UFC 159 was a bizarre event ? possibly cursed by demons ? but there were still plenty of standout performances by fighters whose bouts ended normally. Who stood out for you? Speak up on Twitter or on Facebook.
No. 1 star -- Jon Jones: As we've said since the fight was made, Chael Sonnen was not the right competition for UFC light heavyweight Jones because he is middleweight coming off of a loss. Jones could have taken Sonnen lightly and still probably won, but he didn't do that. He used the fight as another opportunity to show his dominance, beating Sonnen at his own game by taking him down several times before finishing the fight near the end of the first round.
Would the fight have been stopped if they made it out of the first round, and the referee had noticed Jones' mangled toe? Who cares? It didn't happen, and Jones is still the champ.
No. 2 star -- Pat Healy: The UFC's already stacked lightweight division somehow got even tough with Healy's performance on Saturday night. Along with Jim Miller, he put on a show then finished the fight in the third round. He won both Fight of the Night and Submission of the Night, meaning Healy walked away with an extra $130,000.
No. 3 star -- Sara McMann: As an Olympic silver medal-winning wrestler, McMann is one of the most decorated athletes to join the UFC. This means she had big expectations to perform, and she exceeded them. McMann used wrestling and power to stop Sheila Gaff in the first round.
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MADRID (AP) ? With over 6 million unemployed for the first time ever, Spain's jobless rate shot up to a record 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the National Statistics Institute said Thursday, in another grim picture of the recession-wracked country.
The agency said the number of people unemployed rose by 237,400 people in the first three months of the year, a 1.1 percent increase from the previous quarter. The total out of work stood at 6.2 million people, the first time the number has breached the 6-million mark.
Unsurprisingly, the details of the report make for grim reading.
The number of people considered long-term unemployed ? out of a job for more than a year ? increased to 3.5 million while the unemployment rate for those aged under 25 was a staggering 57 percent. The government body also said its survey found the number of households without any one working had risen by 72,400 to a 1.91 million.
"The situation is really bad, with all the cuts that there have been, there are families that are going through a bad time because a lot of families have all the members unemployed and they don't have any income," said shop assistant Rodrigo Limpias , 30.
Labor Ministry employment secretary Engracia Hidalgo described the figures as "dramatic" but said the government was working non-stop to try make Spain a job creator once again.
Spain has been in recession for much of the past four years as it struggles to deal with the collapse of its once-booming real estate sector in 2008. In the previous decade its economy was thriving, generating millions of jobs.
In just over a year in office, the conservative government has launched a series of financial and labor reforms and pursued a raft of spending cuts and tax increases that have managed to reduce a swollen deficit. Even so, the country had the highest budget deficit among the 17 European Union countries that use the euro in 2012.
"This is getting worse every day. (The government) has no solution, there are more and more people unemployed and we don't have enough to eat," said Maria Carmen Huerta, 55, an unemployed IT worker.
The government's handling of the crisis has sparked almost daily protests.
On Thursday, 1,400 police were to be deployed around Parliament and the building was totally cordoned off ahead of an evening demonstration. Parliament cancelled its session for the day but blamed reasons other than the rally.
Several previous rallies close to Parliament have ended in clashes with police. The Interior Ministry said police arrested four people and confiscated material they believe was to be used to start fires at bank offices in the city. The ministry claims violent, anti-establishment groups are behind the rally.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has acknowledged that 2013 will be a bad year but insists that it would have been worse without the reforms. The International Monetary Fund indicated last week that Spain's economy will contract by 1.6 percent this year.
The government is predicting that Spain will return to growth, which should help the labor market. Rajoy has promised reforms to be presented Friday that will "make the economy more flexible, more competitive and will turn those predictions around."
Opposition parties said the unemployment figures highlight how Rajoy's austerity policies are damaging the economy.
"6 million people unemployed is 6 million reasons for the government to withdraw the labor reform and change its economic policy," said Oscar Lopez of the leading opposition Socialist party.
But the EU's top economic official, Commissioner Olli Rehn said "Spain should maintain the reform momentum by including comprehensive and concrete policy measures" in its programs.
He said that "despite significant progress in 2012, there are still excessive macroeconomic imbalances" with high domestic and external debt continuing to pose risks for growth and financial stability.
____
Associated Press writer Juergen Baetz in Brussels contributed to this report.
Contact: John Ascenzi ascenzi@email.chop.edu 267-426-6055 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Teaching tool could improve emergency training worldwide
New, low-tech teaching techniques used by novice instructors may improve training for healthcare providers in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on children who suffer cardiac arrest. Researchers in a large multicenter study say their findings hold the potential to standardize and upgrade life support training by hundreds of thousands of instructors around the world.
"In the U.S. alone, over 8,000 children a year have a cardiac arrest, but providers may encounter such a catastrophic event only once or twice in their careers," said the study's senior author, Vinay M. Nadkarni, M.D., a critical care and resuscitation science specialist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "So it's crucial to keep those front-line providers trained and ready to respond. This new approach will assist with that."
