Sunday, 30 June 2013

WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: Obama to US media: 'Behave'

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) ? One element of President Barack Obama's Africa policy is to encourage a free press, although he offered repeated reminders for U.S. reporters traveling with him on the continent to be on their best behavior.

"Americans, behave yourselves," he needled as a contingent of U.S. and South African media was pulled from a quick photo-op Saturday with President Jacob Zuma.

Obama spoke just before their news conference and may have been trying to suggest his press corps keep its questions tight.

Both U.S. and South African reporters asked multi-part questions. Obama didn't try to cut anyone off, but instead said the U.S. press corps must be happy the news conference was taking place in a wood-paneled chamber inside Pretoria's grand Union Buildings.

"This is much more elegant than the White House press room," Obama said, referring to the more cramped media quarters in the West Wing. "It's a big improvement."

He kept up the theme of a long-winded U.S. press at the start of his meeting with African Union Commission Chairwoman Dlamini-Zuma.

"I might take some questions, except earlier in the press conference you guys asked 4-in-1 questions," a grinning Obama teased.

At his earlier stop in Senegal, Obama apologized to host President Macky Sall on behalf the American media.

"Sometimes my press ? I notice yours just ask one question," Obama said. "We try to fit in three or four or five questions in there."

Minutes before that comment, Obama had praised democratic progress in Senegal, specifically mentioning "a strong press" as part of that movement. However, the first Senegalese reporter to be called on lobbed a softball, simply asking Sall to describe the visit and any new prospects it posed for Africa.

___

Zuma's dinner in honor of Obama's visit to Pretoria began with a moment of silence for ailing former President Nelson Mandela. Then came a longer, unintended and much more awkward silence.

Zuma came to the podium to deliver a toast but said his notes were not there. He asked the audience, "Just bear with me for a minute."

But the minute grew into 2 1/2, initially only broken by the sound of waiters popping champagne corks in preparation. Zuma cleared his throat and chuckled nervously in the quiet. "What is here are the remarks of President Barack Obama," Zuma said with an extended laugh from the audience

The seven-piece South African Navy Band decided to fill it by striking up "The Girl from Ipanema," and finally an aide delivered Zuma's remarks.

Obama took his turn at the podium and said his staff felt pretty good by the mix-up.

"This is not the first time that a president has come to the podium without notes that were supposed to be there," Obama said. "And they are gratefully relieved that does not only happen to them."

___

Questioned about foreign policy, Obama said more than the security issues that "take up a lot of my time," he gets great satisfaction from listening to regular people talk about building their businesses.

A priority is the war that's drawing to a close in Afghanistan, with U.S. combat troops scheduled to return home by the end of next year.

Another is keeping the U.S. public safe. "I can't deviate from that too much," Obama said before also mentioning the need to focus on turmoil across the Middle East.

But "as much as the security issues in my foreign policy take up a lot of my time, I get a lot more pleasure from listening to a small farmer say that she went from one hectare to 16 hectares and has doubled her income," Obama said. "That's a lot more satisfying and that's the future."

The president apparently was still feeling good after the stop in Senegal. On Friday, he toured an exhibit showcasing the Senegalese agricultural sector with a focus on nutrition and fortified foods and chatted up several of the farmers who were there. The programs get help from Feed the Future, a public-private partnership begun by Obama that he touted in Senegal, including to reporters aboard Air Force One.

___

Obama's trip has been quite a family affair.

He's traveling with his wife, Michelle, their daughters Malia and Sasha, his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, and a niece, Leslie Robinson. Other relatives are with him in spirit.

He spoke Saturday about his late mother, anthropologist Stanley Ann Dunham, and what he said she always used to tell him.

"You can measure how well a country does by how well it treats its women," he said, quoting her.

On Thursday in Senegal, he quipped about how he had disappointed his maternal grandmother by becoming a politician, not a judge as she had hoped.

___

Obama was looking forward to visiting Robben Island for a special reason: the opportunity to take his daughters with him.

The tiny island off the coast of Cape Town is where many opponents of South Africa's former system of white-minority rule were sent to prison.

Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years behind bars on the island. He was elected president a few years after his release.

Obama has visited the island previously, but called it a "great privilege and a great honor" to be able to bring Malia, who turns 15 next Thursday, and Sasha, 12, to teach them the history of the island and South Africa and how those lessons apply to their own lives growing up in America. The family was scheduled to ride the ferry over on Sunday.

The Obama girls could have visited Robben Island in 2011 when they accompanied their mother on her visit to South Africa, but the trip was scrubbed at the last minute due to rough seas.

___

Michelle Obama says she definitely would take more risks if she could go back and relive her teenage years.

She avoided getting too specific, though, saying simply that she'd try more things and travel more.

"I wouldn't be as afraid as I was at that age to fail," she said in Johannesburg during a Google+ Hangout chat involving scores of young people in Africa and several cities across the U.S., including New York City, Los Angeles and Houston. Singer-songwriters John Legend and Victoria Justice also participated.

After some of the students seated on stage with the first lady were asked to name their dream jobs, the question was then put to her.

Mrs. Obama didn't identify her dream job, but said that back then she could never have envisioned participating in such a forum. She often has said she never saw herself becoming first lady, either, and used her example to try to inspire the audience. She told them to keep their dreams big and embrace failure.

"Don't take yourself out of the game before you even start, because there's no telling what life has in store for you," Mrs. Obama said.

