General blog about anything and everything of everyday’s life.
by Guest Post on February 10th, 2012
*UD art professor creates sculptures from baking flour, aluminum*
There’s a quality to David Meyer’s art that’s both conceptual and ephemeral, sort of like watching the clouds roll by.
You see with your mind, not your eyes. And even then, as with clouds, shapes move. Things change.
There’s art in distortion.
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by Guest Post on February 10th, 2012
*Study implicates “arms race” between genes and germs*
Biologists have found new evidence of why mice, people and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of varieties of genes to make immune-system proteins named MHCs–even though some of those genes make vertebrate animals susceptible to infections and to autoimmune diseases.
“Major histocompatibility complex” (MHC) proteins are found on the surfaces of most cells in vertebrate animals. They distinguish proteins like themselves from foreign proteins, and trigger an immune response against these foreign invaders.
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by Guest Post on February 9th, 2012
*Report Offers Insights on Key Trends from 2011 and What They Mean for the Coming Year*
RESTON, VA, February 9, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the 2012 U.S. Digital 
Future in Focus report. This annual report examines how the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce are defining the current marketplace and what these trends mean for the year ahead.
“2012 promises to be an exciting year for the digital media industry as the explosion of available content and proliferation of web-enabled devices drive the evolution of the digital consumer, creating new opportunities and challenges for the entire digital ecosystem,” said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. “In order to be successful in this new paradigm, digital marketers must understand the key trends shaping the current marketplace and what that means for the future of their businesses.”
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by Guest Post on February 9th, 2012
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Immigrants to Maryland contribute significantly to the state’s economy, and were vital to its workforce expansion in both technical and less-skilled occupations from 2000 to 2010, concludes a new report by a Maryland commission. During this period, immigrants mostly complemented rather than competed with U.S.-born state residents for jobs, it adds.
The Commission to Study the Impact of Immigrants in Maryland, a state panel coordinated by the University of Maryland, evaluated the economic contributions of the state’s foreign-born and the cost of government services for them. It also studied the education experience of the children of immigrants, immigration law enforcement issues facing local communities, and the use of the federal E-Verify system to verify workers’ immigration status.
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by Guest Post on February 9th, 2012
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have, for the first time, described the genetic basis of endometriosis, a condition affecting millions of women that is marked by chronic pelvic pain and infertility. The researchers’ discovery of a new gene mutation provides hope for new screening methods.
Published in the Feb. 3 early online issue of EMBO Molecular Medicine, the study explored an inherited mutation located in part of the KRAS gene, which leads to abnormal endometrial growth and endometrial risk. In endometriosis, uterine tissue grows in other parts of the body, such as the abdominal cavity, ovaries, vagina, and cervix. The condition is often hereditary and is found in 5%-15% of women of reproductive age, affecting over 70 million women worldwide.
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by Guest Post on February 9th, 2012
What began as an assignment for an English course has now captured international attention. Senior Malcolm Burnley shares details about a little known piece of Brown history: a 1961 visit to campus by African American icon Malcolm X.
Brown senior Malcolm Burnley calls the experience “serendipitous.”
Enrolled in Elizabeth Taylor’s narrative writing course last semester, Burnley had an assignment: Write a historical narrative based on something that really happened. The students were instructed to use the University Archives at the John Hay Library.
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by Guest Post on February 9th, 2012
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on Jan. 29, 2012, that includes the first color image from orbit showing the three-petal lander of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit mission. Spirit drove off that lander platform in January 2004 and spent most of its six-year working life in a range of hills about two miles to the east.
Another recent image from HiRISE, taken on Jan. 26, 2012, shows NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander and its surroundings on far-northern Mars after that spacecraft’s second Martian arctic winter. Phoenix exceeded its planned mission life in 2008, ending its work as solar energy waned during approach of its first Mars winter.
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by Guest Post on February 8th, 2012
*Microsoft’s U.S.-based employees helped raise over US$100 million for thousands of nonprofits during the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign, the largest total in company history.*
REDMOND, Wash. – Microsoft employees raised a record-breaking US$100.5 million in 2011, topping last year’s total with donations to more than 18,000 community organizations across the United States and around the world.
Giving was up across the board in 2011—more employees participated, donating more time and money than ever before, which surprised some after 2010’s record year.
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by Guest Post on February 8th, 2012
AUSTIN, Texas — A systematic analysis of power usage in microprocessors could help lower the energy consumption of both small cellphones and giant data centers, report computer science professors from The University of Texas at Austin and the Australian National University.
Their results may point the way to how companies such as Google, Apple, Intel and Microsoft can make software and hardware that will lower the energy costs of very small and very large devices.