The research team carried out the EXPRESS study in 14 research centers in North America, publishing their results online April 22 in JAMA Pediatrics. The EXPRESS (Examining Pediatric Resuscitation Education Using Simulation and Scripted Debriefing) researchers found that trainees in simulation exercises using a child-sized mannequin retained more knowledge if the crisis simulation leaders used scripted debriefings.
"A debriefing is the most important part of a simulation experience, and gives participants an opportunity to reflect on what they did right and what needs improvement," said Adam Cheng, M.D., of Alberta Children's Hospital and the University of Calgary. Cheng, the study's principal investigator, added that, "In a scripted debriefing, the words and sentences are phrased in a very deliberate way that helps learners reflect and think analytically about their performance and about handling emergency situations."
Nadkarni noted that the teaching method, called "advocacy inquiry," is designed to pull out a rationale from students to explain their decisions. "This avoids the common teaching technique of 'guess what I'm thinking.' We've taken a sophisticated interactive teaching method and distilled it into a script that can be readily used by novice instructors."
Many of the instructorsphysicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians and paramedicsare not highly experienced teachers. But they have a broad reach: some 280,000 instructors teach these programs around the world, typically to a group of 10 trainees each. In North America, about half a million health care workers take the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course per year, featuring emergency simulations on lifelike mannequins.
In the current study, the largest ever conducted involved pediatric simulation, 387 participants in 90 teams followed a 12-minute long scenario in which a 12-month-old infant suffers cardiac arrest. After the teams responded to the simulated emergency, half the instructors debriefed their group with an assigned script, and the other led unscripted debriefings. The debriefing session lasts 20 minutes. As assessed in tests and quizzes, participants in the scripted groups had improved medical knowledge and rated their instructors more highly, compared to unscripted groups.
In addition to comparing scripted to nonscripted debriefing, the researchers also compared "high-realism" to "low-realism" simulation. In the high-realism groups, the instructors used SimBaby, a computerized infant mannequin, with all the functions active, such as heart sounds, blood pressure, and breath sounds; in the low-realism groups, most of SimBaby's functions were turned off.
Using the high-realism simulation didn't provide educational advantages over the low-realism simulation. This may have important practical implications, said Nadkarni, because the high-realism simulators cost roughly $30,000 each as opposed to $300 to $400 for the simplest model. "If these results are generalizable, they imply that we can improve resuscitation training with less investment in expensive simulators," he added.
One limitation of the current study, concluded Nadkarni, is that it measured educational outcomes, not clinical outcomes in patients. Further research will determine how well the improvements in education translate into better care and better outcomes for children.
###
The American Heart Association funded this study. Co-authors with Nadkarni from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were Aaron Donoghue, M.D., an emergency medicine physician, and Akira Nishisaki, M.D., a critical care physician.
Cheng et al., "Examining Pediatric Resuscitation Education Using Simulation and Scripted Debriefing," JAMA Pediatrics, published online April 22, 2013.
doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.1389
About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking third in National Institutes of Health funding. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 516-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: John Ascenzi ascenzi@email.chop.edu 267-426-6055 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Teaching tool could improve emergency training worldwide
New, low-tech teaching techniques used by novice instructors may improve training for healthcare providers in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on children who suffer cardiac arrest. Researchers in a large multicenter study say their findings hold the potential to standardize and upgrade life support training by hundreds of thousands of instructors around the world.
"In the U.S. alone, over 8,000 children a year have a cardiac arrest, but providers may encounter such a catastrophic event only once or twice in their careers," said the study's senior author, Vinay M. Nadkarni, M.D., a critical care and resuscitation science specialist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "So it's crucial to keep those front-line providers trained and ready to respond. This new approach will assist with that."
The research team carried out the EXPRESS study in 14 research centers in North America, publishing their results online April 22 in JAMA Pediatrics. The EXPRESS (Examining Pediatric Resuscitation Education Using Simulation and Scripted Debriefing) researchers found that trainees in simulation exercises using a child-sized mannequin retained more knowledge if the crisis simulation leaders used scripted debriefings.
"A debriefing is the most important part of a simulation experience, and gives participants an opportunity to reflect on what they did right and what needs improvement," said Adam Cheng, M.D., of Alberta Children's Hospital and the University of Calgary. Cheng, the study's principal investigator, added that, "In a scripted debriefing, the words and sentences are phrased in a very deliberate way that helps learners reflect and think analytically about their performance and about handling emergency situations."
Nadkarni noted that the teaching method, called "advocacy inquiry," is designed to pull out a rationale from students to explain their decisions. "This avoids the common teaching technique of 'guess what I'm thinking.' We've taken a sophisticated interactive teaching method and distilled it into a script that can be readily used by novice instructors."
Many of the instructorsphysicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians and paramedicsare not highly experienced teachers. But they have a broad reach: some 280,000 instructors teach these programs around the world, typically to a group of 10 trainees each. In North America, about half a million health care workers take the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course per year, featuring emergency simulations on lifelike mannequins.