___

Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler in Johannesburg and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jpaceDC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-notebook-obama-us-media-behave-170718184.html

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Nate Silver: Hillary Is the Strongest Non-Incumbent Ever (Atlantic Politics Channel)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315892277?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Saturday, 29 June 2013

Oil price stays above $97 on improving US data

BANGKOK (AP) ? The price of oil rose Friday as the U.S. economic outlook brightened and concerns eased about a credit crunch in China.

Benchmark oil for August delivery was up 20 cents to $97.23 per barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.55 to finish at $97.05 on Thursday after the U.S. government released data showing an increase in in consumer spending and home sales while jobless claims fell.

"The truth to these markets are that they are lacking any good reason to go down," said Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions. "We're starting to settle into a fair value and it's hard to argue lower."

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 346,000 last week, evidence that the job market is still improving modestly. Steady job gains could help the economy expand later this year and thus increase energy consumption.

The U.S. Commerce Department said consumers spent more in May as their income rose, although spending was weaker in April, February and January than previously estimated. The number of pending home sales jumped in May to the highest level in more than six years, the National Association of Realtors said.

Fears of a cash crunch in China, which could cripple small- and medium-sized businesses, were eased after the country's central bank indicated it would not allow an all-out crisis to unfold.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a commentary that "it is time for markets to calm down now and that the worst is probably behind us" and that a hard economic landing would be avoided, since no Chinese policymaker would want to shoulder the blame for that.

Brent crude, which is used to set prices for oil used by many U.S. refineries to make gasoline, rose 18 cents to $103 a barrel.

In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:

? Heating oil rose 0.7 cent to $2.895 a gallon.

? Natural gas rose 0.4 cent to $3.586 per 1,000 cubic feet.

? Wholesale gasoline rose 0.1 cent to $2.729 a gallon.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-price-stays-above-97-improving-us-data-053928335.html

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Better antibiotics: Atomic-scale structure of ribosome with molecule that controls its motion

June 28, 2013 ? This may look like a tangle of squiggly lines, but you're actually looking at a molecular machine called a ribosome. Its job is to translate DNA sequences into proteins, the workhorse compounds that sustain you and all living things.

The image is also a milestone. It's the first time the atom-by-atom structure of the ribosome has been seen as it's attached to a molecule that controls its motion. That's big news if you're a structural biologist.

But there's another way to look at this image, one that anyone who's suffered a bacterial infection can appreciate. The image is also a roadmap to better antibiotics. That's because this particular ribosome is from a bacterium. And somewhere in its twists and turns could be a weakness that a new antibiotic can target.

"We're in an arms race with the resistance mechanisms of bacteria," says Jamie Cate, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and a professor of biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology at UC Berkeley.

"The better we understand how bacterial ribosomes work, the better we can come up with new ways to interfere with them," he adds.

Cate developed the structure with UC Berkeley's Arto Pulk. Their work is described in the June 28 issue of the journal Science.

Their image is the latest advance in the push for more effective antibiotics. The goal is new drugs that kill the bacteria that make us sick, stay one step ahead of their resistance mechanisms, and leave our beneficial bacteria alone.

One way to do this is to get to know the bacterial ribosome inside and out. Many of today's antibiotics target ribosomes. A better understanding of how ribosomes function will shed light on how these antibiotics work. This could also lead to even "smarter" molecules that quickly target and disable a pathogen's ribosomes without affecting friendly bacteria.

Cate and Pulk used protein crystallography beamlines at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source to create diffraction patterns that show how the ribosome's molecules fit together. They then used computational modeling to combine these patterns into incredibly high-resolution images that describe the locations of the individual atoms.

The result is the colorful structure at the top of this article. Those blue and purple halves are ribosomes. They're from E. coli bacteria, but they work in similar ways throughout nature. Ribosomes move along messenger RNA and interpret its genetic code into directions on how to stitch amino acids into proteins.

But sometimes ribosomes want to move backward, which isn't good when you're in the protein-making business. That's where that yellow-red-green squiggle wedged between the two ribosome halves comes in. It's elongation factor G. It acts like a ratchet and prevents the ribosome from slipping backward. It also pushes the ribosome forward when it's sluggish.

Scientists knew that elongation factor G performs these jobs, but they didn't know how. Now, with an atomic-scale structure in hand, they can study the chemical and molecular forces involved in this ratcheting process. Cate and Pulk found that the ratchet controls the ribosome's motion by stiffening and relaxing over and over. This is the kind of insight that could lead to new ways to monkey-wrench the ribosome.

"To create better antibiotics, we need to learn how bacterial ribosomes work at the smallest scales, and this is a big step in that direction," says Cate.

The National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute supported the research. The U.S. Department of Energy provides support for the Advanced Light Source, where this research was conducted.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/zlOztV3J4SM/130628103149.htm

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The Daily Roundup for 06.27.2013

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

DNP The Daily RoundUp

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/27/the-daily-roundup-for-06-27-2013/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Report: Google Is Developing A Game Console - News - www ...

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the tech giant Google is creating an Android-powered game console, and a wristwatch device that will connect with your Android phone.

According to the Wall Street Journal's Amir Efrati, his sources have revealed that Google "The Internet giant hopes to design and market the devices itself and release at least one of them this fall."

The report states that Google has been influenced to make the move partially in anticipation of Apple adding a considerable gaming element to the next generation of its Apple TV device, as well as the excitement over the Android-powered, Kickstarter-funded Ouya console which recently released.

