Lucy and Selam's species climbed trees: Australopithecus afarensis shoulder blades show partially arboreal lifestyle

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2012) ? Australopithecus afarensis (the species of the well-known "Lucy" skeleton) was an upright walking species, but the question of whether it also spent much of its time in trees has been the subject of much debate, partly because a complete set of A. afarensis shoulder blades has never before been available for study.

For the first time, Midwestern University Professor David Green and Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, Zeresenay Alemseged, have thoroughly examined the two complete shoulder blades of the fossil "Selam," an exceptionally well-preserved skeleton of an A. afarensis child from Dikika, Ethiopia, discovered in 2000 by Dr. Alemseged. Further preparation and extensive analyses of these rare bones showed them to be quite apelike, suggesting that this species was adapted to climbing trees in addition to walking bipedally when on the ground. "The question as to whether Australopithecus afarensis was strictly bipedal or if they also climbed trees has been intensely debated for more than thirty years," said Dr. Green. "These remarkable fossils provide strong evidence that these individuals were still climbing at this stage in human evolution."

The new findings are published in the October 26 issue of the journal Science.

Dr. Alemseged, assisted by Kenyan lab technician Christopher Kiarie, spent 11 years carefully extracting the two shoulder blades from the rest of the skeleton, which was encased in a sandstone block. "Because shoulder blades are paper-thin, they rarely fossilize--and when they do, they are almost always fragmentary," said Dr. Alemseged. "So finding both shoulder blades completely intact and attached to a skeleton of a known and pivotal species was like hitting the jackpot. This study moves us a step closer toward answering the question 'When did our ancestors abandon climbing behavior?' It appears that this happened much later than many researchers have previously suggested."

Selam was a three-year-old A. afarensis girl who lived about 3.3 million years ago, and she represents the most complete skeleton of her kind to date. After freeing the shoulder blades from the surrounding rock, Green and Alemseged digitized them using a Microscribe, and then took detailed measurements to characterize their shape and function, comparing them to the rare shoulder fossils of other early human relatives: Homo ergaster ("Turkana Boy"), Homo floresiensis ("The Hobbit"), A. africanus, and two adult specimens of A. afarensis. They also made comparisons with an extensive modern sample of juvenile and adult chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, and human specimens.

The analysis of the shape and function of the bones revealed that A. afarensis shoulder blades are apelike, indicating a partially arboreal lifestyle. Drs. Green and Alemseged also found that, like living apes, the shoulder anatomy of juvenile and adult representatives of A. afarensis were quite similar. "Human scapulae change shape throughout ontogeny in a significantly different manner than closely related apes," said Dr. Green. "When we compared Selam's scapula with adult members of Australopithecus afarensis, it was clear that the pattern of growth was more consistent with that of apes than humans." At the same time, most researchers agree that many traits of the A. afarensis hip bone, lower limb, and foot are unequivocally humanlike and adapted for upright walking. "This new find confirms the pivotal place that Lucy and Selam's species occupies in human evolution," said Dr. Alemseged. "While bipedal like humans, A. afarensis was still a capable climber. Though not fully human, A. afarensis was clearly on its way."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by California Academy of Sciences.

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Journal Reference:

1. D. J. Green, Z. Alemseged. Australopithecus afarensis Scapular Ontogeny, Function, and the Role of Climbing in Human Evolution. Science, 2012; 338 (6106): 514 DOI: 10.1126/science.1227123

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/Kl9Lt_X27m4/121025150353.htm

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Debt collectors' tough tactics under scrutiny by feds

Jacquelyn Martin / AP

"We're going to do everything we can to see that people are treated fairly," said CFPB director Richard Cordray.

By Herb Weisbaum, NBC News contributor

The figure is staggering: Approximately 30 million Americans have a debt subject to collection. Many of these people insist they do not owe the debt attributed to them. Complaints about debt collectors are legion ? from abusive tactics to outright fraud.?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a rule on Wednesday that will give the agency the power (starting Jan. 2) to supervise the larger consumer debt collectors. The agency says this is the first time there will be such supervision at the federal level.?

(Read more: CFPB to oversee debt collectors)?

?We're going to do everything we can to see that people are treated fairly,? said CFPB director Richard Cordray.?

Cordray sat down with me for a one-on-one interview just before a public hearing in Seattle on Wednesday. The CFPB was gathering feedback on its debt collector oversight proposal.? Here are the highlights of our conversation.

Q: It seems like sending people to collection is now the ultimate threat to get someone to pay ? whether they really owe the money or not.? Companies threaten to send the consumer to collections and ruin their credit score. And all too often people pay because of that. Is there anything that can be done about this?

A: That's why we are both continuing our efforts to enforce the law on debt collectors and now entering into the field of close examination and supervision of debt collectors.?

The intersection between debt collection and credit reporting has become a new phenomenon because it gives much more leverage to debt collectors. One of the things debt collectors understand very well is leverage. The fact that you can owe a hundred or $200 debt, but in your credit report that might affect whether you can get a $100,000 or $150,000 mortgage, is tremendous leverage for collection.?

We need to be thinking carefully about how these changes in the market are affecting consumers, taking certain problems that existed before and magnified them into much greater problems of more harm to consumers, and utilize that analysis as we go about fixing these markets.?

Q: You now regulate credit-reporting agencies ? an area that people and consumer advocates have been complaining about for years and years. What are the problems in this area and what changes would you like to see?

