New mechanism discovered in meiosis: How modification of an enzyme governs critical processes in sexual reproduction

May 3, 2013 ? The Research Group headed by molecular biologist Andrea Pichler from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has made an important discovery in meiosis research. Pichler and her group have identified a new mechanism that plays an important role in meiosis.

Starting point of the research

Meiosis, also called reductional division, is a key process in sexual reproduction. It shuffles parental genetic material and thus guarantees genetic variety.

In order to control various biological processes, cells are able to selectively alter properties of their proteins, such as their lifespan, activity level, binding partners, or localization of the proteins. This is accomplished, for example, by attaching one or more Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) proteins. This takes place in three sequential enzyme-dependent steps. Scientists have assumed that the enzyme for step 2 was solely an intermediate.

The breakthrough

As the scientists in Freiburg have now discovered, the step-2 enzyme is itself modified by the SUMO protein and thereby alters how it functions. The surprising effect: the conventional activity of the enzyme is switched off by this change and instead, a new function gained. It works together with the activated, unaltered enzyme in the formation of SUMO chains. If this effect is blocked, there are serious consequences: the protein structure (synaptonemal complex) that forms between the homologous chromosomes can no longer be established.

The researchers' new insights

A tiny amount -- less than one percent -- of the SUMO-modified step-2 enzyme is sufficient to form a normal protein structure (left image). Researcher Helene Klug from Pichler's team: "The smallest amount of the altered enzyme together with the unmodified enzyme is sufficient to form an activated complex, which then carries out the meiosis specific SUMO modifications."

"In the beginning, the results of the biological and biochemical experiments were completely contradictory, although the data were absolutely sound. We were therefore convinced that both sets of observations were correct. Explaining this contradiction led us then to the new mechanism," according to Pichler, who heads the study. In extensive and complicated biochemical experiments, the researchers were additionally able to reveal, for the first time, how this enzyme complex carries out the formation of SUMO chains.

After fifty years of research on the synaptonemal complex, these new insights are setting a new course: "This is the first time we can study the loss of the synaptonemal complex with practically no secondary effects and we hope to unveil its secret. That allows us to investigate the consequences for meiosis and thus for development of the gametes," say Franz Klein and Martin Xaver, collaborators and meiosis researchers at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna.

Pichler and her team were already able to demonstrate in 2008 that self-tagging by the step-2 enzyme in mammalian cells has an influence on precisely which proteins are tagged with SUMO. In order to uncover the biological function for this form of regulation, the research team switched to baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), a simpler organism. "Now that we know where we need to search, we also want to switch back again to the mammalian system and investigate the role of this enzyme regulation more closely there," says Pichler. "In addition, we want to better understand the function of the discovered baker's yeast enzyme complex in the meiotic chromosomal structure."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Helene Klug, Martin Xaver, Viduth?K. Chaugule, Stefanie Koidl, Gerhard Mittler, Franz Klein, Andrea Pichler. Ubc9 Sumoylation Controls SUMO Chain Formation and Meiotic Synapsis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Molecular Cell, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2013.03.027

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/fEb4EcFpvFM/130503094133.htm

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YouTube says the battle with TV is already over

NEW YORK (AP) ? YouTube vs. TV? YouTube says the battle ? if there ever was one ? is over.

In a flashy presentation to advertisers Wednesday night, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt declined to forecast that Internet video will displace television watching. Instead he declared: "That's already happened."

Schmidt said "the future is now" for YouTube, which recently passed the milestone of 1 billion unique visitors every month. But, he added with the Third World in mind, if you think that's a large number, "wait until you get to 6 (billion) or 7 billion."

Schmidt and YouTube, which billed the event as a "brandcast," shifted away from the video platform's relationship to TV. A year ago, YouTube seemed to have its sights set on reinventing television by funding the launch of more than 100 channels from well-known media brands and Hollywood personalities.

But that initiative went unmentioned at Wednesday's presentation, held at a Lower East Side pier as part of a week of "NewFronts," (digital media's version of the TV tradition of promoting programming and selling ads). Though the model for the evening was TV, YouTube used it to distinguish itself as something entirely different.

"It's not a replacement for something that we know," said Schmidt. "It's a new thing that we have to think about, to program, to curate and build new platforms."

The presentation featured performances by Snoop Dogg and Macklemore, as well as YouTube personalities like Felicia Day. YouTube focused on its global reach, community engagement and enormous audience.

"I thought that YouTube was like TV, but it isn't. I was wrong," said Robert Kyncl, YouTube's global head of content. "TV is one-way. YouTube talks back."

Some comparisons were inevitable. One fact highly touted was that more 18- to 34-year-olds watch YouTube than any cable network.

"TV means reach," said Kyncl. "YouTube means engagement."

Though companies like Yahoo and AOL have used their NewFront presentations to announce new slates of original programming, YouTube made no programming announcements Wednesday night.

It did, though, announce a partnership with the Association of National Adverstisers' Alliance for Family Entertainment to create more digital family content.

YouTube also celebrated DreamWorks Animation's purchase Wednesday of the teen-focused YouTube network Awesomeness TV for $33 million. DreamWorks CEO Jeffery Katzenberg appeared with Awesomeness founder and CEO Brian Robbins, the former "Head of the Class" actor.