The wristwatch product would likely connect with your phone via Bluetooth signal, and display information and interact with an Android phone.

The company is also planning on releasing a new version of its Android operating system this fall.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

Source: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/06/27/report-google-is-developing-a-game-console.aspx

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Born This Way?

130626_SCI_GayBirthOrder

Illustration by Charlie Powell

?Baby, you were born this way.? As soon as Lady Gaga sang these words on her smash hit "Born This Way," they became a rallying cry for gay people around the world, an anthem for sexual minorities facing discrimination. The shiny, catchy song carries an empowering (if simple) message: Don?t be ashamed about being gay, or bi, or trans, or anything?that?s just how you were born. Gaga later named her anti-bullying charity after the same truism, and two filmmakers borrowed it for their documentary exposing homophobia in Africa. A popular "Born This Way" blog encourages users to submit reflections on ?their innate LGBTQ selves.? Need a quick, pithy riposte against anti-gay bigotry? Baby, we were born this way.

But were we? That?s the foundational question behind the gay rights movement?and its opponents. If gay people were truly born that way, the old canard of homosexuality as a ?lifestyle choice? (or ?sexual preference?) is immediately disproven. But if gay people weren?t born that way, if scientists were unable to find any biological basis for sexual orientation, then the Family Research Council crowd could claim vindication in its fight to label homosexuality unnatural, harmful, and against nature.

In recent years, scientists have proposed various speculative biological bases for homosexuality but never settled on an answer. As researchers draw closer to uncovering an explanation, however, a new question has arisen: What if in some cases sexuality is caused by an identifiable chemical process in the womb? What if, in other words, homosexuality can potentially be prevented? That is one implication of one of the most widely accepted hypotheses thus far proposed. And if it?s true, it could turn out to be a blow for the gay rights movement.

Some of the strongest current evidence that some people are born gay is based on a phenomenon called the fraternal birth order effect. Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that men with older biological brothers are likelier to be gay than men with older sisters or no older siblings. The likelihood of being gay increases by about 33 percent with each additional older brother. From these statistics, researchers calculate that about 15 to 30 percent of gay men have the fraternal birth order effect to thank for their homosexuality.

The fraternal birth order effect is a little perverse. It means that a disproportionate number of gay men are born into disproportionately homophobic households. Couples with large numbers of children tend to be religious and belong to denominations that are conservative and more homophobic. Consider the numbers: 1 percent of Unitarians have four or more children, while 3 percent of evangelical Protestants, 4 percent of Catholics, 6 percent of Muslims, and 9 percent of Mormons have families that large. At the same time, 64 percent of Evangelicals, 30 percent of Catholics, 61 percent of Muslims, and 68 percent of Mormons believe homosexuality should be ?discouraged by society.? (Compare that with 15 percent of Jews.) Big families that disapprove of gay people are likely to have gay people in their own clan.

Perhaps these families would be more accepting if the specific biological basis for the birth order effect were elucidated. We know the effect is biological rather than social?it?s entirely absent in men whose older brothers were adopted?but scientists haven?t been able to prove much else. One of the leading explanations is called the maternal immunization hypothesis. According to Ray Blanchard of the University of Toronto, when a woman is pregnant with a male fetus, her body is exposed to a male-specific antigen, some molecule that normally turns the fetus heterosexual. The woman?s immune system produces antibodies to fight this foreign antigen. With enough antibodies, the antigen will be neutralized and no longer capable of making the fetus straight. These antibodies linger in the mother?s body long after pregnancy, and so when a woman has a second son, or a third or fourth, an army of antibodies is lying in wait to zap the chemicals that would normally make him heterosexual.

Or so Blanchard speculates. Although the hypothesis sounds reasonable enough, it?s premised on a number of assumptions that haven?t been proven. For instance, no one has shown that there is a particular antigen that controls sexual orientation, let alone one designed to make men straight. And if that antigen does exist, does it control orientation only? Blanchard refers to its antibody attackers as ?anti-male,? implying that the antigen controls for various aspects of masculinity. But when I asked him about this, he was noncommittal. Moreover, the hypothesis proposes a loose, two-way flow of antigens and antibodies between the fetus (whose antigens spread to the mother) and the mother (whose antibodies spread to the fetus). But this exchange has never been observed?and the antibodies and antigens in question are hypothetical, anyway. If they do exist, there?s no assurance that they perform this placental pirouette.

There?s a problem with this explanation. Even though the gay rights movement theoretically wants proof that homosexuality is inborn, this particular hypothesis is, unintentionally, a little insulting. ?The scientists behind the [maternal immunization] hypothesis talk about it as if they?re not making judgments, but there are implicit judgments,? says Jack Drescher, former chair of the American Psychiatric Association?s Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues. Drescher points out, correctly, that the hypothesis is fundamentally one of pathology. If Blanchard is right, then (at least some) gay people are indeed born gay, but there?s still something wrong with them. The hypothesis turns homosexuality into a birth defect, an aberration: Gay people are deviants from the normative mode of heterosexuality. We may have been born this way, the hypothesis implies, but that?s not how it was supposed to happen.