A: We see several problems. A major problem that consumers complain about a lot is accuracy of information. We know this is a problem, in part because of the way information comes in to the credit-reporting agencies from furnishers, some of whom are more reliable than others.?

Also the handling and processing of the huge volume of information the big three credit-reporting companies take in on hundreds of millions of Americans is fraught with concerns about being able to manage that effectively and accurately.?

The difficulty that consumers often seem to have in disputing inaccuracies and getting them resolved and corrected is a big concern for us. The credit-reporting function now casts an enormous influence over the lives of most Americans, many of whom don't realize it, and yet they're very dramatically affected every time they go out to seek a loan. Whether they get a loan or whether they get it at a higher interest rate is dominated by how their credit report looks.?

Q: You are now taking complaints about credit-reporting agencies and you propose to do the same with debt collectors. Are you simply gathering information or will you actually try to help individual consumers who have a problem?

A: We do both. There are greater legal protections for the individual if they begin with the credit-reporting company before coming to us. But we now are taking complaints about credit-reporting companies. So if people are not satisfied with the resolution, as many people tell us they're not, we now will be handling those complaints.?

I think this, in and of itself, will affect the way complaints are handled by the companies. But we will now be in a position to follow up and seek appropriate resolutions.?

Q: ?Because of recent enforcement actions by your agency, American Express, Discover and Capital One will return $425 million to nearly 6 million of their credit card customers for a wide range of actions that alleged violated consumer protection laws. These were huge settlements. Do you think they will change the way financial companies do business going forward and how they see the enforcement power of the CFPB?

A:?I know it will and it's already changing. That's a start but there's more to come in that area because the deceptive marketing practices on credit card service add-ons were widespread within the industry.

Not only is it affecting the way those products are marketed or whether they're going to be marketed, but I think it's causing people to rethink how they're marketing other products as well. I do think our early actions are being scrutinized very carefully by the industry, that they're taking signals from them... and applying them to their business model.?

Q: ?Are you trying to make the fines and refunds so big that companies?won't? consider this an acceptable cost of doing business?

A:?We do see part of the objective here to make it easier and more advantageous to follow the law, rather than get an advantage from breaking the law.?

We're trying very hard to think strategically about these markets. It's always satisfying to take down a bad actor and to stop them from doing what they're doing. But if there are many more popping up to take their place, as is true in some of the financial markets, you don't necessarily accomplish what you'd hoped to accomplish.?

When they (companies) come to understand that the right way to do business and the cost effective way to do business is to follow the law, then we'll be succeeding.?

Q: ?Your goal has been to bring fairness and transparency to the financial marketplace, to level the playing field. Do you feel that you?ve done that? Is it still an uphill battle?

A:?Before the consumer bureau, it was a very bumpy playing field for consumers. There was a lot to trip over, and much of it was put in their way deliberately, or at least with deliberate indifference.?

I think that is changing, but it's going to take some time to smooth that out. And the work that we are doing, we're encouraged that it is making a difference and it has the capacity to make more of a difference.?

Many firms across different industries...want to comply with the law, want to avoid problems. And as we can signal clearly what we understand those problems to be, I do think they're going to be attentive in many cases to fixing them.?

Q: There are members of Congress who still believe the CFPB was a mistake and they?d like to see your enforcement powers limited. What do you say to them?

A:?We're working hard every day to convince them to the contrary, and I think we're making a lot of progress.

Cordray said the CFPB wants to hear from people about the problems they see in the marketplace as part of their daily life. You can go to ConsumerFinance.gov to file a complaint or share your story.

?Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook or visit The ConsumerMan website.

?

Source: http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14675356-debt-collectors-tough-tactics-under-consumer-agency-scrutiny?lite

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Multi-window feature could be headed to Galaxy S3 in Android 4.1.2 update

The Galaxy S3 may have just been updated to Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean in Europe, but it seems Samsung may already be focusing on the next major software update. According to reports from SamMobile, the S3 will be updated to Android 4.1.2 before the end of the year, and that new firmware will also include one of the Galaxy Note 2's killer features -- "multi-window" support.

The Note 2's multi-window feature, shown in our quick demo video above, allows true multi-tasking by having two applications open on-screen at any one time -- for example, a browser window up top, and a YouTube video down below. Not all apps are supported yet, but all major Google and Samsung apps work just fine, as do some third-party offerings like Twitter.

SamMobile has a pretty decent track record for revealing Samsung software secrets ahead of time, so there's a good chance they're right about multi-view on the S3. And as the international Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 share much of their hardware, it shouldn't be a huge technical challenge to get multi-view up and running on the S3. Nevertheless, if these reports are true, we're sure S3 owners will be eagerly awaiting that 4.1.2 update.

Source: SamMobile

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/gatnfPVFvhQ/story01.htm

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Egypt's top court to rule on constitutional panel

CAIRO (AP) ? An Egyptian court on Tuesday asked the country's highest tribunal to rule on whether to disband the body tasked with writing a new constitution. That could give Islamists time to finish drafting the document before a legal ruling.

It's the latest twist in a bitter struggle between Islamists and their secular rivals over the constitution. The Islamists, who dominate the constitutional assembly, are racing to put a draft before a public referendum before the judges rule.