"This is a whole new form of content, content delivery and content consumption," said Katzenberg. "It's the medium of the future and the future has already arrived."

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-05-02-YouTube%20Brandcast/id-613bdc9a5e4c4680a5e069b59297a628

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NRA meets in Houston after gun control blocked in Congress

By Corrie MacLaggan

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of National Rifle Association members gather in Houston this weekend for the first time since the U.S. Senate rejected a plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, but NRA officials said attendees would not sit back to celebrate victory.

"We view it as an opening battle in what will be a multi-year war," said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, which lobbied against the proposal. "We're definitely not resting on our laurels."

Polls show more than 80 percent of Americans support expanded background checks, but the proposal to extend background checks for sales made online and at gun shows fell six votes shy on April 17 of the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Senate.

The proposal, which supporters have vowed to revive, is a key part of President Barack Obama's gun-control effort sparked by the school shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

The vote was a sign of the influence of the gun rights lobby, particularly the NRA, which spent $18.6 million in the 2012 campaign cycle, according to the Sunlight Foundation. The NRA has more than 4 million members.

The NRA gathering in America's fourth most populous city, which runs from Friday to Sunday, is billed as a celebration of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution setting out the right to bear arms.

On Thursday, as thousands of NRA delegates were arriving for the conference, a man sparked a panic at a busy Houston airport terminal when he pulled out a gun and shot at the ceiling, then either shot himself or was killed by a security officer who confronted him.

The NRA event is expected to draw some 70,000 attendees who can stroll 400,000 square feet (37,000 square meters) of displays to see the latest products from firearm manufacturers and hunting outfitters, check out wildlife art and shooting accessories, or sign up for hunting trips around the world.

There will also be a "Stand and Fight Rally" with political commentator Glenn Beck, a country music jam featuring the Eli Young Band, and remarks from gun-rights advocates, including former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

The event will also draw protesters who plan to demonstrate for more gun-control measures such as background checks.

AFTER NEWTOWN

Since last year's NRA annual meeting in St. Louis, a national debate about gun laws has been reignited by the December shooting at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were killed. States including Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland and New York have since passed gun-control laws, while Arkansas, Wyoming and South Dakota loosened gun restrictions.

"Almost from the moment of the tragedy in Newtown, it became apparent that the ensuing push for a wide variety of new anti-gun laws had a lot less to do with school safety than it did with a decades-long crusade to destroy the Second Amendment," NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre wrote in an opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle.

"NRA members exemplify everything that's good and right about America," he wrote.

On Wednesday, Perry, the Texas governor, celebrated the recent move to Texas from California of a company called Shield Tactical, which sells firearm-related gear and training services. Perry's office said the Republican governor had reached out to more than 30 firearms manufacturers in states that are considering curbing guns sales or manufacturing, urging them to move to Texas.

The NRA's opponents are also gearing up for the Houston event. The local chapter of a group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America plans to demonstrate in support of background-check legislation. Military veterans who disagree with NRA positions on guns plan an "Occupy the NRA" event.

"The NRA leadership actively worked to block background checks for gun sales, spreading lies about the Senate bill," Lauren Weiner, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group Americans United for Change, told reporters on Thursday. "The reality is that the majority of gun owners do, in fact, support these common-sense reforms."

An online Reuters/Ipsos poll released in January showed that 86 percent of Americans surveyed favored expanded background checks of all gun buyers. A CBS News/New York Times poll released on Wednesday showed 88 percent of Americans supported background checks for all gun buyers and that 59 percent were disappointed or angry about the recent Senate vote on gun legislation.

State Representative Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat whose district includes the convention center hosting the NRA meeting, will not be among the Texas politicians at the event.

"Clearly, the sales and promotion of firearms is big business," Coleman said. "This is business with politics as the cloak."

(Reporting By Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by David Gregorio, Edith Honan and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nra-meet-texas-gun-control-blocked-u-congress-002652906.html

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Reese Witherspoon Arrest Video Goes Viral!

Reese Witherspoon’s arrest video is nothing short of a hot mess. The normally composed, experienced actress is definitely out of sorts in the clip, and proves that she probably deserved a little trip downtown. Ever wish you had a magic wand so you could simply erase a night from history? I think Reese might give just about anything to take back the night she tried to pull the “do you know who I am” card. Simply embarrassing. Her husband was cuffed and basically patiently being arrested. All of a sudden Reese comes into the frame and starts to give the cop a piece of her mind. She keeps repeating hilarious lines. One of her favorite is “I’m an American citizen,” and she even mutter something about being on “American soil.” What makes it great is that the officer is obviously Southern, and probably gets a real kick out of getting to arrest someone who is so full of themselves — even if it was only in a drunken blur. Reese starts off WAY on the wrong foot, by basically telling the officer that she can “ask any question (she) wants to ask.” Let’s just say that’s the wrong attitude to [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/ifjs2ZVshY4/

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This Picture of Saturn's Moon, Enceladus, Is Simply Beautiful

This picture may be simple?monochromatic, a deep black background, and just a hunk fo rock to admire?but it's also stunningly beautiful.

