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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Scott Brown won't seek open Senate seat, a blow to Republican hopes

Republican Scott Brown won't vie for US Senate seat vacated by John Kerry of Massachusetts, he said Friday. His decision increases the likelihood the seat will stay in Democratic hands.?

By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / February 1, 2013

Sen. Scott Brown (R) of Massachusetts speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 2012. Brown, who was defeated in his re-election bid, said Friday, that he will not run for the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry, who was named secretary of State.

Alex Brandon/AP

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Republican hopes to win back a seat in the US Senate took a hit Friday as former Sen. Scott Brown announced he would not run for a now-open seat from Massachusetts.

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Mr. Brown gained national stature after he won an upset victory in a special election in 2010 after the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, pulling that Senate seat out of Democratic control for the first time since Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. occupied it in 1953. Brown lost a hard-fought campaign to retain the seat in November, surrendering it to Elizabeth Warren.

Brown had been widely expected to run again, for the Senate seat vacated this week by John Kerry (D) in his move to become secretary of State.

?I have received a lot of encouragement from friends and supporters to become a candidate, and my competitive instincts were leading in the same direction,? Brown said in a statement released by his staff Friday.

But he said he would not run, opening the door for other Republicans to enter the fray but increasing the likelihood that Democrats will retain the seat.

Possibly hinting at a run for governor of Massachusetts in 2014, Brown said a Senate bid is ?not the only way for me to advance the ideals and causes that matter most to me.?

Brown?s decision may be driven partly by calculations of his electoral prospects and partly by doubts about the policymaking climate in Washington. Then, too, he would have had to muster the energy for a third Senate campaign in about as many years ? this one just seven months after his November loss.

In his statement, Brown also hinted at some exhaustion with campaigning and with Washington.

?I was not at all certain that a third Senate campaign in less than four years, and the prospect of returning to a Congress even more partisan than the one I left, was really the best way for me to continue in public service at this time,? he said.

A run for Kerry?s seat would have put him on a five-month treadmill, ending in a June 25 special election.

Some polls suggest Brown would have an easier time winning the governorship than a Senate race.?Massachusetts voters essentially split between Brown and US Rep. Edward Markey (D), in a hypothetical Senate race match-up, according to a?Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday.?Representative Markey is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, but he'll have a contender in US Rep. Stephen Lynch (D).

But analysts at the polling group said that if undecided voters broke Democratic to the same degree they did for Ms. Warren in November, Brown would lose.

A win for governor can't be counted on as a slam dunk, but the poll found that for now Brown is a clear front-runner against some potential Democratic contenders for governor in 2014.

As a Republican from a heavily Democratic state, Brown won high favorability ratings among constituents in part for his political moderation and willingness to work with Democrats, and in part for his affability.

He?s known as a local-sports fan, an Army National Guard reservist, and a candidate who traversed the state in a pickup truck to meet voters. Early in life, Brown also had a range of childhood challenges (chronicled in his book ?Against All Odds?), won a Cosmopolitan "America's Sexiest Man" contest, and worked as a fashion model while en route to a career in law and politics.

Brown?s 2010 Senate win, coming about 10 months ahead of scheduled congressional elections, served as a harbinger of the tea party tide that would sweep Republicans back into control of the US House of Representatives.

Now Republican leaders in the state face a scramble to select and rally around a candidate. Among the names in circulation are former Gov. William Weld and Kerry Healy, a former lieutenant governor.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/LZxFCvBspWU/Scott-Brown-won-t-seek-open-Senate-seat-a-blow-to-Republican-hopes

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Details of Chinese Spacecraft's Asteroid Encounter

Holy (bleep), did you see the landing sequence of Curiosity? -- that's dancing near the fire! The reason it worked is because of all of those "bureaucratic tests", and there is now a laboratory on Mars which no other nation or agency could have put there. Kudos to the Chinese for the Chang'e-2 mission, but NASA is still so far ahead of anyone else in robot exploration of the solar system, measured by current, operating, successful missions (Cassini, Messenger, Curiosity, New Horizons, etc, etc), that there is really no comparison.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/jIMKu0BTxXg/story01.htm

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Stocks rise; Dow closes above 14,000

The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 14,000 Friday for the first time since October 2007.?The Dow Jones industrial average is?a stock market index that is traditionally considered a benchmark for how the entire stock market is faring.