The work and the composition of the 100-member constitutional assembly have been the subject of a fierce debate. The focus is the potential for stricter implementation of Islamic Shariah law and empowerment of religious scholars that liberals fear could signal a turn toward an Iran-style theocratic state.

Along with the contentious role of religion in the nation's affairs, Islamists and liberals are haggling over other proposed articles relating to women rights, freedom of worship, presidential powers, immunity for the military from civilian oversight and undercutting the powers of the Supreme Constitutional Court.

Supporters of the panel say it was set up by an elected parliament and broadly represents Egypt's political factions. Critics counter that the process is dominated by majority Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt's new president, Mohammed Morsi, and more radical groups.

A new constitution would be a key step in establishing a democracy to replace the regime of longtime President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted last year in an uprising led by progressive, secular activists. They rallied public anger over poverty, Mubarak's tight grip on power, rampant corruption and widespread abuses by security and intelligence agencies.

But in the nearly 20 months since then, Islamists have emerged as the strongest political force. Morsi was elected president after the Brotherhood and the even more conservative Salafis party swept parliamentary elections, leaving the liberals with minimal representation. The parliament was later disbanded.

Instead of ruling on a petition submitted by liberals challenging the legitimacy of the panel, Judge Nazih Tangho of the High Administrative Court on Tuesday sent the case to Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court.

The decision sets up a new showdown between the Supreme Constitutional Court, packed with secularist judges, and Egypt's ruling and powerful Brotherhood. The same court dissolved the Brotherhood-led parliament, ruled the election law unconstitutional and turned down Morsi's attempt to restore it upon his election in June.

Last week, the Constitutional Court criticized the panel's move to strip the court's power right to rule on laws passed by parliament. The proposed articles also maintain the president's grip over the court, as he appoints its head and members.

It was not known when the top court would rule on the petition. However, the ruling could come after the people have voted on the constitution.

Tangho said he referred to the case to the Constitutional Court to look into a law Morsi passed in July that gave the constitutional panel legal immunity.

"The law was meant to prevent the High Administrative Court from looking into appeals ... against the panel," he said.

A senior Brotherhood member, Ahmed Abu Baraka, said, "the court here is saying that this is not my business and I am not interfering in the writing of the constitution nor its panel, in respect to the principle of separation between powers."

"This is a realistic decision and ends political maneuvers that dragged courts and judiciary in the middle of it," he said.

The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, Freedom and Justice Party, praised the ruling as ushering "a new meeting point to all spectrum of the Egyptian society." In a statement, the party called upon its rivals to get involved in the writing of the constitution.

The constitution panel was disbanded once before, in April, after the High Administrative Court ruled against inclusion of lawmakers as members.

With the nation increasingly polarized, and mistrust between Islamists and other groups growing, Egypt's judiciary has emerged as a final refuge for settling key disputes.

More than 40 legal challenges have been presented to the top administrative court demanding the dissolution of the panel writing the charter.

"We are going to witness a new phase of confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Constitutional Court," said Ziad Abdel Tawab, a legal expert with Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. "The process will linger, for sure."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-top-court-rule-constitutional-panel-145954463.html

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Make More Stuff, and Make It Thinner

Apple CEO Tim Cook presents the iPad mini, along with the fourth-generation full-sized iPad, on Tuesday

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.

Every fall, Apple holds a big event to show off its holiday lineup of gadgets. This year, it held two big events. That pretty much sums up the most important thing about Apple in 2012. The company has long been obsessively focused on making a few devices really well. Now it?s making a lot more than a few devices.

Before CEO Tim Cook took the stage in San Jose, Calif., this morning, he had already given the world a whole bunch of new stuff in 2012: a new iPhone, a passel of iPods, an iPad with a high-definition display, and a 15-inch MacBook Pro with an even better display. Everyone guessed Cook would unveil a smaller iPad this morning, and they were right. But in addition to the iPad mini, there was also a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a high-def screen and a stunning new iMac desktop computer that?s almost comically thin.

Releasing so many new things in a single year marks a major philosophical shift for Apple. When Steve Jobs returned to the company in the 1990s, he threw out the failing firm?s gargantuan product lineup (Apple used to make printers), then drew up a new one that consisted of just four devices?a laptop and desktop for the mainstream market, and another laptop and desktop for professionals. Over the years Apple slowly, carefully added new products, including the three that would redefine the tech industry: the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. Even with this limited array of gadgets, Apple has always seemed to operate at the edge of its capacity. In 2007, when it launched the iPhone, it had to delay putting out a new version of the Mac operating system?it didn?t have enough engineers to do both at once. Apple wasn?t a company that could do too many new things at once, and, more importantly, it didn?t want to be that kind of company.

Compared to its rivals, Apple circa 2012 is still a highly focused firm. You could put its entire lineup of devices on a dining table; Hewlett-Packard, by contrast, makes more than 2,000 different kinds of laser printers. Yet this year, Apple is no longer stretched thin. The main difference between Apple under Tim Cook and Apple under Steve Jobs is the firm?s aggressive scope and scale: The company is launching more new devices every year, manufacturing more of them, and selling them in more places. Remarkably, this ramping up hasn?t come with any drop in quality. With the exception of its pitiful new maps app, every one of Apple?s new products is the best in its class. That?s an incredible record?I can?t think of any other company in the world that?s doing so many new things so well.