You're looking at Enceladus, the sixth-largest of the moons of Saturn, as pictured by Cassini. Measuring 313 miles across, here's it illuminated by light reflected off Saturn. The simplicity of the picture is what makes it so charming: the deep black evokes a sense of endlessness that makes me realise just how much there is out there. Don't get lonely, Enceladus. [NASA]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-picture-of-saturns-moon-enceladus-is-simply-bea-488736429

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Increases in heart disease risk factors may decrease brain function

May 2, 2013 ? Brain function in adults as young as 35 may decline as their heart disease risk factors increase, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

"Young adults may think the consequences of smoking or being overweight are years down the road, but they aren't," said Hanneke Joosten, M.D., lead author and nephrology fellow at the University Medical Center in Groningen, The Netherlands.

"Most people know the negative effects of heart risk factors such as heart attack, stroke and renal impairment, but they do not realize it affects cognitive health. What's bad for the heart is also bad for the brain."

The Dutch study included 3,778 participants 35- to 82-years-old who underwent cognitive function tests that measure the ability to plan and reason and to initiate and switch tasks. A separate test gauged memory function. The Framingham Risk Score determined their risk for cardiovascular events in the next 10 years.

Researchers found:

• Participants with the most heart disease risks performed 50 percent worse on cognitive tests as compared to participants with the lowest risk profile.
• The overall Framingham Risk Score, age, diabetes, bad cholesterol and smoking were negatively linked to poor cognitive scores.
• Compared to non-smoking participants, those who smoked one to 15 cigarettes daily had a decrease in cognitive score of 2.41 points and those smoking more than 16 cigarettes daily had a decrease of 3.43 points. The memory scores had a similar association.
• Two risk factors -- smoking and diabetes -- were strong determinants of cognitive function.

"There clearly is a dose response among smokers, with heavy smokers having a lower cognitive function than light or non-smokers," Joosten said. "It is likely that smoking cessation has a beneficial effect on cognitive function."

Health professionals need to be aware of cognitive function in patients with risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular risk factors, especially those that are modifiable like smoking and obesity, need ongoing attention from the medical profession, government and food industry, she said. "Smoking cessation programs might not only prevent cancer, stroke and cardiovascular events, but also cognitive damage."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Heart Association.

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Journal Reference:

1. Hanneke Joosten, Marlise E.A. van Eersel, Ron T. Gansevoort, Henk J.G. Bilo, Joris P.J. Slaets, and Gerbrand J. Izaks. Cardiovascular Risk Profile and Cognitive Function in Young, Middle-Aged, and Elderly Subjects. Stroke, May 2 2013 DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.111.000496

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/heart_disease/~3/MliXYGXEeaE/130502185421.htm

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Secret 'Pocket Listings' Return in Hot Housing ... - AOL Real Estate

By Les Christie

The housing rebound has given new life to an old, but little-known sales practice called "pocket listings," where agents reserve homes for serious buyers only. Most homes that are put up for sale are posted on databases called multiple listing services, on which agents share information with one another in order to find buyers. There are open houses on Sunday afternoons and MLS listings posted on real estate websites.

But with pocket listings, properties are kept under wraps and brokers only show them to people they expect will put money down if the property and the price are right, said Richard Smith, CEO of Realogy, the parent company of Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Better Homes & Gardens and other real estate brokerages. Ideally, the buyer has deep pockets and is willing to pay in cash, fast.

"High-end sellers often don't want to have the world coming to their property," said Michael Izquierdo, a Los Angeles-based real estate agent and acquisitions manager for LAPocketListings.com. "When it's put on the MLS, sometimes the next morning you see people standing outside the property, hoping to talk to the sellers."

Izquierdo recently got a pocket listing for a $1.2 million home in Mar Vista, Calif., where the sellers wanted to preserve some privacy. They also hoped to heighten interest among buyers by creating an aura of exclusivity. But pocket listings aren't just for luxury clients anymore. With the number of buyers far outpacing the number of homes for sale in hot markets like Los Angeles and Manhattan, pocket listings are becoming more common among more moderately-priced homes as well, he said. He has some pocket deals where sellers are asking for as little as $500,000

When Izquierdo gets a pocket listing, he combs his client list for good fits. If he can't find one, he contacts colleagues to see if they have potential buyers. If the home is overpriced, the seller and agent will find out quickly, said Alex Clark, founder of pocketlistings.net. "I put in the email, 'Not listed on the MLS,'" he said. "If it's priced right, there's a really good chance you can sell it as a pocket listing."

If it doesn't sell, then Clark tries to convince the seller to readjust the price and list it publicly on the MLS. Some sellers, however, aren't interested in going public. They are purely using the pocket listing to fish for a "make-me-move" deal. "These are not motivated sellers. They're saying, 'Get me a good price,'" said Manhattan real estate agent Wei Min Tan.

Not everyone endorses these pocket deals, however. In New York, the practice could violate the Universal Co-Brokerage Agreement, according to Neil Garfinkel, counsel for the Real Estate Board of New York, the local trade association. Under the agreement, agents must share listings. They can only withhold listings if sellers request they do so.

In some cases, agents may try to convince sellers to use pocket listings in order to double their commissions by acting as agent for both the buyer and the seller. "That's where it starts to get into the gray area," said Garfinkel. "If an agent is putting their own economic interest ahead of the seller's, it's a violation of state law."