In the current study, the largest ever conducted involved pediatric simulation, 387 participants in 90 teams followed a 12-minute long scenario in which a 12-month-old infant suffers cardiac arrest. After the teams responded to the simulated emergency, half the instructors debriefed their group with an assigned script, and the other led unscripted debriefings. The debriefing session lasts 20 minutes. As assessed in tests and quizzes, participants in the scripted groups had improved medical knowledge and rated their instructors more highly, compared to unscripted groups.
In addition to comparing scripted to nonscripted debriefing, the researchers also compared "high-realism" to "low-realism" simulation. In the high-realism groups, the instructors used SimBaby, a computerized infant mannequin, with all the functions active, such as heart sounds, blood pressure, and breath sounds; in the low-realism groups, most of SimBaby's functions were turned off.
Using the high-realism simulation didn't provide educational advantages over the low-realism simulation. This may have important practical implications, said Nadkarni, because the high-realism simulators cost roughly $30,000 each as opposed to $300 to $400 for the simplest model. "If these results are generalizable, they imply that we can improve resuscitation training with less investment in expensive simulators," he added.
One limitation of the current study, concluded Nadkarni, is that it measured educational outcomes, not clinical outcomes in patients. Further research will determine how well the improvements in education translate into better care and better outcomes for children.
###
The American Heart Association funded this study. Co-authors with Nadkarni from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were Aaron Donoghue, M.D., an emergency medicine physician, and Akira Nishisaki, M.D., a critical care physician.
Cheng et al., "Examining Pediatric Resuscitation Education Using Simulation and Scripted Debriefing," JAMA Pediatrics, published online April 22, 2013.
doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.1389
About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking third in National Institutes of Health funding. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 516-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu.
[ | 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.
NEW YORK (AP) ? In what they considered a "must-win" game, the New York Knicks couldn't lose. Not the way they defended after halftime.
"We buckled down on the defensive end," Carmelo Anthony said, "and that's what opened the game up for us."
And they've done it two games in a row.
Anthony scored 34 points, Sixth Man of the Year J.R. Smith added 19, and New York took a 2-0 lead over the Boston Celtics with another dominant second half in an 87-71 victory Tuesday night.
Raymond Felton added 16 points for the Knicks, who used a 27-4 run spanning halftime to blow it open and move halfway to their first series victory since the 2000 Eastern Conference semifinals. This is their first 2-0 lead since sweeping Toronto in the first round that year.
"For us, we know what type of team we are," Anthony said. "We know when we really buckle down on the defensive end, it's been hard for teams."
It's been brutally difficult for Boston.
Paul Pierce scored 18 points for the Celtics, who will host Game 3 on Friday in their first home game since the Boston Marathon bombings.
They will have to be much sharper to avoid their first opening-round elimination since 2005, before they became one of the NBA's power teams again.
"We have to figure out the offensive side of the ball and not be so stagnated," Boston's Kevin Garnett said. "Figure out ways to score more often."
Anthony had said the Knicks needed to treat the game as a "must-win," aware of the difficulty of winning in Boston on Friday with the emotional boost the Celtics will get from finally being home.
They showed that mentality after halftime, outscoring Boston 32-11 in the third quarter.
"I think guys know what's at stake. We don't have to talk about it," veteran forward Kenyon Martin said. "Guys know what it's about right now and it's about winning a championship."
Garnett had 12 points and 11 rebounds, but battled foul trouble and spent too much time walking back to the bench with a raucous Madison Square Garden crowd finally experiencing playoff success again hounding him every step of the way.
Plagued by turnovers in Game 1, when they managed eight points in the decisive fourth quarter, the Celtics watched it all fall apart 12 minutes earlier this time. They managed only 23 points after halftime, two fewer than in their 85-78 loss Saturday.
"I thought we attacked them in the first half, but they hung in there," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "They didn't let us throw a knockout punch and I thought in the second half they turned that on us and they threw a knockout punch. Several."
Anthony followed his 36-point opener by making 8 of 13 shots in the second half to finish 11 of 24 for the game.
Iman Shumpert drilled two 3-pointers to open the third and tie it before Pierce scored to give Boston its last lead at 50-48. The Knicks scored 18 of the next 20 points, with the Celtics getting just two free throws from Jeff Green over the next 5-plus minutes. Anthony's jumper with 4:25 remaining in the third capped the run before Garnett finally gave Boston its second basket of the quarter 10 seconds later
The Celtics missed 10 of their first 11 shots of the third while getting outscored 24-4 to open the period.
"I thought in that third quarter we were as good as we've been all year in terms of ball movement and pushing it and making shots," Knicks coach Mike Woodson said.
The Celtics vowed to get Garnett more involved after he shot 4 of 12 while scoring eight points in the opener. But that plan was quickly wrecked when he picked up two fouls in the first 3 minutes, 20 seconds. The Celtics shook it off and led 20-15 when Jason Terry made a 3-pointer with 1:57 left for his first basket of the series.