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by Guest Post on February 8th, 2012
*In “The Great Dying” 250 million years ago, the end came slowly*
The deadliest mass extinction of all took a long time to kill 90 percent of Earth’s marine life–and it killed in stages–according to a newly published report.
It shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events.
Thomas Algeo, a geologist at the University of Cincinnati, and 13 colleagues have produced a high-resolution look at the geology of a Permian-Triassic boundary section on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic.
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by Guest Post on February 8th, 2012
Researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a cell-permeable peptide that inhibits a hepatitis C virus protein and blocks the viral replication that can lead to liver cancer and cirrhosis.
The finding by Dr. Samuel French, a UCLA assistant professor of pathology and senior author of the research, builds on previous work by French’s laboratory that identified two cellular proteins that are important factors in hepatitis C virus infection.
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by Guest Post on February 8th, 2012
*Studies show importance of transparency in U.S. apparel production*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – As the interest in environmentally responsible business practices grows globally, researchers are interested in how that interest translates into consumer sales. Researchers from the University of Missouri have found that United States consumers are more willing to buy clothing made from sustainably grown U.S. cotton than apparel produced using conventional practices in an unknown location. Jung Ha-Brookshire, an assistant professor in the textile and apparel management department in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at MU, says transparency is the key.
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by Guest Post on February 7th, 2012
*The report reveals social technologies are helping families connect and enhance intergenerational relationships.*
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Feb. 7, 2012 — AARP and Microsoft Corp. today released “Connecting Generations,” a new research report that examines how people of all ages are using online communication and social networking to enhance their family relationships. The report reveals three key pieces of evidence showing that online communication is bridging the generation gap:
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by Guest Post on February 7th, 2012
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo! Inc., the premier digital media company, today released the following shareholder update from its Chairman Roy Bostock.
Dear Fellow Shareholders:
I write today to update you on the actions the Yahoo! board has taken, and the actions it is pursuing, to increase shareholder value and position the Company for growth. These actions result from a process I initiated about six months ago in a special meeting of the independent directors in which we analyzed the reasons why Yahoo! was not meeting either our own expectations or those of our shareholders.
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by Guest Post on February 7th, 2012
- 900,000 square foot facility uses advanced green design for maximum efficiency
- New IBM SmartCloud services allow Tulip to deliver Infrastructure, Storage and Platform-as-a-Service to customers
- Modular Data Center design and high reliability supports up to 100 megawatts of power
Bangalore, India – 07 Feb 2012: IBM today announced it has worked with Tulip Telecom Ltd. to design and help build the largest data center facility in India to deliver new cloud and networking services.
Tulip Telecom is a leading telecommunications network and data service provider, reaching more than 2,000 cities and towns throughout India. With the number of people using mobile devices to access the Internet increasing dramatically, IDC estimates that the amount of information managed by enterprises will grow 50 times over the next decade, and in the next two years alone the number of servers installed will increase by 49 percent over those installed today.
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by Guest Post on February 7th, 2012
A ladybird’s colour indicates how well-fed and how toxic it is, according to an international team of scientists.
Research led by the Universities of Exeter and Liverpool directly shows that differences between animals’ warning signals reveal how poisonous individuals are to predators.
Published in the journal Functional Ecology, the research shows that redder ladybirds are more poisonous than their paler peers. The study reveals that this variation is directly linked to diet in early life, with better-fed ladybirds being more visible and more deadly.
Ecologists have long assumed that there are no individual differences between the warning signals of animals of the same species. More recently, scientists have identified variation between individuals’ warning signals, but have not known if these differences were meaningful and linked to levels of toxicity.
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by Guest Post on February 7th, 2012
Many Americans overestimate the degree of polarization between Democrats and Republicans, and this misconception is associated with citizens’ voting behavior and their involvement in political activities, according to new findings from the University of Colorado Boulder.
“It is clear that Americans see themselves as very sharply polarized,” said Professor Leaf Van Boven, who led the research efforts. “And that the extent of perceived polarization dramatically overstates the actual degree of polarization.”
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by Guest Post on February 6th, 2012
*Studies of diving beetles suggest sperm evolution may be driven by changes in female reproductive organs, challenging the paradigm of post-mating sexual selection being driven mostly by competition among sperm.*
Studying female reproductive tracts and sperm in diving beetles (Dytiscidae), researchers from the University of Arizona and Syracuse University have obtained a glimpse into a bizarre and amazing world of sperm that can take on a variety of forms – including joining together into conglomerates that navigate the twisted mazes of the female reproductive tract.
Analyses of the evolutionary relationships among diving beetles reveal that sperm form appears to follow function dictated by female reproductive organs.
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