The machines Apple unveiled today only bolster this record. After the event, I spent a few minutes using the iPad mini, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the new iMac?not enough time to gather enough fodder for a full review of these devices, but enough to be impressed, especially by the two new Macs. The iMac, in particular, shows off Apple?s design prowess. Its front edge is just 5 millimeters thin, which is thinner than many laptops. It?s so thin that when you gaze at it from the front and even from some angles on the side, it looks like a cardboard cutout of a computer, not a working machine. (If you examine the iMac?s back, you do see a bulge in the center that presumably houses the machine?s guts.) Apple says it needed advanced manufacturing techniques to build a machine so thin?among them something called friction-stir welding and a method to ?laminate? the display that eliminates a gap between the LCD and its cover glass (something it does on the iPhone, too).

You might wonder why Apple would go through so much trouble to make a nonportable machine so thin, but the answer is pretty straightforward. Thinness, at Apple, is a design virtue next to godliness, something that every gadget benefits from. But looking at the iMac, I intuited another motivation behind its reduced width. If Apple does ever make a full-sized television set, as rumors have long claimed, it will need to make it pretty thin. Building a really skinny computer might be practice for building a really skinny TV.

Thinness is also the iPad mini?s most obvious virtue. Picking it up, I was impressed by how slight it felt compared to the full-sized iPad. Overall, though, the mini?s design didn?t stand out to me?it looks and feels like a small iPad (or a big iPod touch), and it works exactly like one of those devices, too. Whether you think this is good or bad depends on whether you want something that fits this particular form factor?if you?ve yearned for an iPad but think it?s a bit too heavy or a tad too pricey, this small one is for you.

But how many such people are there? After all, the mini starts at $329, which is just $70 less than the cheapest full-sized iPad (the iPad 2, which Apple still sells for $399)?meaning that you aren?t getting that much of a discount by downsizing. And the big iPad is not really big or heavy. I?ve always considered it a perfect size for doing most tablet-worthy stuff. So why would anyone buy the mini instead of a full-sized iPad?

I don?t know, and Apple doesn?t seem to know, either. On Tuesday, none of its execs made a case for why the world needs a small tablet. It was a conspicuous omission, considering that Jobs himself railed against tiny tablets two years ago. ?The 7-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad,? he said on an Apple earnings call. He predicted that they ?are going to be DOA,? and for a long while, he was right?a string of 7-inch tablets failed to catch on.

But then, last year, Amazon released the Kindle Fire, and this year Google put out the Nexus 7. Suddenly, the 7-inch market was hot. And that?s Apple?s real reason for joining the 7-inch parade: It doesn?t want to lose any inch of the tablet market to competitors.

The trouble for Apple is that few people are buying the Kindle Fire or the Nexus 7 because they like the 7-inch size. They?re buying it because they like the price: Both devices sell for less than $200. They?re so cheap only because Amazon and Google don?t care about making a profit on them; they?re both more interested in getting a foot in the tablet market and perhaps making some money on advertising and media sales through the devices. Apple, on the other hand, does not sell anything at cost; its business model is to sell gadgets at a profit, and any other revenue it makes from them (through app purchases, for instance) is just a bonus. Apple, then, will likely never match Google or Amazon?s prices on small tablets. But it?s hoping that people will spring for the iPad mini just because it?s an iPad, with its much bigger app store and superior fit-and-finish.

That?s likely a good bet. Launching the iPad mini may be purely a reactive, defensive move for Apple. But when you?re as big as Apple is now, you can play offense and defense at the same time.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=ffb0359da240eec73ba4aed918c23af0

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The REAL Women of Eastside Fitness | Eastside Fitness

Last Updated on Tuesday, 23 October 2012 12:45 By Darnelle Tuesday, 23 October 2012

The REAL Women of Eastside Fitness

Real legs of Eastside Fitness.

You might be surprised to learn that these legs are not the legs of Olympic athletes. ?These are REAL legs belonging to REAL women from our community. ? They can jump piles of lego in a single bound, sign mergers, balance million dollar budgets, build playgrounds and make soup. ?They are busy! ? ?They are human! ?They WORKOUT, they TRAIN, they STRETCH, they BREATHE, they do what they can to make fitness and health a part of their lives, because they know it?s important for themselves, their families, their friends and their community. ?Each month beginning in November, we will be featuring one of our ?REAL Women of Eastside Fitness?. ?Some come for yoga, some come for strength and conditioning, some run or ride with us. ?They might have different goals but they all have one thing in common; ?their stories are real and prove that everyone, can be strong, healthy and make time for fitness. ?Make sure you subscribe to our blog, sign up for our newsletter or check back here to learn their stories.

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Source: http://www.eastsidefitness.ca/2012/10/the-real-women-of-eastside-fitness/

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Western mourns the death of former student-athlete ? Griffon News

By Matthew Hunt

October 23, 2012

Brittany Douglas is a MWSU graduate. Photo contributed by GoGriffons.

Brittany Toshene Douglas, former griffon softball player from 2008-2011, died on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. She graduated from Missouri Western in the fall of 2011 with a bachelor?s degree in recreation sport management.

Douglas was also active in the community as she was named the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee?s Volunteer of the Year for the 2010-2011 season and also served the organization in many leadership roles.