But the Knicks scored 11 straight to end the period. Smith, recognized before the game for the award he won Monday, kept the celebration going with five points in the final 6.8 seconds, hitting a 36-footer at the buzzer with Celtics players all over him to make it 26-20.
The Celtics quickly settled down again, ripping off an 11-0 run to take a 31-27 lead on another 3-pointer by Terry. The lead later grew to eight when Pierce made a jumper, then fired a lob pass that traveled about three-quarters of the court to a streaking Green.
They led 48-39, gave up the last three points of the half ? and probably never realized they gave away momentum for good with it.
"We made a good run in the first half, we played our style of basketball," Terry said. "But in the second half, we definitely got away from what gave us success."
Notes: Amare Stoudemire still hopes to return from right knee surgery for the second round if the Knicks advance. He hopes to be running full speed soon so he can see how the knee responds to the additional work. ... NBA TV's analysts have made their postseason awards picks, and former Knicks coach and president Isiah Thomas chose Woodson, his friend and former Indiana University teammate. "That's good, but I mean, again, I'm not in this for Coach of the Year, I'm in to try to see if we can get this team to the championship round to try to win a title," Woodson said. "If that happens, it happens, but I'm not sitting here holding my breath about a Coach of the Year award." Woodson added that he and Thomas are friends and talk all the time.
___
Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney
CAIRO (AP) ? U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel indicated on Wednesday that he was caught by surprise when Israeli officials publicly revealed their assessment that Syria has used chemical weapons in its civil war.
Hagel told reporters that his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, did not alert him to the assessment when they met in Tel Aviv on Monday. The assessment was announced publicly on Tuesday by a senior official with Israel's military intelligence office.
"They did not give me that assessment; I guess it was not complete," Hagel said after several hours of meetings with senior Egyptian officials on the fourth stop of a week-long Mideast tour. "So I have not seen the specifics of it" or discussed it with Israeli officials.
He said he and Yaalon discussed the issue of Syria's chemical weapons, but Hagel would not elaborate further.
The Obama administration has said Syrian government use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer," implying that it might, if confirmed, compel the U.S. to get more directly involved in the civil conflict.
Hagel said that Washington is looking for "real intelligence" on the issue of Syrian chemical weapon use.
"Suspicions are one thing. Evidence is another," he said. "I think we have to be very careful here before we make any conclusions, draw any conclusions, based on real intelligence." He said his comments should not be interpreting as questioning the validity of other counties' intelligence on Syria. The important point, he said, is that "the United States relies on its own intelligence ? and must."
After his meetings in Cairo, which included talks with President Mohammed Morsi and the Egyptian defense minister, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Hagel flew to Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf.
Hagel said his Cairo stop was important for reinforcing U.S. support for the Egyptian government's transition to democracy and its efforts at economic reform.
By including Cairo on his first Mideast tour as defense secretary, Hagel was highlighting the Obama administration's hope of preserving influence with the Egyptian military as the country struggles with its transition to democracy.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The U.S. is deeply concerned, however, that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest, including in the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) ? The new tourism campaign New Hampshire rolled out a year ago is working so well, state officials are planning to expand it to other areas, including economic development.
The "Live Free and ...." is a fill-in-the-blank play on the state's longstanding "Live Free or Die" motto. The state has used variations including "Live Free and Play," ''Live Free and Explore" in its advertising, and attractions statewide have been putting their own twist on it.
Speaking at a conference Monday, state Travel and Tourism Director Lori Harnois said the campaign has helped boost tourism spending, which increased to $4.4 billion in the last fiscal year. And Jeff Rose, commissioner of the Department of Resources and Economic Development, said he plans to use a similar approach to attract new businesses to the state.
(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Zions Bank CEO Harris Simmons works with fourth-graders in Paul Mulder's class at Guadalupe School in Salt Lake City Monday April 22, 2013. The banking executive visited the school to teach students about financial literacy Monday April 22, 2013.
Personal finance ? Some say required class is failing; others say it?s way too soon for a verdict.
Buying a new bottle of water every day versus refilling a container from the drinking fountain. Purchasing a new pair of jeans versus waiting until a current pair wears out.
In each scenario that Zions Bancorporation President and CEO Harris Simmons threw out to fourth-graders at Salt Lake City?s Guadalupe School, 10-year-old Audrey Palestino consistently chose the frugal option.
That is, until she had to decide between buying the next volume in the Lemony Snicket series or waiting until a library copy became available.
"That?s a need," she said.
Distinguishing between needs and wants is a lesson Simmons and thousands of volunteers from various banks and credit unions have been teaching in classrooms and after-school programs across the state as part of Financial Literacy Month.