They may, for example, steer the deal to a buyer they represent even though another broker's buyer put in a higher bid. "Most of the time, pocket listings are done ethically and fairly," said Betty Graham, president of Coldwell Banker Previews International/NRT, Realogy's luxury brand. Nevertheless, she believes listing the property publicly increases the likelihood that a home will sell for the best price.

The National Association of Realtors does not have an official policy on pocket listings, according to spokesman Walt Molony. But most agents, like Graham, profess that sellers are almost always better off getting as many bids from as many potential buyers as possible.

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Source: http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/05/02/pocket-listings/

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National Secular Society - Majority of Europeans favour separation ...

A major new study of attitudes towards religion around the world has been conducted by the Bertelsmann Foundation ? and finds that the majority of people in all the 13 nations surveyed favour a clear separation between religion and the state.

The results of the survey, conducted among 14,000 people are being released over a period of time. The latest results relate to Germany and show that although Germans are generally open to other religions, many are still suspicious of Islam.

Indeed, half of Germans don't believe that Islam fits into the Western world.

85 percent of Germans agreed or tended to agree that one should be open towards all religions. They saw most religions as an enrichment, especially Christianity, also Judaism and Buddhism, but a majority of 51 percent saw Islam as a threat.

The opinion seeing Islam as a particular threat was shared in many western states, including 60 percent of Spaniards, 50 percent of the Swiss and 42 percent of US citizens. In contrast, in India, only 30 percent see Islam as a threat, and in South Korea, it's just 16 percent.

Detlef Pollack, the sociologist who co-authored the study, says that this negative perception could be due to the lack of personal contact between Christians and Muslims. More people in eastern Germany see Islam as threatening than in the West, even though the east is home to only two percent of all the country's Muslims.

But Pollack also notes that people have even less contact with Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, all of which are seen more positively than Islam, and he argues that the media have a lot to do with that: "The picture the media give of Buddhism or Hinduism is that of peace-loving religions," Pollack told Deutsche Welle. "Their picture of Islam is more about fanaticism and aggression."

The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, also blames the media for much misperception, although he also said: "The Muslims have to roll up their sleeves, get more involved in society and make it clear that they are committed to this country."

Germany has between 3.8 and 4.3 million Muslims, making up some 5 percent of the total 82 million population, according to government-commissioned studies.

An earlier study in 2010 by the University of Munster found that 66 percent of western Germans and 74 percent of eastern Germans had a negative attitude towards Muslims. A more recent study from the Allensbach Institute suggested that this had not changed over the past two years.

Asking Germans about Islam, only 22 percent said they agreed with Germany's former president Christian Wulff's statement that Islam, like Christianity, was part of Germany.

According to a 2010 nationwide poll by the research institute Infratest-dimap, more than one third of the respondents would prefer "a Germany without Islam."

The Bertelsmann survey also shows that a big majority of religious people that were questioned ? and those without religion ? agreed that democracy is a good way of governing the country. That's the view held by 80 percent of Muslims and those without religion, and by 90 percent of Christians.

Source: http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/05/majority-of-europeans-favour-separation-of-church-and-state-but-islam-has-an-uphill-battle-for-acceptance-in-germany

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From Toronto to Dagestan; Canadian jihadi draws parallels with Tsarnaev

By Maria Golovnina

UTAMYSH, Dagestan, Russia (Reuters) - A mess of rubble, ash and charred vehicles is all that's left at the desolate farmhouse where a Canadian Muslim convert died fighting his last battle alongside Islamist insurgents in the Russian region of Dagestan.

At the time, few people beyond local villagers noticed William Plotnikov's death in a region where skirmishes occur daily. But almost a year on, Plotnikov has emerged into the limelight following the Boston Marathon bombings.

The abrupt transformation of a Russian ?migr? into a die-hard rebel fighter draws eerie parallels with the life of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the son of Chechen immigrants in the United States who is now prime suspect in the Boston attack.

In the village of Utamysh, a collection of squat houses in a valley ringed by the steep mountains of Dagestan, Plotnikov is known simply as "Kanadets" - or the Canadian.

"The Canadian, I saw him twice, yes. He came to the mosque. He looked like everyone else," Arslangerey-haji, a local imam, said at his small village mosque.

"He'd just pray and leave. He was out with the others in the forest," he added, using a local euphemism for joining the militants fighting Russian rule of the North Caucasus.

On July 14, 2012, Russian forces surrounded the rebels near Utamysh and pounded them with artillery. Part of the farm where Plotnikov and his fellow fighters were hiding was reduced to rubble. At least seven people including Plotnikov were killed.

Since last month's Boston bombings, attention has turned to others who may have followed similar lives to Tsarnaev. Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper and Canada's National Post have reported in detail on the last years of Plotnikov.

An ethnic Russian who emigrated to Toronto with his parents as a teenager in 2005, Plotnikov converted to Islam as a young man and flew to Dagestan to join the Islamist militants.

There is no evidence Plotnikov knew Tsarnaev but some similarities are striking. Both were young men when they plunged into Islam, possibly out of frustration with the challenges of their adopted home countries, and both were passionate boxers.

Plotnikov's bemused father, Vitaly, described how his son changed from a typical teenager who borrowed his father's credit card to go ski-ing to someone devoted to prayer. "Somebody changed his mind in Canada," he told CBC TV. He said he thought Tsarnaev had had the "same problem".