Douglas came to Western from St. Louis and had an outstanding career for the Griffons as an outfielder.?As a senior, she was named to the NFCA Daktronics Second Team All-South Central Region squad and was also named First Team All-MIAA two times? in her career. In 2011, she was named softball?s Female Athlete of the Year. To see the video shown at the sports banquet in 2011, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhaE2WRm3gs&feature=player_embedded .

In her final season, she helped the Griffon softball team earn a share in the MIAA Regular Season Title for the first time in Western?s history. Douglas finished her career with a total of 209 games played, 605 at bats, .317 batting average, 192 hits, 30 doubles, 101 rbis, 40 stolen bases, 128 runs scored and 30 home runs; she ranks second on Western?s career home run list and ranks in the top ten in several other categories.

Along with her career record breaking results, she was viewed by her teammates as a person of respect and kindness.?Maegan Roemmich, Griffon softball teammate, said she was able to play with Douglas for two years and spent time with her over years. She said Douglas would do anything for anyone and always had a good time.

?She loved to play jokes on people,? Roemmich said. ?She also had a great sense of humor.?

The death of Douglas has had an impact on Griffon softball coach Jen Bagley, who had a close relationship with the former player. Bagley told gogriffons.com that ?Britt was an incredible game changer on the field. Off the field, [they] shared many memorable moments.?

Teammate Keri Lorbert said Douglas spent some time outside the field. She said that Douglas had a lot of friends and her death has taken a toll on those she knew.

?She had so much to give to the world,? Lorbert said. ?Someone with some much potential left the Earth too short.?

Source: http://www.thegriffonnews.com/2012/10/western-mourns-the-death-of-former-student-athlete/

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Google's Android event: 'Nexus 4,' 'Nexus 10' and more Nexus

8 hrs.

Rosa Golijan , NBC News

Google's got an Android?event scheduled for Oct. 29, about a year following the announcement of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone and Android 4.0 (better known as Ice Cream Sandwich). As with every event of this magnitude, there's a host of rumors about what might be announced. Here are the best ones:

Nexus 4
Based on photos posted to Google+ by LG and Google employees, the next Google Nexus smartphone will be made by LG and called the Nexus 4.?Given that the Nexus 7 is a 7-inch tablet, we could assume that the Nexus 4 will be a 4-inch device.

The Next Web's Matt Brian says that a "source with knowledge of Google's plans" claims that the Nexus 4 will have a quad-core 1.5 GHz ?processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera (and 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera). According to this individual, the device will have a?a?4.7-inch display with a?1280 x 768 pixel resolution. (If that's the case, we wonder why Google didn't round up and dub the device the Nexus 5.)

Like prior Nexus devices, the Nexus 4 is expected to be among the first to run Google's latest and greatest mobile operating system, Android 4.2.

Nexus 7
The Nexus 7 has been around since late June, after being announced during Google I/O, and Google's giving it extra attention nonetheless. According to multiple reports, the tablet will now come in two 32GB versions, ?one of which will offer HSPA+ connectivity.?

Nexus 10
Google and Samsung have been working together on a 10-inch tablet, writes the Next Web's Matt Brian. This tablet will supposedly be dubbed the Nexus 10 and offer a higher resolution display than the third-generation iPad, as previously suggested by analysts.

Android 4.2
Google is expected to show off Android 4.2 during the Oct. 29 event and, according to the Next Web's Matt?Brian, this latest version of Google's mobile operating system is expected to compete directly with Apple's iOS 6 (though that's pretty much a given). Brian's mystery source says that Android 4.2 will offer new panoramic camera features, a way to access Play Store content from a widget, and multi-user support for tablets.

Want more tech news?or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/googles-oct-29-android-event-nexus-4-nexus-10-still-1C6612162

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noodleroux: We really need our own show on HGTV.

My brother and his wife are planning on buying a house in the spring. An older house. They are admittedly a little apprehensive about home maintenance and remodeling.

Since My Guy and I bought a beat-down old house, we are now basically Poochie and Mrs. Poochie's home-ownership role models. Like AA sponsors, but with more dried paint in our hair.

Mrs. Poochie is looking for the silver lining, or at least some humor to justify the sweat and dirt of fixing up an older house. Her questions made me remember some of our best home-improvement adventures. And by "best," I mean "funny in retrospect."

Case in point?

Poochie helped us paint the exterior of our house. He and My Guy determined that they were better painters with steadier hands if they drank beer. I generally stayed on the opposite side of the house and painted trim while standing on the ground. I just couldn't watch them climb the big rented ladder, and I didn't want to think about the beer.

Several months afterward, I learned that at one point, Poochie got stuck on the steep roof. And My Guy had to go inside the house, throw him a rope through a skylight, and belay him down the side of the house. Like our house is the Alps.

My mom, Mrs. Poochie and I all had the same cringing response to this tale. My dad, on the other hand, thought it made perfect sense. Dudes.

Our more recent home-improvement debacle involved remodeling the entire second floor of our house. Even though we had the bathroom and floors done professionally, it still took forever to get the space habitable. Finally, late on a Sunday afternoon, after eons of work, we finally moved our furniture up our narrow little staircase into our new, luxurious master bedroom.

Well, we moved all of our furniture except for our queen-sized box spring.

I guess in 1939, building staircases to accommodate big ol' furniture wasn't a top priority. So, while we could cram the mattress up there, the box spring just wasn't happening. We got it jammed into the doorway of the stairwell ... and then it became clear that it wasn't getting any further.