In a state known for high rates of foreclosures, bankruptcy filings and scams, Utah leaders have targeted financial literacy ? helping students learn how to save, budget and prevent debt ? as a public policy goal. In 2008, the Utah State Office of Education developed an online curriculum to help teachers teach about money management and lawmakers made passing a half-semester financial literacy course a requirement for high school graduation. This year, legislators passed Senate Bill 43, which creates a task force to study how to improve that high school class.
It?s all a good start, but it?s not enough, says Brian Nelson Ford, a personal finance consultant and author of The 8 Pillars of Financial Greatness.
"I think we?re trending in the right direction, but we?re not where we need to be," Ford said.
Ford said many children form their spending habits and patterns well before high school. And while teachers may be well-meaning, they often don?t know enough about money management themselves.
"We need teachers who are a little more passionate and better trained in personal finance," he said. "We need to move away from ?textbook? personal finance and toward ?real world? personal finance."
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State Sen. Pat Jones, D-Cottonwood Heights, agrees. This is why she sponsored SB 43 to assess what?s working and what?s not.
"A lot of people are going online and giving us feedback like, ?it?s a waste of time? and ?it?s not meaningful?," she said. "It?s too hit and miss right now."
But that kind of evaluation is purely anecdotal at this point. Julie Felshaw, financial education specialist at the Utah State Office of Education, says the first group of students required to take the financial literacy class has only been out in the world for five years and the Legislature didn?t fund any kind of ongoing assessment.
"It?s going to be 15 to 20 years before we learn the impact of financial literacy classes," she said.
As far as teacher training, Felshaw says the state office does offer resources to boost teacher proficiency in personal finance, including an online course to help educators talk about money to various age groups. It also offers summer workshops to review standards and objectives. She said these resources are available but optional, and attendance is in the 50 to 60 percent range.
"We encourage them to attend, but in fairness to teachers, they?ve got a pretty full plate and a lot are not just teaching [personal finance]," she said.
Zions Bank?s Simmons added that while financial literacy in the classroom is very important, lessons about money should largely take place in homes.
"It?s something that parents can do," Simmons said. "Too often we rely on schools to do all of this. This is something that all of us as parents need to be teaching our kids."
jnpearce@sltrib.com
Twitter: @jnpearce
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Apr. 22, 2013 ? Three smartphones destined to become low-cost satellites rode to space Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corp.'s Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.
The trio of "PhoneSats" is operating in orbit, and may prove to be the lowest-cost satellites ever flown in space. The goal of NASA's PhoneSat mission is to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics of a capable, yet very inexpensive, satellite.
Transmissions from all three PhoneSats have been received at multiple ground stations on Earth, indicating they are operating normally. The PhoneSat team at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., will continue to monitor the satellites in the coming days. The satellites are expected to remain in orbit for as long as two weeks.
"It's always great to see a space technology mission make it to orbit -- the high frontier is the ultimate testing ground for new and innovative space technologies of the future," said Michael Gazarik, NASA's associate administrator for space technology in Washington.
"Smartphones offer a wealth of potential capabilities for flying small, low-cost, powerful satellites for atmospheric or Earth science, communications, or other space-born applications. They also may open space to a whole new generation of commercial, academic and citizen-space users."
Satellites consisting mainly of the smartphones will send information about their health via radio back to Earth in an effort to demonstrate they can work as satellites in space. The spacecraft also will attempt to take pictures of Earth using their cameras. Amateur radio operators around the world can participate in the mission by monitoring transmissions and retrieving image data from the three satellites. Large images will be transmitted in small chunks and will be reconstructed through a distributed ground station network. More information can found at: http://www.phonesat.org
NASA's off-the-shelf PhoneSats already have many of the systems needed for a satellite, including fast processors, versatile operating systems, multiple miniature sensors, high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers and several radios.
NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components for the three prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project between $3,500 and $7,000 by using primarily commercial hardware and keeping the design and mission objectives to a minimum. The hardware for this mission is the Google-HTC Nexus One smartphone running the Android operating system.
NASA added items a satellite needs that the smartphones do not have -- a larger, external lithium-ion battery bank and a more powerful radio for messages it sends from space. The smartphone's ability to send and receive calls and text messages has been disabled. Each smartphone is housed in a standard cubesat structure, measuring about 4 inches square. The smartphone acts as the satellite's onboard computer. Its sensors are used for attitude determination and its camera for Earth observation.
For more about information about NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program and the PhoneSat mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/smallsats
The PhoneSat mission is a technology demonstration project developed through the agency's Small Spacecraft Technology Program, part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. The directorate is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in future science and exploration missions. NASA's technology investments provide cutting-edge solutions for our nation's future. For more information about NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech
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Martin Reisch, aka safe solvent is iMore's go-to videographer for events like CES and Macworld, and he's just joined us in New York City for our big, upcoming [Redacted]. The moment he landed he walked in with a giant Crumpler Dry Red No. 9 gear bag, and we just knew we had to get a look inside it.