Both Plotnikov and Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan in the first half of 2012 to explore their religion. They lived within 120 km (75 miles) of each other on the Caspian Sea coast.

U.S. investigators suspect Tsarnaev's experience in Dagestan played an important role in his radicalization, particularly if they establish that he met any militants during his stay at his family home in the regional capital of Makhachkala.

While Tsarnaev was with his parents, Plotnikov joined the insurgency and retreated to the rebel camp with other militants in the lush mountains south of Makhachkala, where he died.

Tsarnaev left Dagestan in a rush two days after Plotnikov's death, and flew back to the United States via Moscow, according to Novaya Gazeta. He was shot dead by police nine months later, after the Boston bombings which killed 3 people and wounded 264.

SIMPLE GRAVE

Tucked away in a remote corner of Utamysh cemetery and overgrown with weeds, Plotnikov's grave is a simple white tombstone featuring the Islamic crescent moon and star. The Russian inscription says: "Plotnikov Vilyam Vitalievich". Date of birth: May 3, 1989. He was 23 when he died.

In a village like Utamysh, news travels fast. The arrival of new faces never escapes notice. Yet, when asked about Tsarnaev, villagers shook their heads and said they had never heard of him visiting their lands.

"They are both dead now. Maybe they knew each other. Who knows?" Dzhamaludin Aliyev, the village head, said with a shrug as he gazed at Plotnikov's tombstone.

"We just buried him here as a Muslim. He did not live here. He lived up there in the forest," he added, pointing at a green hill towering over the village.

Salaat, a local pensioner, said the fair-skinned ethnic Russian Canadian stood out immediately as soon as he came to the village, home to about 3,000 people.

"He came here after hooking up with some Utamysh youngsters in another village up north," she said. "He lived here for several months with them, then he disappeared into the forest."

Foreigners are rarely spotted fighting for rebels in the Caucasus, just as ethnic Russians rarely convert to Islam.

Yet, as conflicts continue in the Caucasus, nationalist claims to independence that dominated the 1990s have given way to calls for a pan-Caucasus Islamic state - including from people who went to fight in countries such Afghanistan and Syria, or those who simply view Russian rule as corrupt and oppressive.

No one knows for sure how many militants are out in the mountains but most are now believed to be based in Dagestan, particularly in the south where Utamysh is located.

For locals in Utamysh, last year's farmhouse battle was the closest the conflict had struck their homeland in many years after a period of relative peace.

Aliyev said the insurgents' bodies were initially taken to Makhachkala as part of the investigation.

But Vitaly Plotnikov, who lives in Toronto, flew to Dagestan immediately afterwards and brought the body back to the village, seeking permission to bury him there, Aliyev said.

"I don't know why he didn't take the body to Canada. I guess it's expensive. So he brought the body back here," Aliyev said. "The father just said to me: 'I should've looked after him better'. For him it was a huge tragedy."

Dzhalil Alatsiyev, deputy head of the local administration in charge of security, said the insurgents had been under surveillance by Russia's FSB security forces for several months.

"They never came to the village. They were hiding there," he said, pointing at the mountain range.

Describing the insurgents as Wahhabis - or adherents to one of the most austere forms of Islam, he added: "It's easy to tell them apart. They have long beards. They pray differently. We are all Muslim here. But these people are different."

The farmhouse is now deserted. Its owner has been jailed for helping the insurgents. One shed was flattened entirely by artillery fire. The main building was heavily damaged, its interior a mess of broken glass, metal and camouflage jackets.

SECURITY HEADACHE

For Moscow, Dagestan - one of the poorest and most ethnically diverse places in Russia - is a huge headache.

Its forces are still struggling to quell persistent attacks by Islamist militants more than a decade after Moscow fought two separatist wars in the adjacent republic of Chechnya.

Although it is firmly under Moscow control, Dagestan has a long history of resistance to Russian rule. Many harbor resentment against Russian security forces' heavy-handed tactics against suspected militants and their families.

Their feelings go back centuries. The valley around Utamysh was the site of fierce battles between local tribes and Russian forces sent by Peter the Great to annex Dagestan during a war with Persia in the early 18th century.

Today, speaking up for the insurgents can land people in jail. Yet even in this village, dominated by people from the Kumyk Turkic-speaking ethnic minority, some appear sympathetic.

Rashiya-hanum Adykova, a 56-year-old who runs a dairy farm high up in the hills, said she had seen militants pass through her fields but they never touched her family. "They don't do anything to us because we are just old people," she said.

The village imam said he disapproved of the tactics used against the insurgents.

"A lot of people are innocent but they are still being taken away," said Arslangerey-haji. "If they are criminals of course they should be arrested. But there is a lot of chaos here. Everyday someone is dying. We are tired of it."