At first, I kept thinking that we just needed more brute strength. But really, there was no way around it: no queen-sized box spring is going to fit through a stairway the size of a straw.

We were exhausted. All we wanted was to set up our bedroom a mere 14 months after moving into our house.

Now, our pal Google will tell you that it's possible to cut a box spring in half. You may scoff at this suggestion, and figure that such butchery would spell uncomfortable sleep from there on out. You might even go so far as to say that folks who attempt such tomfoolery are white trash who didn't plan well and buy a 2-piece box spring in the first place.

Ehh. I can't argue on the white trash bit, but I can tell you that you can cut your boxed spring in half, fold it like a burrito, carry it up your narrow-ass stairs, and then reassemble it. And no sleeper and no chiropractor is any wiser. Shit works. Even if you can't look as your husband saws your bed in half, it will all work out. Slap a dust ruffle on there, and no one will ever know.

If you need a tutorial, YouTube is a gold mine. I highly recommend the video where the wife / girlfriend person gets her arm caught in the boxed-spring burrito. It's hilarious. We watched it several times for the entertainment value alone.

See? Having a house is kind of like having kids. Much dumber people that you have done it. You'll be fine.

Source: http://noodleroux.blogspot.com/2012/10/we-really-need-our-own-show-on-hgtv.html

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Making a layer cake with atomic precision

Public release date: 14-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Daniel Cochlin
daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk
0044-161-275-8387
University of Manchester

In a report published in Nature Physics, a group led Dr Leonid Ponomarenko and Nobel prize-winner Professor Andre Geim has assembled individual atomic layers on top of each other in a desired sequence.

The team used individual one-atom-thick crystals to construct a multilayer cake that works as a nanoscale electric transformer.

Graphene, isolated for the first time at The University of Manchester in 2004, has the potential to revolutionise diverse applications from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips.

It has the potential to replace existing materials, such as silicon, but the Manchester researchers believe it could truly find its place with new devices and materials yet to be invented.

In the nanoscale transformer, electrons moving in one metallic layer pull electrons in the second metallic layer by using their local electric fields. To operate on this principle, the metallic layers need to be insulated electrically from each other but separated by no more than a few interatomic distances, a giant leap from the existing nanotechnologies.

These new structures could pave the way for a new range of complex and detailed electronic and photonic devices which no other existing material could make, which include various novel architectures for transistors and detectors.

The scientists used graphene as a one-atom-thick conductive plane while just four atomic layers of boron nitride served as an electrical insulator.

The researchers started with extracting individual atomic planes from bulk graphite and boron nitride by using the same technique that led to the Nobel Prize for graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon. Then, they used advanced nanotechnology to mechanically assemble the crystallites one by one, in a Lego style, into a crystal with the desired sequence of planes.

The nano-transformer was assembled by Dr Roman Gorbachev, of The University of Manchester, who described the required skills. He said: "Every Russian and many in the West know The Tale of the Clockwork Steel Flea.

"It could only be seen through the most powerful microscope but still danced and even had tiny horseshoes. Our atomic-scale Lego perhaps is the next step of craftsmanship".

Professor Geim added: "The work proves that complex devices with various functionalities can be constructed plane by plane with atomic precision.

"There is a whole library of atomically-thin materials. By combining them, it is possible to create principally new materials that don't exist in nature. This avenue promises to become even more exciting than graphene itself."

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Public release date: 14-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Daniel Cochlin
daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk
0044-161-275-8387
University of Manchester

In a report published in Nature Physics, a group led Dr Leonid Ponomarenko and Nobel prize-winner Professor Andre Geim has assembled individual atomic layers on top of each other in a desired sequence.

The team used individual one-atom-thick crystals to construct a multilayer cake that works as a nanoscale electric transformer.

Graphene, isolated for the first time at The University of Manchester in 2004, has the potential to revolutionise diverse applications from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips.

It has the potential to replace existing materials, such as silicon, but the Manchester researchers believe it could truly find its place with new devices and materials yet to be invented.

In the nanoscale transformer, electrons moving in one metallic layer pull electrons in the second metallic layer by using their local electric fields. To operate on this principle, the metallic layers need to be insulated electrically from each other but separated by no more than a few interatomic distances, a giant leap from the existing nanotechnologies.

These new structures could pave the way for a new range of complex and detailed electronic and photonic devices which no other existing material could make, which include various novel architectures for transistors and detectors.

The scientists used graphene as a one-atom-thick conductive plane while just four atomic layers of boron nitride served as an electrical insulator.

The researchers started with extracting individual atomic planes from bulk graphite and boron nitride by using the same technique that led to the Nobel Prize for graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon. Then, they used advanced nanotechnology to mechanically assemble the crystallites one by one, in a Lego style, into a crystal with the desired sequence of planes.

The nano-transformer was assembled by Dr Roman Gorbachev, of The University of Manchester, who described the required skills. He said: "Every Russian and many in the West know The Tale of the Clockwork Steel Flea.

"It could only be seen through the most powerful microscope but still danced and even had tiny horseshoes. Our atomic-scale Lego perhaps is the next step of craftsmanship".

Professor Geim added: "The work proves that complex devices with various functionalities can be constructed plane by plane with atomic precision.

"There is a whole library of atomically-thin materials. By combining them, it is possible to create principally new materials that don't exist in nature. This avenue promises to become even more exciting than graphene itself."