Drescher is skeptical that scientists will ever uncover a single biological basis for homosexuality?he suspects the root causes are more varied and complex?and suggests that it?s the wrong question to ask in the first place. But the hunt will go on. The gay rights movement, like the black civil rights movement before it, begins with the proposition that we should not discriminate against people because of who they are or how they were born. That?s a belief most Americans share, and it explains the success of the ?born this way? anthem. If homosexuality is truly biological, discrimination against gay people is bigotry, plain and simple. But if it?s a birth defect, as Blanchard?s work tacitly suggests, then being gay is something that can?and presumably should?be fixed.

That?s a toxic view, and one that must be abandoned. We might not yet understand the exact biological mechanisms underlying sexual orientation, but we will one day soon. And if, at that point, homosexuality is seen as a disorder, the next step will be a search for a cure. That would be a tragedy?for society and for science. There?s nothing wrong with being gay: You know it; I know it; the Supreme Court knows it. But so long as large swaths of the country believe otherwise?places where homophobic families still ostracize their gay sons and brothers?any research into its biological origins is fraught with peril for the cause of gay rights.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/biological_basis_for_homosexuality_the_fraternal_birth_order_explanation.html

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Friday, 28 June 2013

Boston bombing suspect indicted

Dzokhar Tsarnaev was indicted on 30 charges related to the Boston Marathon bombings. (FBI via Getty Images)

Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly left a written confession in a boat where he was captured by law enforcement officials in April, writing, ?I don?t like killing innocent people,? but suggesting it was ?allowed? because of U.S. actions abroad.

?The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians. I can?t stand to see such evil go unpunished. We Muslims are one body, you hurt one, you hurt us all,? Tsarnaev allegedly wrote. ?Stop killing our innocent people, we will stop.?

The details were revealed in a 30-count indictment by a federal grand jury Thursday that charges Tsarnaev, 19, with using weapons of mass destruction in the April 15 bombings and killing four people.

Authorities say Tsnarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, planted two pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon?s finish line. The bombs, which were detonated within seconds of each other, killed three people and injured more then 260. The indictment says the bombs were constructed in a manner "designed to shred flesh, shatter bone and cause extreme pain and suffering, as well as death."

Tsarnaev was also indicted in the April 18 death of MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was shot while Tsarnaev and his brother were on the run from police. According to the indictment, the brothers were heavily armed while attempting to escape, having in their possession five IEDs, a handgun, ammunition, a machete and a hunting knife.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed following a shootout with police on April 19 in Watertown, Mass., outside of Boston. The indictment offered new details on his death, saying it came after the brothers were trying to "shoot, bomb, kill or disable" police officers trying to apprehend them. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was tackled by three police officers when his younger brother ran back to a Mercedes they had stolen earlier and "drove it directly at the three officers." One of the officers tried to "drag" the older brother out of the way, but the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over him "seriously injuring him and contributing to his death."

Tsarnaev was captured later that day, hiding in a boat parked in a nearby backyard. He's currently being held in a federal prison outside Boston.

According to the indictment, Tsarnaev downloaded several pieces of extremist Islamic propaganda from the Internet prior to the bombings, including a book that warned Muslims not to give allegiance to governments who invade foreign lands. The book featured a forward from Anwar Al-Awalaki, an American-born Muslim cleric who became a senior operative in al-Qaida and was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston, 17 of the charges against Tsarnaev could bring the death penalty or life in prison. He's scheduled to be arraigned on July 10 at the U.S. District Court in Boston.

Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/boston-marathon-bombing-suspect-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-indicted-185408539.html

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Playing First-Person Pac-Man In Your Browser Is Great But Terrifying

Playing First-Person Pac-Man In Your Browser Is Great But Terrifying

I?ve never really thought of Pac-Man as a horror game. Innocently chomping away, dodging ghosts from a top-down view is pretty tame. But taken from a first-person view, where you simply don?t know what?s around the next corner, it's a whole new horrifying game.

Read more...

    


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9Mdmzw9JRRY/playing-first-person-pac-man-in-your-browser-is-great-b-584232803

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Thursday, 27 June 2013

Snowden still at airport, Ecuador asylum decision could take months

By Alessandra Prentice and Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A former U.S. spy agency contractor facing charges of espionage remained in hiding at a Moscow airport on Wednesday while the prospect grew of a protracted wrangle over his fate.

Ecuador, where Edward Snowden has requested asylum, said a decision could take months and asked Washington to argue its case for extradition. Russia said Snowden, whose flight is proving a growing embarrassment for President Barack Obama, was still in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport.

A leading U.S. senator sought to raise pressure on Ecuador by saying he would seek to end preferential access for its goods to the United States if it gave asylum to Snowden, while Quito denied it had given him any travel document.

Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong this month after leaking details of secret U.S. government surveillance programs, then flew on to Moscow on Sunday.

He has not been seen in the transit area - the zone between the departure gate and formal entry into the country - since his arrival, although a receptionist at a hotel in the transit zone said he looked at the prices there on Sunday, then left.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that Snowden was being interviewed by Russian intelligence and called any U.S. accusations that Moscow was aiding him "ravings and rubbish".

There was no sign of Snowden registering for onward flights out of Russia on Wednesday.

"They are not flying today and not over the next three days," an Aeroflot representative at Sheremetyevo said when asked if Snowden and his legal adviser, Briton Sarah Harrison, were due to fly out. "They are not in the system."

'SERIOUS SECURITY BREACH'

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Wednesday that Snowden's leaks to news media had been a "serious security breach" that damaged U.S. national security. He repeated calls for Moscow to hand him over.