(Additional reporting by Janet Guttsman in Toronto; editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/toronto-dagestan-canadian-jihadi-draws-parallels-tsarnaev-084211267.html

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Gitmo closure elusive, Obama looks at other steps

FILE - In this June 27, 2006 file photo, reviewed by a US Department of Defense official, US military guards walk within Camp Delta military-run prison, at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba. President Barack Obama's stated desire to try anew to close the Guantanamo Bay prison remains a tough sell in Congress. The White House may look instead toward smaller steps, such as a new push to move some terror suspects overseas. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file)

FILE - In this June 27, 2006 file photo, reviewed by a US Department of Defense official, US military guards walk within Camp Delta military-run prison, at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba. President Barack Obama's stated desire to try anew to close the Guantanamo Bay prison remains a tough sell in Congress. The White House may look instead toward smaller steps, such as a new push to move some terror suspects overseas. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file)

White House press secretary Jay Carney gestures as he speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May, 1, 2013. Carney said the White House is currently considering administrative actions President Obama can take to help push the process of closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay but said he will ultimately need cooperation from Congress.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Despite President Barack Obama's new vow, closing the Guantanamo Bay prison is still a tough sell in Congress. So the White House may look instead toward smaller steps like transferring some terror suspects back overseas.

Shutting down the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba is a goal that has eluded Obama since he took office. In his first week, he signed an executive order for its closure, but Congress has used its budgetary power to block detainees from being moved to the United States.

Now, with 100 of the 166 prisoners on a hunger strike in protest of their indefinite detention and prison conditions, Obama is promising a renewed push before Congress and has ordered a review of his administrative options. The White House is acknowledging its process to review prisoner cases for possible release has not been implemented quickly enough and says the president is considering reappointing a senior official at the State Department to focus on transfers out of the prison.

Guantanamo had slipped down the agenda of the president who promised to close it during his campaign five years ago but has transferred few prisoners out in recent years. Conditions at the camp are tense, with 23 prisoners who are in danger of starving themselves now being force-fed through nasal tubes and some 40 naval medical personnel arriving over the weekend to deal with the strike that shows no sign of ending. While the global community has pressured the United States to shut Guantanamo, most of the American public and their representatives in Congress have been opposed to removing the terror suspects from their isolated captivity.

"Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe," the president argued at a White House news conference Tuesday. "It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed."

Obama's comments revived an issue that hasn't been prominent in recent political debate, with some of the most recent national polling more than a year old. An ABC News/Washington Post survey in February 2012 found 70 percent of the public approving of keeping the prison open and a quarter disapproving. Five percent had no opinion.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a leading opponent of closure, responded to Obama's latest call by citing last year's administration report that 28 percent of the roughly 600 released detainees were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in militant activity.

"They're individuals hell-bent on our destruction and destroying our way of life," Graham said in a statement. "There is bipartisan opposition to closing Gitmo."

Republicans and several Democrats have repeatedly blocked efforts by Obama to take the initial steps toward closure. The law that Congress passed and Obama signed in March to keep the government running includes a longstanding provision that prohibits any money for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States or its territories. It also bars spending to overhaul any U.S. facility in the U.S. to house detainees.

That makes it essentially illegal for the government to transfer the men it wants to continue holding, including five who were charged before a military tribunal with orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks. But that doesn't mean the administration's hands are completely tied.

Eight-six prisoners at Guantanamo have been cleared for transfer to other countries. Such transfers were common under President George W. Bush and at the beginning of the Obama administration. They stopped after Congress imposed new security restrictions over concerns that some prisoners might be released by foreign governments and return to the battlefield.

The administration could get around the restriction by issuing a national security waiver through the Pentagon, something it hasn't done so far.

Obama signed an executive order two years ago establishing review procedures for detainees to determine if continued detention was warranted, beginning with hearings before an interagency Periodic Review Board. The order required the reviews to begin by March 2012, but the administration has yet to announce any hearings.

Obama spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the administration plans to get the board running, "which has not moved forward quickly enough." He also said Obama is considering the reappointment of a special envoy for closing Guantanamo at the State Department, responsible for trying to persuade countries to accept inmates approved for release. The former envoy, Ambassador Daniel Fried, was reassigned earlier this year and not replaced.

But Carney said help from Congress is needed to close the prison. "We have to work with Congress and try to convince members of Congress that the overriding interest here, in terms of our national security as well as our budget, is to close Guantanamo Bay," Carney said.

House Armed Services Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., objected to Obama blaming Congress. "The president faces bipartisan opposition to closing Guantanamo Bay's detention center because he has offered no alternative plan regarding the detainees there, nor a plan for future terrorist captures," McKeon said in a statement.

A tough issue is where to send detainees cleared for transfer, particularly the majority who are Yemeni nationals. Obama has banned the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen since January 2010 because of security concerns after a would-be bomber attempted to blow up a U.S.-bound flight on instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who initially supported the suspension of transfers to Yemen, wrote the White House last week urging reconsideration of that policy as part of a renewed effort to transfer all 86 of the cleared detainees. Obama spokesman Carney said Wednesday the Yemen moratorium was among the Guantanamo policies under review.

Vijay Padmanabhan, who was a State Department lawyer responsible for Guantanamo-related cases in the Bush administration, said Obama faces three major questions to achieve his goal of shutting Guantanamo. Padmanabhan said Obama needs to figure out what level of risk he's willing to accept in Yemen, come up with a strategy for prosecuting detainees and determine how to handle those who are considered dangerous but for whom there isn't sufficient evidence for prosecution.

Obama said Tuesday, "The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop." Padmanabhan saw that as a potential shift in Obama's thinking.

"He's always supported the idea that you should be able to nevertheless detain people indefinitely as combatants," said Padmanabhan, now a professor at Vanderbilt Law School. "For the first time, he's challenging a little bit that later proposition. He's suggesting that maybe it's the case we should be thinking about whether we should be detaining anyone that we aren't capable of prosecuting for the rest of their life."

