TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011, AT 3:07 PM Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
If you're looking to get the new Nexus 5 through T-Mobile, you're in luck. The carrier has announced that it, too, plans to carry Google's latest Android smartphone, the first to run Android 4.4. KitKat.
T-Mobile neglected to say when, or what the price will be.
Contact: Yivsam Azgad news@weizmann.ac.il 972-893-43856 Weizmann Institute of Science
Scientists isolate new human pluripotent stem cells capable of generating 'humanized' mouse models containing human-derived tissues
One of the obstacles to employing human embryonic stem cells for medical use lies in their very promise: They are born to rapidly differentiate into other cell types. Until now, scientists have not been able to efficiently keep embryonic stem cells in their pristine stem state. The alternative that has been proposed to embryonic stem cells reprogrammed adult cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) have similar limitations. Though these can differentiate into many different cell types, they retain signs of "priming," commitment to specific cell lineages. A team at the Weizmann Institute of Science has now taken a large step toward removing that obstacle: They have created iPS cells that are completely "reset" to the earliest possible state and maintained them in that state. Among other things, this research may, in the future, pave the way toward the ability to grow transplant organs to order.
Since they were first created in 2006, iPS cells have been touted as an ethical and practical substitute for embryonic stem cells. They are made by inserting four genes into the genomes of such adult cells as skin cells. This turns back the developmental clock almost all the way but not completely to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state. Dr. Jacob Hanna of the Institute's Molecular Genetics Department and his team, including research students Ohad Gafni and Leehee Weinberger and researchers in the Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine, realized that inserting genes to reset the stem cells was not enough. One also has to put the cells' drive to differentiate on hold.
One hint that this might be possible was the fact that the mouse embryonic stem cells used in many lab experiments are easily preserved in their "naive," unprimed state, and they don't present some of the other problems that human ones do. Hanna and his group realized that if they could understand how the mouse embryonic stem cells manage to refrain from differentiating in the lab, they could apply it to the human versions. Through lab experiments and genetic analysis, they worked out a "treatment" for the iPS cells in the lab dish to damp down the genetic pathway for differentiation.
Next, they injected the treated iPS cells into mouse blastocysts early-stage embryos containing only a few cells. If the team's iPS cells were truly na?ve, as well as viable, they would grow together with the mouse cells. Adding a fluorescent marker to the iPS cells enabled them to trace what happened to those stem cells in the developing embryo. Fluorescent imaging after ten days (they were not grown to term) indeed revealed that the embryos contained both mouse and human tissues.
Hanna: "These cells correspond to the earliest stages of human embryonic stem cells that have been isolated. We managed to freeze what is essentially a very fleeting situation and to produce a new, na?ve, pluripotent state in stem cells." These findings may have many uses in biomedical research, specifically in gene therapy research, as well as genetic engineering. Hanna and his team plan to continue investigating the "humanized" mouse embryos, in which they hope to find ways of directing the development of human tissue into functional organs.
###
Dr. Jacob Hanna's research is supported by Pascal and Ilana Mantoux, France/Israel; the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust; the Sir Charles Clore Research Prize; the Benoziyo Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Science; Erica A. Drake and Robert Drake; the European Research Council; the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung; the Israel Cancer Research Fund; the BIRAX program; and the Israel Science Foundation (regular, BIKURA and I-CORE programs).
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at
http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/
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New stem cells go back further
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Yivsam Azgad news@weizmann.ac.il 972-893-43856 Weizmann Institute of Science
Scientists isolate new human pluripotent stem cells capable of generating 'humanized' mouse models containing human-derived tissues
One of the obstacles to employing human embryonic stem cells for medical use lies in their very promise: They are born to rapidly differentiate into other cell types. Until now, scientists have not been able to efficiently keep embryonic stem cells in their pristine stem state. The alternative that has been proposed to embryonic stem cells reprogrammed adult cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) have similar limitations. Though these can differentiate into many different cell types, they retain signs of "priming," commitment to specific cell lineages. A team at the Weizmann Institute of Science has now taken a large step toward removing that obstacle: They have created iPS cells that are completely "reset" to the earliest possible state and maintained them in that state. Among other things, this research may, in the future, pave the way toward the ability to grow transplant organs to order.
Since they were first created in 2006, iPS cells have been touted as an ethical and practical substitute for embryonic stem cells. They are made by inserting four genes into the genomes of such adult cells as skin cells. This turns back the developmental clock almost all the way but not completely to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state. Dr. Jacob Hanna of the Institute's Molecular Genetics Department and his team, including research students Ohad Gafni and Leehee Weinberger and researchers in the Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine, realized that inserting genes to reset the stem cells was not enough. One also has to put the cells' drive to differentiate on hold.