"I would hope that the Russians do the right thing here," Hagel told a Pentagon news conference, adding that Moscow evidently had not made a final decision since Snowden reportedly was still at the airport.

Putin has said he will not extradite Snowden. By declaring that he is in the transit area, Russian authorities maintain the position that he has not formally entered Russia - a step that would take the dispute to another level.

Russian law requires travelers who spend more than 24 hours in the airport's transit area - as Snowden has done - to obtain a transit visa, which in some cases is valid for three days.

It is unclear whether Snowden has sought or received a visa, and if so when it would expire. The United States said on Sunday it had revoked Snowden's passport.

Several people, mainly refugees, have been able to stay in Moscow's airports for months.

What is clear is that the longer the situation remains unresolved, the more it could fray U.S.-Russian ties.

The former Cold War-foes are already at odds over human rights and Putin's treatment of opponents and have squared off over the Syria conflict in the U.N. Security Council.

Hagel reiterated criticism of China over Snowden's departure from Hong Kong. "We're very disappointed in the Chinese government in how they've handled this. And it could have been handled a different way," he said.

The United States has no extradition treaty with Moscow, but says there is a clear legal basis for Snowden to be handed over. White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday that U.S. and Russian officials were "having conversations" on the issue, but declined to give details.

Carney told reporters Washington could understand that Snowden's decision to go to Moscow "creates issues the Russian government has to consider."

"We also believe that when it comes to Mr. Snowden, well, we agree with President Putin that we don't want the situation to harm our relations," Carney said while travelling with Obama to Africa.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated Putin's view that Snowden should choose a destination and fly out as soon as possible, state-run Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Putin, a former KGB officer, may feel little sympathy for someone who has broken the secrecy code. He has suggested the surveillance methods revealed by Snowden were justified in fighting terror, if carried out lawfully.

RUSSIA APPEARS IN NO HURRY

But Snowden could be a useful propaganda tool for Moscow, which accuses the United States of violating rights and freedoms it vocally urges other countries, including Russia, to protect.

Despite Putin and Lavrov's remarks, Moscow is clearly not in a hurry to dispatch Snowden from its territory. Ecuador, which has not in the past flinched from taking on Western powers, is similarly not rushing to banish the uncertainty plaguing U.S. authorities.

On Wednesday, Robert Menendez, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that accepting Snowden "would severely jeopardize" preferential trade access the United States provides to Ecuador under two programs currently up for renewal.

"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," he said, while also calling on Russia to stop sheltering Snowden.

Ecuador exported $5.4 billion of oil, $166 million of cut flowers, $122 million of fruit and vegetables and $80 million of tuna to the United States under one of the trade programs.

While Ecuador could find other markets for its oil, ending the benefits could badly hurt the cut flower industry, which employs more than 100,000 workers, many of them women.

The logical route for Snowden to take out of Moscow - and one for which he at one point had a reservation - would be an Aeroflot flight to Havana and a connecting flight to Ecuador.

But Ecuador's foreign minister indicated a decision on Snowden's asylum request could take two months.

"It took us two months to make a decision on Assange so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time," Foreign Minister Richard Patino said in Kuala Lumpur, referring to the founder of anti-secrecy group Wikileaks, Julian Assange.

He added that Ecuador would consider giving Snowden protection before that if he went to Ecuador's embassy - but Russian officials say Snowden does not have a visa to enter Russia.

Ecuador's acting foreign minister, standing in for Patino in Quito, was quoted by local media as saying on Wednesday that Ecuador had not given a temporary travel document to Snowden, contradicting Assange, who is holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Assange told reporters on Monday that Ecuador had supplied Snowden with a "refugee document of passage".

"That's not true. There is no passport, no document that has been given (to Snowden) by any Ecuadorean consulate," the acting minister, Galo Galarza, said in comments posted on the website of Ecuador's Teleamazonas, a private television station.

Snowden, who worked as a systems administrator at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, was the source of disclosures about U.S. government surveillance that included details about a program that collected emails, chat logs and other types of data from companies such as Google Inc, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc.

He has divided opinion in the United States, where many have been outraged by the extent of government snooping.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed that Americans were still more likely to view Snowden as a "patriot" rather than a "traitor," but also that public support for him had fallen during the past week.

More than a quarter of respondents said Snowden should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, up 3 percentage points from a week earlier. Just over one-third said he should not be prosecuted, down from a peak of more than 40 percent last week.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Siva Sithraputhran in Kuala Lumpur, and Phil Stewart, Patricia Zengerle, Gabriel Debenedetti and Doug Palmer in Washington, and Brian Ellsworth in Quito; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-still-airport-ecuador-asylum-decision-may-weeks-153553312.html

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Maingear launches liquid-cooled Epic series with 4th-gen Intel Core-i7 CPUs

Maingear launches liquidcooled Epic 4thgen Intel series for the performanceminded

Liquid-cooled rigs are de rigeur for serious PC gamers, but Maingear knows there are plenty who'd rather crowbar headcrabs than fiddle with plumbing. To that end, the company's just buttressed its water-chilled desktop lineup with the Epic Series, consisting of the full-tower Force and mid-sized Rush models. Each pack a "BiTurbo" pump design that keeps things cool in the event of a single pump failure, along with the latest Intel 4th-generation Core i7 or AMD FX processors. As for graphics, you'll get four-way SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan or Radeon HD 7970 GPUs if you opt for the Force model or two-way GeForce GTX Titan SLI or dual Radeon HD 7990 graphics with the Rush. There are also numerous memory, storage and static pressure fans using Corsair parts, and custom touches like lighting and Glasurit paint with an "automotive finish." There's no word yet on cost or availability, but that kind of detailing and overclocking power generally comes with a commensurate price -- if that doesn't phase you, check the source for more.