By Christina Rexrode,?Associated Press / February 1, 2013

A screen on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday shows the Dow Jones industrial average above 14,000 for the first time since October 2007. Evidence that the US economic recovery is firmly on track drove stock markets higher on Friday, adding to the cheer from good economic indicators out of Europe.

Richard Drew/AP

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The Dow closed above 14,000 on Friday for the first time in more than five years.

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It was just a number on a board, but it was enough to raise the hopes of some investors and cause others concern about an overheated market. And it brought reminders of a different era, back before the financial crisis rocked the world economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average, a stock market index that is traditionally considered a benchmark for how the entire market is faring, had been rising fairly steadily for about a month. On Friday, strong auto sales and optimism about U.S. job growth pushed it over the mark. The Dow is now just 155 points away from its record close.

"There's a newfound enthusiasm for the equity market," said Jim Russell, regional investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.

But market watchers were divided over what the Dow milestone ? or even what a potential new all-time high ? really means. To some, it's an important booster to hearts and minds, making investors feel optimistic and thus more willing to bet on the market.

"The Dow touching 14,000, it matters psychologically," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "It attracts smaller investors."

And those investors, until recently, had been shying away from stocks. Since April 2011, investors have pulled more cash out of U.S. stock mutual funds than they've put in, according to the Investment Company Institute. In the past three weeks, though, that trend has reversed, which could make January the first month in nearly two years where stock-focused funds had a net inflow.

To others, though, Dow 14,000 is nothing but a number, a sign more of how traders feel than of the economy. And it's not even the best number on the board, some traders say. Professional investors usually pay more heed to the Standard & Poor's main index, which tracks 500 companies compared to the Dow's 30. The Dow garners attention, they say, because it's more familiar to the general public.

Joe Gordon, managing partner at Gordon Asset Management in North Carolina, wasn't celebrating Friday. He thinks the gains won't last. The fact that small investors are finally piling back in the stock market, he said, is not a reason for optimism but a sign that it's getting overhyped and due to fall.

After the Dow hit its all-time record in 2007, it fell almost steadily for the next year and a half. It lost more than half its value before starting to tick back up again.

"It is good trivia to talk about on television and the radio," Gordon said, referring to the 14,000 mark. "It's meaningless to the average professional." And for workers still unemployed by the financial crisis, he said, "it really means nothing to them."

If there is dissent over what Dow 14,000 signifies, what's undeniable is that it's a rarefied event. Before Friday, the Dow had closed above 14,000 just nine times in its history. The first time was in July 2007; the rest were in October of that year.

The last time the Dow closed that mark was Oct. 12, 2007, when it settled at 14,093.08. It had reached its all-time record, 14,164.53, three days before that.

For the average investor, that was all back when the stock market still seemed like a party. Housing prices were starting to ebb but hadn't cratered. Jobs were abundant, with unemployment at 4.7 percent ? compared to 7.9 percent now. Lehman Brothers still existed. So did Bear Stearns, Wachovia and Washington Mutual.

The Dow ended Friday 149.21 points higher to 14,009.79. The other indexes were also up. The S&P 500 rose 15.06 to 1,513.17. The Nasdaq composite index was up 36.97 to 3,179.10.

Auto sales helped. Toyota, Ford, GM and Chrysler all reported double-digit gains for January.

The government jobs report that pushed stocks forward was mixed, but traders chose to focus on the positive. The U.S. said it added 157,000 jobs in January, which was in line with expectations. Unemployment inched up to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December. Many economists, though, were encouraged because the government now says that hiring over the past year was higher than originally thought.

The jobs number is based on a survey of employers. The unemployment rate is based on a separate survey of households, which is why they can diverge.

Among stocks making big moves:

?Drugmaker Merck fell more than 3 percent, down $1.42 to $41.83. Its fourth-quarter profit suffered because of competition from generic medicines against its blockbuster allergy drug Singulair.