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/uom-mal101212.php

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Health & Fitness: Beauty Secrets Revealed - LashMantra and ...

? Let me make the announcement before going into the Giveaway details because I am so excited about my new Blog My Mommy Blog is finally live, Yay! Crunchy Mommy Happy Baby? is a Blog about Green Pregnancy and Parenting Tips, Green Product Reviews and Giveaways. I will be posting about the topics like green pregnancy and attachment...

Click Here to View Full Article??

Source: http://newshealthfitnessworld.blogspot.com/2012/10/beauty-secrets-revealed-lashmantra-and.html

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Travelzoo warns on profit, seeks hotel bookings website

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The Best Garden Bed Edging Ideas | SOLID TIPS

Edging can highlight the appearance of your lawn. Edging helps along sidewalk and drive away along flower beds, vegetable garden. If your edging your yard for the first time, it is difficult but once it is completed it looks good and pretty easy to maintain. Here are some tips for edging your yard.

Edging provides your garden a functional and fashionable border that sets your planting space apart from the rest of your lawn or edging separates the planting space and your lawn. It also protects the garden against erosion, which is more than a mulched bed alone can do. In home gardens, plastic strip or precast pacers made of brick or stone are the most common types of edging.

Below are some of the edging ideas in your garden:

• Easiest way to edge around flower beds or gardens is to simply build a trench around the perimeter. Use shovel with straight edge. Edging shovels and dig a trench a few inches deep around the perimeter of your flower bed or garden. The extra dirt can be added to the garden or to another area of the yard where it is needed.
• You can also use colorful stones or rocks for making an edge between the garden and planting space.
• Growing flowers as a border around the garden is not only practical for limiting the growth of weeds. To do this dig a trench around the perimeter of the garden and then plant with your favorite perennials.
• Decorative edging which means use plastic, brick or wooden edging to separate the garden and planting space. This is pretty easy to install and makes great edging around flower beds and even as a perimeter around sidewalks and the driveway.
• Maintaining the edge periodically is necessary either by hand or using a gas or electric edger or even a weed wackier.

Edging your lawn not only gives a finished and professional look but also it looks a beautiful lawn.

Source: http://solid-tips.com/2012/10/garden-bed-edging-ideas/

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Deutsche Telekom: T-Mobile / MetroPCS merger to be completed by June 2013

Just exactly how the T-Mobile / MetroPCS merger will exactly pan out still seems yet to be decided. What is clear, however, is that majority share-holder, Deutsche Telekom, hope to have the deal done and dusted between April and June next year. CFO for the German giant, Timotheus Hoettges, told Boersenzeitung that we'll have to wait until the second quarter of 2013 before one of the parties will have to start ordering new stationary and corporate polo shirts. In the meantime he was keen to point out that not all current financial arrangements need to worry, noting shareholders wouldn't have their remuneration policy affected by the merger, thanks to the spiffy year it's had.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, T-Mobile

Deutsche Telekom: T-Mobile / MetroPCS merger to be completed by June 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Oct 2012 14:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Reuters  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/13/deutsche-telekom-t-mobile-metropcs-merger/

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Browser Tools Can Help Block Tracking by Social Networks ...

Those small buttons on Web sites that are designed to let you share what you?ve read with your social networks have an equally important function: They let the social networks track your travels on the Web, whether or not you click on them. Now, there are a growing number of start-ups offering tools that help consumers keep that kind of tracking at bay.

Social ?widgets,? as they are called, have proliferated across the Web: a ?like? button from Facebook or a cheery blue bird from Twitter. They act as eyes on the Web. They watch you as you read the day?s news, say, or research health information, or shop for rain boots.

Facebook is especially ubiquitous. Academic researchers in France and Australia recently found that more than 20 percent of the 10,000 most popular Web sites have a Facebook widget. That widget allows the social networking giant to keep track of which Web sites they visit, whether or not the Internet user is logged on to Facebook at the time.

Twitter goes one step further. Its ?tweet? button can be found on 7 percent of the top sites, the same study found. One of the tracking cookies set by Twitter allows it to track users who have never even visited Twitter.com, let alone have a Twitter account. ?Twitter is still waiting for them,? Mohamed Ali Kaafar, of the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, known as Inria, in France.

The latest widget-scrubbing tool was released this week from PrivacyChoice, of Santa Cruz, Calif. It is a browser extension that monitors how tight your privacy settings are on Facebook and Google, including the option of disabling Facebook and Google Plus share buttons. In the first 24 hours, its president, Jim Brock, said, 50,000 used the tool, which the company calls PrivacyFix and offers for free.

?Our No. One job here is to educate, not to push people to particular choices,? said Mr. Brock. ?I don?t think your average user has any idea that those little buttons are listening posts.?

Disconnect.Me, a Menlo Park, Calif., start-up, likewise, offers a browser extension for Google Chrome and lets users see just how many companies are tracking them on every Web site they visit. Those trackers include analytics companies, advertising networks and social networks.

Brian Kennish, a former Google engineer who started Disconnect.me, said it has drawn 850,000 active users. It is free.

Another company, called Ghostery, offers several browser extension to allow users to keep track of the trackers, including social network plug-ins. For instance, it found six trackers when I opened my Firefox browser to The New York Times?s home page, including from Google and Facebook.