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Source: Maingear

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/26/maingear-launches-liquid-cooled-epic-series/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Lost in time hospital

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Lost in time hospital

A dark wizard found immortality to be lonely, so he took others and froze them in time in his lost in time mental hospital.

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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Lost in time hospital?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/1fDh8rHacYQ/viewtopic.php

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Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Next-gen Kinect for Windows opens dev kit applications, costs $400

Microsoft's new version of Kinect for Xbox One is also headed to the world of PCs, like its previous incarnation. The new Kinect for Windows sensor won't be available publicly until some point in 2014, but developers can apply for an early, $400 development kit starting right now (due before July 31st at 9AM PT), Microsoft announced today. In that $400, developers (if accepted) will get early SDK access, a pre-release "alpha" version of the device, a final retail version (at launch), and private access to both APIs and the Kinect for Windows engineering team (in private forums and webcasts). Should you get in, you'll find out more come this August.

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Source: Microsoft

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/26/next-gen-kinect-for-windows-sdk/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Billion-pixel view of Mars comes from Curiosity rover

June 24, 2013 ? A billion-pixel view from the surface of Mars, from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, offers armchair explorers a way to examine one part of the Red Planet in great detail.

The first NASA-produced view from the surface of Mars larger than one billion pixels stitches together nearly 900 exposures taken by cameras onboard Curiosity and shows details of the landscape along the rover's route.

The 1.3-billion-pixel image is available for perusal with pan and zoom tools at: http://mars.nasa.gov/bp1/ and a scaled down version (~159MB) is available for direct download here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16919 .

The full-circle scene surrounds the site where Curiosity collected its first scoops of dusty sand at a windblown patch called "Rocknest," and extends to Mount Sharp on the horizon.

"It gives a sense of place and really shows off the cameras' capabilities," said Bob Deen of the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "You can see the context and also zoom in to see very fine details."

Deen assembled the product using 850 frames from the telephoto camera of Curiosity's Mast Camera instrument, supplemented with 21 frames from the Mastcam's wider-angle camera and 25 black-and-white frames -- mostly of the rover itself -- from the Navigation Camera. The images were taken on several different Mars days between Oct. 5 and Nov. 16, 2012. Raw single-frame images received from Curiosity are promptly posted on a public website at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/ . Mars fans worldwide have used those images to assemble mosaic views, including at least one gigapixel scene.

The new mosaic from NASA shows illumination effects from variations in the time of day for pieces of the mosaic. It also shows variations in the clarity of the atmosphere due to variable dustiness during the month while the images were acquired.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity and the rover's 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Curiosity's Mastcam. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington and built the Navigation Camera and the rover.

More information about the mission is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

For more information about the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory, see: http://www-mipl.jpl.nasa.gov/mipex.html .

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/OHTcgAapQbM/130624135250.htm

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Tuesday, 25 June 2013

WikiLeaks: Snowden going to Ecuador

MOSCOW (AP) ? Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs, flew to Russia on Sunday and planned to head to Ecuador to seek asylum, the South American country's foreign minister and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said.

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government has received a request for asylum from Snowden. WikiLeaks, which is giving Snowden legal assistance, said his asylum request would be formally processed once he arrived in Ecuador, the same country that has already been sheltering the anti-secrecy group's founder Julian Assange in its London embassy.

Snowden arrived in Moscow on an Aeroflot flight shortly after 5 p.m. (1300gmt) Sunday after being allowed to leave Hong Kong, where he had been in hiding for several weeks after he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs.

Snowden was spending the night in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and was booked on an Aeroflot flight to Cuba on Monday, the Russian news agencies ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported, citing unnamed airline officials. Aeroflot has no direct flights from Moscow to Quito, Ecuador; travelers would have to make connections in Paris, Rome or Washington, which could be problematic for Snowden.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, the WikiLeaks spokesman, told Britain's Sky News that Snowden would be meeting with diplomats from Ecuador in Moscow. WikiLeaks said he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from the group.

The car of Ecuador's ambassador to Russia was parked outside the airport in the evening.

Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that WikiLeaks is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.

A U.S. official in Washington said Snowden's passport was annulled before he left Hong Kong, which could complicate but not thwart his travel plans. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to discuss the matter, said that if a senior official in a country or airline ordered it, a country could overlook the withdrawn passport.

While Patino did not say if the asylum request would be accepted, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has shown repeated willingness to irk the U.S. government and he has emerged as one of the leaders of Latin America's leftist bloc, along with Fidel and Raul Castro of Cuba and Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez.

Both the United States and Britain protested his decision to grant asylum to Assange.

Critics have suggested that asylum for Assange might be aimed partly at blunting international criticism of Correa's own tough stance on critics and new restrictions imposed on the news media.

The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on Sunday's developments by his national security advisers.

Snowden's departure came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in America.

The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."

The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."

It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."

The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.

Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden go on a technicality appears to be a pragmatic move aimed at avoiding a drawn out extradition battle. The action swiftly eliminates a geopolitical headache that could have left Hong Kong facing pressure from both Washington and Beijing.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, has a high degree of autonomy and is granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China, but under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs. Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.