? Insurance company MetLife rose more than 2 percent, up 86 cents to $38.20, after saying it plans to buy the largest private pension fund administrator in Chile.

? Zoetis, an animal health business that Pfizer just spun off, made its debut on the stock market. It shot up 19 percent, rising $5.01 to $31.01.

____

AP Business Writer Matthew Craft contributed to this report.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/1p3whEU8oLc/Stocks-rise-Dow-closes-above-14-000

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Pig Out In The Winter Or When Money's Tight? Blame Evolution

When times are tough, that prehistoric urge to splurge on high-calorie treats like M&Ms still kicks in.

Daniel M.N. Turner/NPR

When times are tough, that prehistoric urge to splurge on high-calorie treats like M&Ms still kicks in.

Daniel M.N. Turner/NPR

Has the recession made you fat?

To the long and growing list of risk factors known to increase the risk of obesity, scientists recently added a new one: scarcity.

People given subtle cues that they may have to confront harsh conditions in the near future choose to eat higher-calorie food than they might do otherwise, a response that researchers believe is shaped by the long hand of evolution.

Evolutionary biologists have long speculated that in prehistoric times, when the blueprint of modern human behavior was created as our ancestors struggled for survival, gluttony may have been a useful response to scarcity: If you knew ? or feared ? a famine was coming, it made sense to tuck away as many calories as possible to prepare for it.

That response, while perfectly suited for prehistoric times, is maladaptive today, when more people in wealthy countries such as the United States are dying from diseases related to obesity rather than starvation. But behavior is not easily changed: The experience of food surplus is a relatively recent development in our history, and ancient rules about how to respond to adversity are likely hardwired into the brain. Our evolution hasn't had a chance to catch up, if you will, to dramatic changes in our ecosystems.

Here's the evidence for the theory that subtle cues about environmental adversity could be partly behind our nation's obesity epidemic: Researchers recently stopped 121 pedestrians on a college campus and asked them to participate in a study. The volunteers were given a bag of M&Ms; some were told the M&Ms were high calorie and some were told their M&Ms were low-calorie.

The researchers then exposed the volunteers to unconscious signals ? words that indicated harsh environmental conditions such as "survival," "withstand," "persistence," "shortfall," "struggle" and "adversity." When subtly prompted in this way to think about harsh conditions, volunteers given the high-calorie M&Ms ate nearly twice as many as volunteers given the low-calorie M&Ms.

In a paper published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers Juliano Laran and Anthony Salerno at the University of Miami suggested this meant that "high calorie foods, which are useful when resources are scarce, are consumed in larger quantities when an environment is perceived to be harsh, whereas low-calorie foods are consumed in smaller quantities."

In a second experiment, the researchers found that when volunteers subtly induced to think about harsh environmental conditions were also made to feel that they were starved of resources, they consumed more calories than volunteers who had been induced to think about harsh environmental conditions but were not given a feeling of scarcity.

Of course, it's not all biology. Other factors such as opportunity and less exercise may also play a role in why we stock up on calories during hard times, Marcia Pelchat of the Monnell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia told us last year.

Laran and Salerno suggest that one implication of their new research is that people's life history needs to be a part of understanding their struggles with obesity and dieting: Not all heavy-eaters are gluttonous and hedonistic ? a history of scarcity can make people vulnerable to overeating.

They point out that current public health approaches to obesity largely assume people would choose to eat less when they are given information about the amount of calories in various foods.

But posting calories on menus, most recently McDonald's, may not really decrease consumption of high-calorie foods. "In fact, making the high number of calories in a food item salient may draw people to it," the researchers wrote.

"The key is to understand that the choice of unhealthy food is not always the result of a willingness to indulge but can sometimes be the result of exposure to information suggesting environmental harshness."

Sometimes, in other words, reaching for that last french fry ? when you're already full ? may not be entirely your fault.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/01/31/170768421/pig-out-in-the-winter-or-when-moneys-tight-blame-evolution?ft=1&f=1007

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Saturday, February 2, 2013

Mutant gene gives pigeons fancy hairdos

Friday, February 1, 2013

University of Utah researchers decoded the genetic blueprint of the rock pigeon, unlocking secrets about pigeons' Middle East origins, feral pigeons' kinship with escaped racing birds, and how mutations give pigeons traits like a fancy feather hairdo known as a head crest.