Social network widgets can help Web site publishers because they help their visitors share content with their friends online.

Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/browser-extensions-can-help-block-tracking-by-social-networks/

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Minister 'puts brakes' on German energy switch - The Local

German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier came under fire Friday for controversial plans to put limits on Germany?s rapid extension of renewable energy sources - a key part of the country?s strategy to phase out nuclear energy by 2020.

Minister Altmaier said on Thursday that something must be done to take the financial burden off German consumers, who will be expected to pay a higher levy on their electricity bills from next year, because of the transition to renewables. To do this, Altmaier suggested a complete overhaul of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).

Furthermore, said the minister, the current rate of growth in wind energy and biogas power plants had to be made ?constant and reliable? and suggested placing limits on the number of plants allowed to be built in certain areas, similar to those placed on solar power.

According to Altmaier, in some places local authorities are planning new wind and biogas facilities that will provide 60 percent more energy than what is needed.

Although Altmaier promised to stick to the target of getting 80 percent of Germany's energy from renewable sources by 2050, opposition politicians and some states have accused the minister of putting a ?brake? on the government?s ambitious plan.

Without going into detail, the minister suggested tighter controls be put in place to regulate how many and which type of facilities can be built in which areas. Renewable energy facilities should also be planned to coincide with areas where the grid is capable of taking up the electricity.

The most controversial part of this, wrote Die Welt daily newspaper on Friday, is likely to be whether the states are willing to give up their own renewable energy targets, not to mention the revenue from taxes paid on new wind parks and biogas plants.

On Friday, several opposition politicians and representatives from Schleswig-Holstein ? which is currently planning a large scale extension of its wind capacity - criticised the suggested reforms as sending a ?wrong signal.?

The head of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) faction Ulrich Kelber accused the government of serving lobbyists in the energy industry, whereas Left party chairwoman Katja Kipping described Altmaier?s suggestions as ?falling at the feet of the energy companies.?

Even the CDU?s governing coalition partner the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) criticised the lack of concrete plans for reducing energy prices for consumers, an issue which the FDP says the CDU does not take seriously enough.

In recent weeks criticism has been mounting against government energy policy after it was revealed that the current rules exempt bigger firms from paying the renewable energy levy - at the cost of small businesses and consumers.

Industry is getting ?discounts that everyone else has to shoulder,? head of Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) Hubert Weiger told the paper.

The Local/DAPD/jlb

Source: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20121012-45519.html

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Space shuttle Endeavour starts road trip to new Los Angeles home

LOS ANGELES | Fri Oct 12, 2012 4:16am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The retired space shuttle Endeavour sets off on Friday for a road trip unlike any of its previous journeys, one that will see it crawl through the streets of Los Angeles instead of hurtling through the solitary reaches of space.

Endeavour will nose out of Los Angeles International Airport well before dawn as it begins a two-day ground journey atop a massive wheeled transporter to its final resting place at the California Science Center on the edge of downtown.

"It's a national treasure; this is something that we all paid for with our taxes," Ken Phillips, aerospace curator at the science center, said of the hulking craft that flew from 1992 to 2011 and will go on public display later this month.

He described the shuttle, which was largely built in Southern California, as a workhorse for the American space program and said it represented "the very best, I think, of what people can do when they decide to cooperate and do good things."

The science center beat out a number of other institutions when NASA chose it as the permanent home for the 80-ton winged spaceship, which was taken out of service due to the historic end of the NASA shuttle program that began with a launch in 1981.

Endeavour hop-scotched across the country from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the back of a modified Boeing 747. It was parked at the airport after arriving on September 21 following a ceremonial piggyback flight around California during which spectators on the ground cheered and wept.

Workers have felled 400 curbside trees along Endeavour's 12-mile (19-km) route to clear its way. The science center will plant more than 1,000 trees to make up for their removal.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry said that when Endeavour flew over the city last month, she and her colleagues ran up to the roof of City Hall where they watched it with tears in their eyes.

STAR AT A RALLY

Perry said she remained apprehensive about the road journey, when she said Endeavour will pass through intersections with as little as 6 inches of clearance. She also anticipates large crowds along the way.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the space shuttle come down your neighborhood street," Perry said. "How often does that happen?"

Los Angeles police were closing streets along the planned route for what organizers are calling "Mission 26," in reference to the shuttle's 25 previous missions into space.

Soon after rolling out of the airport, the shuttle will pass through the nearby city of Inglewood where on Saturday morning it will be the star in a massive rally outside an arena where the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team once played.

Later that day, it will stop at a shopping mall in South Los Angeles where officials will speak and a dance academy started by "Fame" actress Debbie Allen will perform.

Once it arrives at the science center, it will be displayed in a temporary, hangar-style metal structure to protect it from the elements. In 2017, a special pavilion will open in which Endeavour will stand vertically, Phillips said.

The other remaining spaceships from the shuttle program have also found homes. The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., has Discovery at its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center museum in Virginia, New York City has the prototype shuttle Enterprise at its Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, and the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in Florida has Atlantis, which the center will move to an on-site visitor complex next month.

"We have enjoyed the space shuttles, at least working here at NASA, and it's time now to let the public enjoy seeing the shuttle first-hand, getting an up-close look at it," NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone said.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/lnVmCLGmPFM/us-space-shuttle-idUSBRE89A1OE20121012

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