Russian officials have given no indication that they have any interest in detaining Snowden or any grounds to do so. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia would be willing to consider granting asylum if Snowden were to make such a request. Russia and the United States have no extradition treaty that would oblige Russia to hand over a U.S. citizen at Washington's request.

The Cuban government had no comment on Snowden's movements or reports he might use Havana as a transit point.

Snowden's latest travels came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from the former NSA contractor that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.

He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.

With a population of more than 1.3 billion, China has massive cellphone companies. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile network carrier with 735 million subscribers, followed by China Unicom with 258 million users and China Telecom with 172 million users.

Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the reports of Snowden's departure from Hong Kong to Moscow but did not know the specifics. It said the Chinese central government "always respects" Hong Kong's "handling of affairs in accordance with law." The Foreign Ministry also noted that it is "gravely concerned about the recently disclosed cyberattacks by relevant U.S. government agencies against China."

China's state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.

A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."

"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."

____

Hui reported from London. Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Paul Haven in Havana, Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, and Matthew Lee, Anne Flaherty and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-snowden-going-ecuador-seek-asylum-170935684.html

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Google Launches Cloud Playground, A Browser-Based Environment For Trying Its Cloud Platform

google-developers-LogoGoogle's Cloud Platform is slowly becoming ay fully featured environment for running complex web apps, but it's not easy to just give it a quick try. To get started with Cloud Platform, after all, you have to first install the right SDK and other tools on your local machine. Today, however, Google is launching its browser-based Cloud Playground, which is meant to give developers a chance to try some sample code and see how actual production APIs will behave, or to just share some code with colleagues without them having to install your whole development environment.

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

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New round of thunderstorms threatens Midwest

By Brendan O'Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - A fresh batch of damaging storms is expected to sweep through the Midwest on Monday afternoon and evening, potentially dampening efforts to restore power to thousands of households in the region.

The National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for portions of south-central and southeastern Iowa, northwestern Illinois and northern Missouri through Monday evening.

The thunderstorms could pack 80 mph winds, large hail and possibly a few tornadoes, the service said.

Parts of central and eastern Iowa, northern Illinois, southeastern Minnesota, southern Indiana and northern Kentucky were also under flash flood and flood warnings on Monday, according to the weather service.

The severe weather could pose problems for Xcel Energy Inc workers in Minnesota who are attempting to restore power to 54,000 households, about 48,000 of which are in the Twin Cities area.

According to the power company, up to 614,000 customers have experienced power outages since early Friday morning after an initial round of storms rolled through, downing trees, damaging power lines and flooding streets throughout southern Minnesota.

Power is expected to be fully restored by early Wednesday, according to Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Hoen.

A severe storm moved through the Omaha, Nebraska, metro area on Monday morning, bringing with it strong winds. More than 43,000 Omaha Public Power District customers were without power Monday afternoon because of that storm.

In western Iowa, 6,400 customers were without power, according to MidAmerican Energy. Weather spotters in Council Bluffs, a suburb of Omaha, reported 60 mph wind gusts that brought down trees and power lines.

(Reporting By Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, David Bailey in Minneapolis and Katie Knapp Schubert in Omaha; editing by Jim Marshall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/round-thunderstorms-threatens-midwest-191615942.html

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Sunday, 23 June 2013

Idea

Hey there! Star here. I have this idea for a one on one Roleplay about a Serial killer and a journalist. I've done something like this before, and it unfortunately died off when there was still so much to do. I would love to find someone interesting in doing a darker roleplay like this me.
If anyone is interested, go ahead and leave a message or shoot me a PM.
~Star

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/Ai9lhp2SVZM/viewtopic.php

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98% Before Midnight

All Critics (140) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (136) | Rotten (3)

Hawke and Delpy remain as charming as ever, and their combined goofiness is more endearing than annoying.

Love is messy here, life cannot be controlled, satisfaction is far from guaranteed. Romance is rocky at best. But romance still is.

Though "Before Midnight" is often uncomfortable to watch, it's never less than mesmerizing - and ultimately, a joy to walk with this prickly but fascinating couple again.

"Before Midnight" is heartbreaking, but not because of Jesse and Celine. It's the filmmakers' passions that seem to have cooled.

Before Midnight is fascinating to watch, and so long as Celine and Jesse are communicating, there's still hope.

How (Jesse and Celine) try to rekindle that flame is what drives Midnight, a film that feels so authentic it's like overhearing a conversation you're not sure you should be hearing.

The acting, the dialogue and direction are superb.

None of the films is faultless in itself, but, tinted with complementary tones, the complete cycle comes as close to perfection as any trilogy in cinema history.

Marvelous. It's impossible to shake the feeling that we are merely eavesdropping on reality. Witty, wise, and -- most important of all -- truly romantic in ways that movies usually aren't.

It's been 18 years since Hawke, Delpy and Linklater introduced us to Jesse and Celine, and their story just gets richer, funnier and more punchy each time we see them. In 1995's Before Sunrise, they were idealistic 23-year-olds.

Hawke and Delpy are as believably real as any screen couple can ever be.

This is one of the few sequels for which the cliche 'eagerly awaited' is truly applicable.

Predictably, it's just as great as the first two.

By the end, Before Midnight inches towards a dawn of charm. But it's a troubled trip.