Resuming transfers through the waivers could help ease some of the despair among the men held at the U.S. base in Cuba, said Jennifer Daskal, a fellow and adjunct law professor at Georgetown University who worked on an Obama administration task force addressing detainee policy issues. The administration could also increase its efforts to find other countries willing to accept Guantanamo prisoners and begin reevaluating whether it's possible now to release any of the 46 men who are slated for indefinite detention, Daskal said.

"The idea that it could be closed tomorrow is completely unrealistic," she said. "But there certainly are things that the administration can do even without congressional action that would begin the process of at least winnowing down the numbers at Guantanamo and hopefully alleviating some of the tension."

___

Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Miami and Donna Cassata and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-05-01-Guantanamo%20Bay%20Prison/id-385ce1103ede41d39f235ce74211ad4b

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NYC dogs can smell a rat and capture it too

A far cry from the noble European hunts of yore, rat hunting as a sport for dogs is becoming a 'thing' in New York. Members of the Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society ? RATS ? meet at night and sic their dog companions on vermin scurrying about in the night.?

By Staff,?Associated Press / April 30, 2013

A Wire Haired Dachshund named Vina, owned by Trudy Kawami of New York, carries a rat after catching it in a lower Manhattan alley in New York Friday, April 26, 2013. The capture is part of a rat hunt a group of dog owners take part in occasionally.

AP Photo/Craig Ruttle

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Bodies tense and noses twitching, the dogs sniff the fertile hunting ground before them: a lower Manhattan alley, grimy, dim, and perfect for rats. With a terse command ? "Now!" ? the chase is on.

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Circling, bounding over, and pawing at a mound of garbage bags, the four dogs quickly have rodents on the run.

"Come on ... I mean, 'Tally ho!'" says one of their owners, Susan Friedenberg. In a whirl of barks, pants, and wagging tails, dogs tunnel among the bags and bolt down the alley as their quarry tries to scurry away.

Within five minutes, the city has two fewer rats.

In a scrappy, streetwise cousin of mannerly countryside fox hunts, on terrain far from the European farms and fields where many of the dogs' ancestors were bred to scramble after vermin and foxes, their masters sport trash-poking sticks instead of riding crops and say it's just as viable an exercise for the animals' centuries-old skills.

"It's about maintaining the breed type through actual work," says Richard Reynolds, a New Jersey-based business analyst and longtime dog breeder who might be considered the group's organizer ? if it would accept being called organized.

Known with a chuckle as the Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society ? parse the acronym ? the rodent-hunters have been scouring downtown byways for more than a decade, meeting weekly when weather allows.

On a couple of recent nights, an eclectic group of ratters converged on an alley near City Hall about an hour after sunset. The lineups included two border terriers; a wire-haired dachshund; a Jack Russell terrier/Australian cattle dog mix; a Patterdale terrier, an intense, no-nonsense breed that's uncommon in this country; and a feist, a type of dog developed in the American South to tree squirrels.

"Get 'im! Go!" Serge Lozach yelled as his cairn terrier, Hudson, streaked down an alley after a fleeing rat. Unlike many of the other owners, Lozach doesn't breed or show dogs, but he has taken Hudson to several alley hunts.

"I like watching him have fun," Lozach said.

Although the dogs have hunting instincts, it takes training to capitalize on them. Just because your pet runs after backyard squirrels doesn't mean it could ever catch one.

When at its best, the alley pack works together. One dog will sniff out a rat and signal its whereabouts, often by barking. Another leaps at the hideaway to rout the quarry, and then a third lurches to catch it as it flees. A rat that scuttles into the open might get caught in a rundown, or even a tug of war, between dogs that circle and flank it.

After making a kill with a bite or a shake, the hunters trot back, rat in mouth, and allow their owners to take it from their jaws. The night's kill ends up in a trash bin.

There's no official estimate of how many rats rove the city's streets, basements, parks, and subways. But there are plenty.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/gCd_phzbKjQ/NYC-dogs-can-smell-a-rat-and-capture-it-too

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Seahorse's armor gives engineers insight into robotics designs

May 1, 2013 ? The tail of a seahorse can be compressed to about half its size before permanent damage occurs, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. The tail's exceptional flexibility is due to its structure, made up of bony, armored plates, which slide past each other. Researchers are hoping to use a similar structure to create a flexible robotic arm equipped with muscles made out of polymer, which could be used in medical devices, underwater exploration and unmanned bomb detection and detonation. UC San Diego engineers, led by materials science professors Joanna McKittrick and Marc Meyers, detailed their findings in the March 2013 issue of the journal Acta Biomaterialia.

"The study of natural materials can lead to the creation of new and unique materials and structures inspired by nature that are stronger, tougher, lighter and more flexible," said McKittrick, a professor of materials science at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.

McKittrick and Meyers had sought bioinsipiration by examining the armor of many other animals, including armadillo, alligators and the scales of various fish. This time, they were specifically looking for an animal that was flexible enough to develop a design for a robotic arm.

"The tail is the seahorse's lifeline," because it allows the animal to anchor itself to corals or seaweed and hide from predators, said Michael Porter, a Ph.D. student in materials science at the Jacobs School of Engineering. "But no one has looked at the seahorse's tail and bones as a source of armor."