"Birds are a huge part of life on Earth, and we know surprisingly little about their genetics," especially compared with mammals and fish, says Michael D. Shapiro, one of the study's two principal authors and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah. "There are more than 10,000 species of birds, yet we know very little about what makes them so diverse genetically and developmentally."

He adds that in the new study, "we've shown a way forward to find the genetic basis of traits ? the molecular mechanisms controlling animal diversity in pigeons. Using this approach, we expect to be able to do this for other traits in pigeons, and it can be applied to other birds and many other animals as well."

The study appears Jan. 31 on Science Express, the website of the journal Science. Shapiro led the research with Jun Wang of China's BGI-Shenzhen (formerly Beijing Genomics Institute) and other scientists from BGI, the University of Utah, Denmark's University of Copenhagen and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Key findings of the study of pigeons, which first were domesticated some 5,000 years ago in the Mediterranean region:

The researchers sequenced the genome, or genetic blueprint, of the rock pigeon, Columba livia, among the most common and varied bird species on Earth. There are some 350 breeds with different sizes, shapes, colors, color patterns, beaks, bone structure, vocalizations and arrangements of feathers on the feet and head ? including head crests that come in shapes known as hoods, manes, shells and peaks.

The pigeon is among the few bird genomes sequenced so far, along with those of the chicken, turkey, zebra finch and a common parakeet known as a budgerigar or budgie, so "this will give us new insights into bird evolution," Shapiro says.

Using innovative software developed by study co-author Mark Yandell, a University of Utah professor of human genetics, the scientists revealed that a single mutation in a gene named EphB2 causes head and neck feathers to grow upward instead of downward, creating head crests.

"This same gene in humans has been implicated as a contributor to Alzheimer's disease as well as prostate cancer and possibly other cancers," Shapiro says, noting that more than 80 of the 350 pigeon breeds have head crests, which play a role in attracting mates in many bird species.

The researchers compared the pigeon genome to those of chickens, turkeys and zebra finches. "Despite 100 million years of evolution since these bird species diverged, their genomes are very similar," Shapiro says.

The study turned up more conclusive evidence that major pigeon breed groups originated in the Middle East, and that North American feral pigeons ? which are free-living but not wild ? are close relatives of racing pigeons, named racing homers.

A Genome for the Birds, a Gene for Head Crests

The study assembled 1.1 billion base pairs of DNA in the rock pigeon genome, and the researchers believe there are about 1.3 billion total, compared with 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. The rock pigeon's 17,300 genes compare with about 21,000 genes in people.

The researchers first constructed a "reference genome" ? a full genetic blueprint ? from a male of the pigeon breed named the Danish tumbler. They did less complete sequencing of two feral pigeons and 38 other pigeons from 36 breeds.

Shapiro says his team's study is the first to pinpoint a gene mutation responsible for a pigeon trait, in this case, head crests.

"A head crest is a series of feathers on the back of the head and neck that point up instead of down," Shapiro says. "Some are small and pointed. Others look like a shell behind the head; some people think they look like mullets. They can be as extreme as an Elizabethan collar."

The study found strong evidence that the EphB2 (Ephrin receptor B2) gene acts like an on-off switch to create a head crest when mutant, and no head crest when normal. It also showed the mutation and related changes in nearby DNA are shared by all crested pigeons, so the trait evolved just once and was spread to numerous pigeon breeds by breeders. They ruled out the alternate possibility the mutation arose several times independently in different breeds.

The researchers analyzed full or partial genetic sequences for 69 crested birds from 22 breeds, and 95 uncrested birds from 57 breeds. They found a perfect association between the mutant gene and the presence of head crests.

"The way we tracked this trait was innovative," Shapiro says. "We used gene-finding software from Mark Yandell's group that was developed to find mutations that control human diseases. We adapted this software to find mutations that control interesting traits in pigeons. This should be extendable to other animals as well."