Starting at the top, Martin had his 5D Mark III, and since he's a firm believer in backup bodies, he had his 5D Mark II as well. For lenses, he brought with him his Canon 24-70 F2.8 L, Canon 50 F1.2 L, and Canon 70-200 F2.8 L.
He also packed his RED Scarlet, a massively impressive 4K camera with an EF mount that lets him use the very same Canon lenses.
Despite all that glass, Martin's daily driver is still his iPhone 5, along with a Joby Gorilla Pod GripTight. You can see samples of that work over on Instagram, and as for the work he's doing this week...
SpaceX may be the only private outfit currently shepherding cargo to the International Space Station, but Orbital Sciences, which is the second party in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services effort, is taking a step towards its own ISS resupply missions. Today, the firm's Antares rocket will undergo its very first test flight, taking off from the space agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. Liftoff is slated for sometime between 5PM and 7PM, with an 80 percent chance of favorable weather, as opposed to the 45 percent odds and high-altitude winds that foiled its initial attempt yesterday. To watch Antares embark on its maiden voyage, hit the jump for a live video feed.
Anheuser-Busch InBev has reached a final agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that could settle a dispute over its $20.1 billion acquisition of the Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo.
The world's largest brewer has been trying since June to buy the half of Grupo Modelo that it doesn't already own. The Justice Department sued to block the deal out of concern that a company that massive would stifle competition in the U.S.
The companies involved in a complicated series of deals surrounding the acquisition have negotiated for months with Justice officials to try and clear the way. They submitted an agreement Friday to the court and if approved, it is expected to close in June.
AB InBev originally sought to get access to all of Modelo's business U.S. and abroad. But in an effort to appease regulators that blocked the deal, AB InBev later struck a side deal that gives control of the production of Corona and other Modelo beers sold in the U.S. to a competitor, Constellation Brands Inc.
The agreement announced Friday is similar to the modified deal, but instead requires the sale of Modelo's entire U.S. business to Constellation.
That would give Constellation not just the licenses of Modelo brand beers in the U.S., but also brewing capabilities so that it is not relying on AB InBev at all. The agreement also requires the sale of AB InBev's stake in a joint venture agreement and other assets, rights and interests so that Constellation can compete in the U.S. beer market independent of AB InBev.
"This is a win for the $80 billion U.S. beer market and consumers," said Bill Baer, assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ's antitrust division. "If this settlement makes just a one percent difference in prices, U.S. consumers will save almost $1 billion a year."
Baer said the deal as originally presented was potentially transformative in a bad way for consumers, but this agreement creates an independent owner of Modelo brands in the U.S. that will be positioned to provide consumers with more brands at competitive prices.
Constellation will effectively replace Modelo as a competitor in the U.S. selling its Corona and other brands domestically.
The company, based in Victor, N.Y., expects the deal will double its sales and solidify its place in the U.S. beer market.
The settlement also will benefit AB InBev, based in Belgium, which will still add Modelo brands globally to its already expansive portfolio of beers that includes Budweiser, Stella Artois and others.
The beer industry has always been fiercely competitive, but brewers have come under incredible pressure since the global downturn.
Unemployment hit young men more than other populations and that took a toll on sales, as they represent beer maker's key market.
Domestic beer production, a key indicator of market activity, increased 1 percent in 2012 after falling for three straight years, according to industry group the Beer Institute. Production hit nearly 194 billion barrels in 2012 but that is still down more than 4 percent from 198.4 billion barrels produced in 2007.
Anheuser-Busch earlier this year said profits fell nearly 5 percent in the final quarter of 2012, and it forecast weak first-quarter sales for this year. The company posts results for the current quarter at the end of the month.
Shares of AB InBev rose $1.65, or 1.7 percent, to close at $99.22 Friday. Constellation Brands shares increased $1.18, or 2.5 percent, to close at $48.52.
Apr. 18, 2013 ? Natural lubricants play an important role in health, including a well-known effect to help prevent osteoarthritis in knee and ankle joints. However, much is still unknown about their role and function in other areas of the body. Researchers for the first time have discovered that the surface of the eye produces "lubricin," the same substance that protects the joints, and have explained its role in this sensory organ. These findings provide new hope for the millions suffering from dry eye disease and complications from contact lens wear and refractive surgery. Dry eye disease is one of the most frequent causes of patient visits to eye care practitioners and occurs predominantly in women.
In a JAMA Ophthalmology paper published online April 18, David Sullivan, Ph.D., of Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Institute in Boston, Mass., and Tannin Schmidt, Ph.D., at the University of Calgary in Canada, examined human tissues and cells to determine whether the glycoprotein lubricin is produced by the ocular surface (the anterior segment, or front part of the eye, which includes the cornea and conjunctiva).
Their research demonstrated that ocular surface cells produce lubricin, which prevents friction between the cornea and conjunctiva, reducing shear stress (such as during eye blinking) to prevent eye injury at the ocular surface. Furthermore, they demonstrated that lubricin deficiency in the eye contributes to corneal damage.