Most of the seahorse's predators, including sea turtles, crabs and birds, capture the animals by crushing them. Engineers wanted to see if the plates in the tail act as an armor. Researchers took segments from seahorses' tails and compressed them from different angles. They found that the tail could be compressed by nearly 50 percent of its original width before permanent damage occurred. That's because the connective tissue between the tail's bony plates and the tail muscles bore most of the load from the displacement. Even when the tail was compressed by as much as 60 percent, the seahorse's spinal column was protected from permanent damage.

McKittrick and Meyers' research group uses a unique technique that applies a series of chemicals to materials to strip them of either their protein components or their mineral components. That allows them to better study materials' structures and properties. After treating the bony plates in the seahorse's tail with the chemicals, they discovered that the percentage of minerals in the plates was relatively low -- 40 percent, compared to 65 percent in cow bone. The plates also contained 27 percent organic compounds -- mostly proteins -- and 33 percent water. The hardness of the plates varied. The ridges were hardest, likely for impact protection -- about 40 percent harder than the plate's grooves, which are porous and absorb energy from impacts.

The seahorse's tail is typically made up of 36 square-like segments, each composed of four L-shaped corner plates that progressively decrease in size along the length of the tail. Plates are free to glide or pivot. Gliding joints allow the bony plates to glide past one another. Pivoting joints are similar to a ball-and-socket joint, with three degrees of rotational freedom. The plates are connected to the vertebrae by thick collagen layers of connective tissue. The joints between plates and vertebrae are extremely flexible with nearly six degrees of freedom.

"Everything in biology comes down to structures," Porter said.

The next step is to use 3D printing to create artificial bony plates, which would then be equipped with polymers that would act as muscles. The final goal is to build a robotic arm that would be a unique hybrid between hard and soft robotic devices. A flexible, yet robust robotic gripper could be used for medical devices, underwater exploration and unmanned bomb detection and detonation. The protected, flexible arm would be able to grasp a variety of objects of different shapes and sizes.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Michael M. Porter, Ekaterina Novitskaya, Ana Bertha Castro-Cese?a, Marc A. Meyers, Joanna McKittrick. Highly deformable bones: Unusual deformation mechanisms of seahorse armor. Acta Biomaterialia, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.actbio.2013.02.045

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/h6G_iJCIvog/130501132123.htm

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How NASA dodged a derelict Soviet spy satellite

In March 2012, NASA's Fermi space telescope could have collided with a Russian naval signals satellite, were it not for an untested maneuver. ??

By Eoin O'Carroll,?Staff / May 1, 2013

This computer simulation created by the Institute for Air and Space systems at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, shows the distribution and movement of space debris at present and in future.

TU Braunschweig/AP/File

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Thanks to an emergency maneuver in March 2012, a NASA space telescope avoided a potentially nasty encounter with a Cold War relic.

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More than a year later, NASA is now telling the story of how its Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope sidestepped a collision with a defunct Soviet spy satellite.

It all began on the evening of March 29, 2012, when Julie McEnery, the project scientist for the Fermi telescope, received an automatically generated email from NASA's Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis team. Fermi was a week away from crossing paths with Cosmos 1805, a 3,100-lb. naval signals?reconnaissance?satellite?launched by the USSR in 1986.

Cosmos was moving relative to Fermi at a speed of 27,000 miles per hour, fast enough to obliterate both spacecraft.

NASA actually predicted that the two craft would miss each other by 700 feet. But there was reason to be skeptical. After all, just two years earlier, a study found that another dead Russian satellite, Cosmos 2251, would pass within roughly 1,900 feet of an Iridium phone satellite. The prediction was slightly off, and both spacecraft became clouds of fast-moving orbital debris, in the first known collision of two intact satellites.?

"It's similar to forecasting rain at a specific time and place a week in advance," said Eric Stoneking, an engineer for Fermi at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in a press release. "As the date approaches, uncertainties in the prediction decrease and the initial picture may change dramatically."

The destruction of the Fermi telescope, which scans the sky for the most energetic kind of radiation, would have spelled a big setback for astrophysics. Since launching in 2008, Fermi has recorded a virtual fireworks display of?exploding stars, bizarre flares, and even mysterious bubbles emanating from the center of the Milky Way. Data from Fermi has been used to confirm the origin of cosmic rays?and to investigate the "missing" mass in our universe known as dark matter.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/kZ_t9ha8N5Q/How-NASA-dodged-a-derelict-Soviet-spy-satellite

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Synthesizer giant Bob Moog to be inducted into Inventors Hall of Fame today

Lovers of classic synth, celebrate: pioneer Bob Moog will join the Inventors Hall of Fame today. The USPTO is bestowing that honor for patent number 3,475,623 granted in 1966 for the so-called Moog ladder filter that gave rise to its original synth and Minimoog Synthesizers, and is still used in synths like the Voyager and Sub Phatty today. To fete the occasion, the company is reissuing its classic ladder filter t-shirt that'll come with a free hall of fame induction poster, and will also hold an ice cream social at the factory store in Asheville, NC. That'll culminate in a rare Moog synth-heavy performance by aptly-named local group Ice Cream, so if you're lucky enough to be in the area, the festivities kick off at 6 p.m.

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