The scientists also showed that while the head crest trait becomes apparent in juvenile pigeons, the mutant gene affects pigeon embryos by reversing the direction of feather buds ? from which feathers later grow ? at a molecular level.

Other genetic factors ? not identified in the new study ? determine what kind of head crest east pigeon develops: shell, peak, mane or hood, according to Shapiro.

Tracking the Origins of Pigeons

A 2012 by Shapiro study provided limited evidence of pigeons' origins in the Middle East and some breeds' origins in India, and indicated kinship between common feral or free-living city pigeons and escaped racing pigeons.

In the new study, "we included some different breeds that we didn't include in the last analysis," Shapiro says. "Some of those breeds only left the Middle East in the last few decades. They've probably been there for hundreds if not thousands of years. If we find that other breeds are closely related to them, then we can infer those other breeds probably also came from the Middle East. That's what we did."

"We found that the owl breeds ? which are pigeon breeds with very short beaks and that are very popular with breeders ? likely came from the Middle East," he says. "They are very closely related to breeds we know came from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt."

Shapiro says the study also "found a lot of shared genetic heritage between breeds from Iran and breeds we suspect are from India, consistent with historical records of trade routes between those regions. People were not only trading goods along those routes, but probably also interbreeding their pigeons."

As for the idea that free-living pigeons descended from escaped racing pigeons, Shapiro says his 2012 study was based on "relatively few genetic markers scattered throughout the genome. We now have stronger evidence based on 1.5 million markers, confirming the previous result with much better data."

The scientists analyzed partial genomes of two feral pigeons: one from a U.S. Interstate-15 overpass in the Salt Lake Valley, and the other from Lake Anna in Virginia.

"Despite being separated by 1,000 miles, they are genetically very similar to each other and to the racing homer breed," Shapiro says.

He notes that pigeons were one of evolutionist Charles Darwin's "favorite examples of how selection works. He used this striking example of artificial selection [by breeding] to communicate how natural selection works. Now we can get to the DNA-level changes that are responsible for some of the diversity that intrigued Darwin 150 years ago."

###

University of Utah: http://www.unews.utah.edu/

Thanks to University of Utah for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126581/Mutant_gene_gives_pigeons_fancy_hairdos

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Dazzling nighttime photos of NASA's rocket launch

When NASA's newest satellite soared into space late Wednesday (Jan. 30), a team of photographers captured dazzling views of the rocket streaking into orbit.

A series of long-exposure rocket launch photos released overnight by NASA show the unmanned Atlas 5 booster carrying the agency's new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite K (TDRS-K) as a bright arc of light climbing spaceward from a pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket lifted off at 8:48 p.m. EST (0148 Jan. 31 GMT), rising like an artificial sun as it flew into space.

One image, by launch photographer Tony Gray, shows the Atlas 5 rocket just seconds after liftoff as it appeared from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which is near the Air Force Station launch site. NASA's cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building stands stoically in the foreground as the rocket hovers in mid-flight on the photo's right side.

Another view, captured by photographer Rick Wetherington, shows the Atlas 5 rocket as a blazing arc of light as it passes behind a lighthouse at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

A final image by photographer Glenn Benson shows the rocket streaking up into the night sky, its blindingly bright engine plume reflecting off the waters around the seaside launch pad.Another view, captured by photographer Rick Wetherington, shows the Atlas 5 rocket as a blazing arc of light as it passes behind a lighthouse at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The TDRS-K satellite is the first of three next-generation communications satellites to be launched in order to upgrade NASA's aging TDRS satellite constellation. The satellites serve as relays between NASA ground stations and the agency's Earth-observing satellites and other spacecraft currently orbiting the planet. TDRS-K is expected to spend at least 15 years in service once it begins operations, according to a NASA mission profile.

The first TDRS satellite was launched into space in 1983, with TDRS-K marking the 11th satellite to join the fleet. The launch provider United Launch Alliance oversaw Wednesday's Atlas 5 mission for NASA.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik.?Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wow-nasa-photos-capture-dazzling-nighttime-rocket-launch-174046246.html

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SciTimes Update: Recent Developments in Science and Health News

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A sampling of some of the day?s science headlines.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/science/recent-developments-in-science-and-health-news.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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