Findings from the study also demonstrate the presence of lubricin mRNA (the genetic material necessary to create lubricin) in a number of exocrine, urinary and reproductive tissues (salivary, bladder, cervical/vaginal & uterine), suggesting that lubricin could play a similar role throughout the body.
"These novel findings hold promise not only for treatment of conditions such as dry eye disease, or complications from contact lens wear and refractive surgery," said lead author Dr. David Sullivan, who is also the Founder of the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society. "They are also encouraging for the possible treatment of postmenopausal vaginal atrophy and other disorders that occur more commonly in women, such as xerostomia and interstitial cystitis."
"This is a new and exciting area of research for my laboratory," said Dr. Tannin Schmidt, who is jointly appointed in Kinesiology and Biomedical Engineering, "I am excited to see where this discovery leads us in terms of potential new therapies as well as novel contact lens materials that help improve biocompatibility and extend the length of time you can wear your lenses."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Tannin A. Schmidt et al. Transcription, Translation, and Function of Lubricin, a Boundary Lubricant, at the Ocular Surface. JAMA Ophthalmol., 2013;():1-11 DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2013.2385
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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.
In this photo taken Thursday, April 11, 2013, playwright Howard Brenton, author of a play about Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei called '#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei' stands by a poster for his play at Hampstead Theatre in London. Brenton, 70, is one of Britain's best-known playwrights, whose work has ranged from provocative history play "The Romans in Britain" - the focus of a famous, failed prosecution for obscenity in 1982 - to journalism satire "Pravda," co-written with David Hare. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
In this photo taken Thursday, April 11, 2013, playwright Howard Brenton, author of a play about Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei called '#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei' stands by a poster for his play at Hampstead Theatre in London. Brenton, 70, is one of Britain's best-known playwrights, whose work has ranged from provocative history play "The Romans in Britain" - the focus of a famous, failed prosecution for obscenity in 1982 - to journalism satire "Pravda," co-written with David Hare. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
In this photo taken Thursday, April 11, 2013, playwright Howard Brenton, author of a play about Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei called '#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei' stands by a poster for his play at Hampstead Theatre in London. Brenton, 70, is one of Britain's best-known playwrights, whose work has ranged from provocative history play "The Romans in Britain" - the focus of a famous, failed prosecution for obscenity in 1982 - to journalism satire "Pravda," co-written with David Hare. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
In this photo taken Thursday, April 11, 2013, playwright Howard Brenton, author of a play about Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei called '#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei' poses for a photograph at Hampstead Theatre in London. Brenton, 70, is one of Britain's best-known playwrights, whose work has ranged from provocative history play "The Romans in Britain" - the focus of a famous, failed prosecution for obscenity in 1982 - to journalism satire "Pravda," co-written with David Hare. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
LONDON (AP) ? Ai Weiwei appears to be standing in front of a London theater, which would be some trick, even for the provocative and unpredictable Chinese artist.
The sculptor, photographer and installation artist renowned for his bicycles and sunflower seeds spent almost three months in detention in 2011 and remains barred from leaving China.
At second glance the burly, bearded figure turns out to be British actor Benedict Wong, who is about to star as the artist in a stage play about his incarceration. The play was Ai's idea, and though he won't be there for Wednesday's opening night at the Hampstead Theatre, it's the latest act in his artistic campaign for freedom of expression.
"The play is part of his project," said Howard Brenton, the British playwright who has scripted "(hash)Aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei."
"Early in the rehearsals we were having a discussion and we suddenly thought, 'Oh, we've all been sucked into his project.' Which is fine. He asked for the play, we've delivered it."
Brenton is a little worried about reaction to the play ? though not from the critics. Ai's long history of needling the Chinese authorities has often had serious consequences.
"I was very aware that it's not dangerous for me to write it," Brenton said. "It could be dangerous for him for me to write it."
The 55-year-old Ai is one of the world's most famous artists, celebrated abroad with exhibitions from Tokyo to London to Washington, D.C. At home, he has been alternately encouraged, tolerated and harassed by officialdom.
He helped design the striking "Bird's Nest" stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but the next year was beaten so badly by police he needed surgery for bleeding on the brain.
He was encouraged to open a studio in Shanghai ? but officials later ordered it knocked down.
In April 2011 he was arrested at Beijing airport and held for 81 days without explanation during a wider crackdown on dissent that coincided with the international ferment of the Arab Spring. On his release, it was announced that he had confessed to tax evasion and been slapped with a $2.4 million bill.
Brenton's script is based on interviews Ai gave to British journalist Barnaby Martin shortly after his release, and published in book form as "Hanging Man."
The script captures both the fear and the absurdity of being detained without charge. Ai was first questioned by Beijing murder squad detectives, who had no idea who he was and began their interrogation by demanding: "Who did you kill?"
"It may have been deliberate that they didn't want people who were in any way sophisticated, so he couldn't get at them," Brenton said. "The extraordinary thing is that he did end up discussing art with his interrogators."