As an organic experiment in collaboration between actors and director, it is a triumph, co-created and co-owned by Delpy, Linklater and Hawke.

Hawke and Delpy, who are both credited on the script too, have never found co-stars to bounce off more nimbly or bring out richer nuances in their acting.

The performances and dialogue are wonderfully naturalistic; a reminder that the best special effects are often the cheapest.

Before Midnight is about the nature of long-term relationships, and the way love deepens and grows but also finds itself subject to the complications of maturity. Smart, insightful, and poignant.

For those who witnessed Jesse and Celine's tentative getting together as inter railing students almost twenty years ago, it's reassuring to see them still in love.

Brilliantly directed, superbly written and impeccably acted, this is a thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking and emotionally engaging drama that perfectly complements the previous two films.

It remains as engaging, illuminating, honest and funny as its predecessor; here's hoping we revisit Jesse and C?line in another decade or so.

Nine-year gaps between films would sink a studio franchise, but the unforgiving impact of time and the slipperiness of its mysterious mental record, memory, are the very subjects of 'Before Midnight.'

Contains more shrewd and candid insights than many Hollywood midlife crisis dramas.

A couple persistently digging at each other might have been insufferable to watch except that Hawke and Delpy manage to be goofy, funny, witty and charming, even while they're fighting.

A bit tarter than its predecessors, but not skimping on their woozy, chatty charm, this perfectly played, gently incisive film is a welcome new chapter in one of cinema's most beguiling ongoing romances.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_midnight_2013/

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Saturday, 22 June 2013

A bit of good luck: A new species of burying beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago

A bit of good luck: A new species of burying beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 21-Jun-2013
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Contact: Derek S. Sikes
dssikes@alaska.edu
907-474-6278
Pensoft Publishers

Scientists discovered a new species of burying beetle, Nicrophorus efferens. Burying beetles are well known to most naturalists because of their large size, striking black and red colors, and interesting reproductive behaviors - they bury small vertebrate carcasses which their offspring eat in an underground crypt, guarded by both parents. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

This new species, known from only 6 specimens collected in 1968, sat unrecognized as an undescribed species for over 40 years. "It was a bit of good luck that led to our realization these specimens belonged to an undescribed species. My student, Tonya, was visiting Hawaii for some R&R and decided to look over the burying beetles held by the Bishop Museum. Her PhD research was focused on the biogeography and evolution of a subgroup of these beetles and she identified these six specimens as very interesting and possibly new. The discovery of new species in old collections is a common occurrence and one of the many reasons why museums like the Bishop play a vital role in helping us understand life on this planet.", commented Dr. Sikes, University of Alaska Museum.

The second author, Tonya Mousseau, added, "Without my background and training in the taxonomy of beetles, particularly the burying beetles, this new species might never have been uncovered. This really reinforces the idea that classic training in taxonomy and systematics is absolutely necessary to discovering and understanding the biodiversity of earth."

As far as the authors of this new species know, no one has seen this species alive. "It's likely they bury small vertebrate carcasses, like their close relatives do, but if they have any different behaviors we'll have to wait for future studies to learn of them. "

###

The data underpinning the analyses reported in this paper are deposited at GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility: http://ipt.pensoft.net/ipt/resource.do?r=type_specimen_data_for_new_species_nicrophorus_efferens

Original Source:

Sikes DS, Mousseau T (2013) Description of Nicrophorus efferens, new species, from Bougainville Island (Coleoptera, Silphidae, Nicrophorinae). ZooKeys 83, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.311.5141


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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.


A bit of good luck: A new species of burying beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 21-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Derek S. Sikes
dssikes@alaska.edu
907-474-6278
Pensoft Publishers

Scientists discovered a new species of burying beetle, Nicrophorus efferens. Burying beetles are well known to most naturalists because of their large size, striking black and red colors, and interesting reproductive behaviors - they bury small vertebrate carcasses which their offspring eat in an underground crypt, guarded by both parents. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

This new species, known from only 6 specimens collected in 1968, sat unrecognized as an undescribed species for over 40 years. "It was a bit of good luck that led to our realization these specimens belonged to an undescribed species. My student, Tonya, was visiting Hawaii for some R&R and decided to look over the burying beetles held by the Bishop Museum. Her PhD research was focused on the biogeography and evolution of a subgroup of these beetles and she identified these six specimens as very interesting and possibly new. The discovery of new species in old collections is a common occurrence and one of the many reasons why museums like the Bishop play a vital role in helping us understand life on this planet.", commented Dr. Sikes, University of Alaska Museum.

The second author, Tonya Mousseau, added, "Without my background and training in the taxonomy of beetles, particularly the burying beetles, this new species might never have been uncovered. This really reinforces the idea that classic training in taxonomy and systematics is absolutely necessary to discovering and understanding the biodiversity of earth."

As far as the authors of this new species know, no one has seen this species alive. "It's likely they bury small vertebrate carcasses, like their close relatives do, but if they have any different behaviors we'll have to wait for future studies to learn of them. "

###

The data underpinning the analyses reported in this paper are deposited at GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility: http://ipt.pensoft.net/ipt/resource.do?r=type_specimen_data_for_new_species_nicrophorus_efferens

Original Source:

Sikes DS, Mousseau T (2013) Description of Nicrophorus efferens, new species, from Bougainville Island (Coleoptera, Silphidae, Nicrophorinae). ZooKeys 83, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.311.5141


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2013-06/pp-abo062113.php

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