy Bollywood ending for Haroon; we learn at the musical?s close that it was all an illusion. Haroon is actually Thomas Lindorf, an orphan from a Mumbai slum adopted by a Danish family. Lindorf?s alter ego is borne of the torment of not knowing where he comes from.
As this and other productions demonstrate, depression and mental illness are increasingly taking centre stage. British comedian Jo Brand often peppers her act with issues of mental health, while the American comic Ruby Wax had a London show earlier this year devoted to depression and bipolar disorder. Comedians may be drawn to talking about mental illness because it is one of the last social taboos, but it?s a useful way of having honest and open conversations about a difficult subject.
While The Bollywood Trip does seem to want to provoke genuine debate about mental illness, it falls short of a proper analysis by succumbing to stereotypes of science. Any credibility built by a sympathetic portrayal of mental illness is shot in the foot by its fundamentally flawed assertion that logic drains the mind of imagination.
Scientists may, quite rightly, battle against mystical mumbo-jumbo and encourage people to see the world as it really is. But in the battle between reality and illusion, when the nemesis comes clad in tight white pants, channelling the magic of love with cheeseball wisdom like ?tell her you complete my soul?, I doubt science has much to fear.
The Bollywood Trip is running at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London's Southbank Centre through Sunday 18 December.
College of Engineering Guindy (CEG), Anna University will conduct Techofes 2012 from 15th to 18th, February 2012.
South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung will be working hand in hand with Sony after the former purchased the latter?s shares of S-LCD, turning this joint venture into its wholly-owned subsidiary. This agreement will see Samsung pick up all of Sony?s shares of S-LCD Corporation (?S-LCD?), where around $935 million is paid to Sony by Samsung. A new strategic agreement is also drawn up so that the competitiveness of both companies will be increased, and Sony and Samsung are able to forge a new future thanks to cooperative engineering efforts that are focused on LCD panel technology.
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Public release date: 21-Dec-2011
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