Ai never learned what his questioners were after, or why he was eventually released. He suspects the detention was related to a series of works made in response to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, in which more than 5,000 children died when poorly constructed schools collapsed.
His release came after international pressure from artists, politicians and human rights activists? and, possibly, a shifting balance of power inside the Chinese Communist Party.
For the play, Brenton drew on research trips he had made to China for an abandoned television project. He stuck to Ai's account of the interrogations, but drew on his own imagination for two scenes in which bureaucrats discuss what to do with the troublesome artist.
"I put in a line: 'Maybe Ai Weiwei in jail would be his most powerful work. We must avoid that,'" he said.
Brenton, 70, is one of Britain's best-known playwrights, whose work has ranged from provocative history play "The Romans in Britain" ? the focus of a famous, failed prosecution for obscenity in 1982 ? to journalism satire "Pravda," co-written with David Hare. His recent plays include excursions into British history with Tudor story "Anne Boleyn" and a drama about deposed King Charles I, "55 Days."
Throughout his plays, Brenton has often explored a theme close to Ai Weiwei's heart and work: The relationship between the individual and the state.
Although Ai's art takes varied forms, encompassing architecture, sculpture, photography and video, the importance of free expression ? and the ability of the individual voice speaking up against authority ? is arguably the central theme of all his work.
He has stacked hundreds of bicycles into giant sculptures that spoke of individuality, mass production and Chinese identity, and spread 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds ? seemingly uniform yet subtly different ? across the floor of London's Tate Modern.
One recent piece was a "Gangnam Style" parody video entitled "Grass Mud Horse Style" in Chinese, a sly insult Ai coined as a stab at the country's Internet censors, its Chinese characters homonyms for a vulgar slur. The video, which featured Ai doing a PSY-style horse dance while waggling a pair of handcuffs, was soon blocked on the Internet in China.
"Without freedom of speech there is no modern world ? just a barbaric one," Ai said in a statement released to coincide with the play.
It's not a message intended solely for China. The April 19 performance of the play will be streamed online around the globe in a move, Ai said, to "bring the play's themes of art and society, freedom of speech and openness, the individual and the state to a new, broad and receptive global audience."
It's uncertain whether Internet users in China will be able to see it.
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Online: www.hampsteadtheatre.com
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Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
Full device specs round out an evening of Google Glass news
We've seen that Google is getting ready to ship out Google Glass Explorer units, the developer preview of the Mirror API, and the Android companion app already this evening, and now it's time for the device specs. Google has released the tech specs of Google Glass, and it should answer some of the questions folks have.
Fit: Adjustable nosepads and durable frame fits any face. Extra nosepads in two sizes.
Display: High resolution display is the equivalent of a 25 inch high definition screen from eight feet away.
Camera: Photos - 5 MP; Videos - 720p
Audio: Bone Conduction Transducer
Connectivity: Wifi - 802.11b/g; Bluetooth
Storage: 12 GB of usable memory, synced with Google cloud storage. 16 GB Flash total.
Battery: One full day of typical use. Some features, like Hangouts and video recording, are more battery intensive.
Charger: Included Micro USB cable and charger. While there are thousands of Micro USB chargers out there, Glass is designed and tested with the included charger in mind. Use it and preserve long and prosperous Glass use.
Compatibility: Any Bluetooth-capable phone. The MyGlass companion app requires Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or higher. MyGlass enables GPS and SMS messaging.
We're not really worried about things like CPUs and GPUs, or on-board RAM, and it looks like they have covered what's going to be important. The all day battery life is almost a must have with any wearable computer, so we hope that rings true. Also worth noting that Any phone with Bluetooth is said to be compatible. We'll soon know more about both I imagine.
Apr 15 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $4,139,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,137,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,442,389 4. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,100,469 5. Steve Stricker $1,935,340 6. Phil Mickelson $1,764,680 7. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 8. Jason Day $1,659,565 9. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 10. Keegan Bradley $1,430,347 11. Charles Howell III $1,393,806 12. John Merrick $1,375,757 13. Russell Henley $1,331,434 14. Michael Thompson $1,310,709 15. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 16. Bill Haas $1,271,553 17. Billy Horschel $1,254,224 18. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Speaker John Boehner says he's sending a three-member House delegation to London for the funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Boehner said in a statement on Monday that Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn will lead the delegation. Joining the Tennessee lawmaker will be fellow Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and George Holding of North Carolina.
The speaker called Thatcher one of the greatest champions of freedom that the world has ever known. The funeral for Thatcher, who died last week, will take place Wednesday at St. Paul's Cathedral.
The House delegation will fly commercial to London. In February, Boehner suspended the use of military aircraft for official trips by House members, part of the belt-tightening by Congress in response to automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that kicked in March 1.
UFC 159 was a bizarre event ? possibly cursed by demons ? but there were still plenty of standout performances by fighters whose bouts ended normally. Who stood out for you? Speak up on Twitter or on Facebook.
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Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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