One hint that this might be possible was the fact that the mouse embryonic stem cells used in many lab experiments are easily preserved in their "naive," unprimed state, and they don't present some of the other problems that human ones do. Hanna and his group realized that if they could understand how the mouse embryonic stem cells manage to refrain from differentiating in the lab, they could apply it to the human versions. Through lab experiments and genetic analysis, they worked out a "treatment" for the iPS cells in the lab dish to damp down the genetic pathway for differentiation.
Next, they injected the treated iPS cells into mouse blastocysts early-stage embryos containing only a few cells. If the team's iPS cells were truly na?ve, as well as viable, they would grow together with the mouse cells. Adding a fluorescent marker to the iPS cells enabled them to trace what happened to those stem cells in the developing embryo. Fluorescent imaging after ten days (they were not grown to term) indeed revealed that the embryos contained both mouse and human tissues.
Hanna: "These cells correspond to the earliest stages of human embryonic stem cells that have been isolated. We managed to freeze what is essentially a very fleeting situation and to produce a new, na?ve, pluripotent state in stem cells." These findings may have many uses in biomedical research, specifically in gene therapy research, as well as genetic engineering. Hanna and his team plan to continue investigating the "humanized" mouse embryos, in which they hope to find ways of directing the development of human tissue into functional organs.
###
Dr. Jacob Hanna's research is supported by Pascal and Ilana Mantoux, France/Israel; the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust; the Sir Charles Clore Research Prize; the Benoziyo Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Science; Erica A. Drake and Robert Drake; the European Research Council; the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung; the Israel Cancer Research Fund; the BIRAX program; and the Israel Science Foundation (regular, BIKURA and I-CORE programs).
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at
http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/
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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.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of a Senate panel that oversees U.S. intelligence issues said Thursday it has approved a plan to scale back how many American telephone records the National Security Agency can sweep up. But critics of U.S. surveillance programs and privacy rights experts said the bill does little, if anything, to end the daily collection of millions of records that has spurred widespread demands for reform.
Legislation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was approved by an 11-4 vote, would increase congressional and judicial oversight of intelligence activities. It also would create 10-year prison sentences for people who access the classified material without authorization, according to a statement released by committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the panel's top Republican.
Just how far it would scale back the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records was unclear.
The statement said the plan would ban bulk collection of records "under specific procedures and restrictions." Chambliss spokeswoman Lauren Claffey said some of the telephone metadata collection would continue, so long as intelligence officials followed rules for how it can be used.
Only certain people would have access to the phone data, according to the bill. It also would bar the NSA from obtaining the content of the phone calls. The current program only allows the NSA to collect phone numbers and times of calls and cannot listen in on phone calls without a warrant from a secret court.
"The threats we face — from terrorism, proliferation and cyberattack, among others — are real, and they will continue," Feinstein said in the statement. "Intelligence is necessary to protect our national and economic security, as well as to stop attacks against our friends and allies around the world."
She said "more can and should be done" to increase transparency of the surveillance and build public support for privacy protections.
But Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the legislation allows the bulk collection to continue under certain safeguards. He called the safeguards a positive first step but said the NSA should stop sweeping up Americans' phone records and only obtain those that are connected to a specific terror plot.
Privacy advocates who have long called for the end of broad government snooping bristled at the bill, which they said would merely legalize the surveillance that the NSA has quietly undertaken since 2006.
"It's fitting that Senator Feinstein took Halloween to remind us why she's the favorite senator of the NSA's spooks," said David Segal, executive director of advocacy group Demand Progress. "Using squishy public relations language, she is striving to leave the impression that her bill reins in the NSA's mass surveillance programs — but it does nothing of the sort. ... Lawmakers must immediately recognize this legislation for the sham that it is — and reject it outright."
The Senate intelligence bill rivals one put forward earlier this week, by House and Senate judiciary committees, that would eliminate the phone data collection program that was revealed earlier this year in classified documents that were released to the media by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
The dueling legislation means that Congress ultimately will have to decide how broadly the U.S. government can conduct surveillance on its own citizens in the name of protecting Americans from terror threats.
Polls indicate that Americans widely oppose the surveillance program.
Meanwhile, the NSA issued a more forceful statement rejecting reports that it illegally collected millions of records from communications links between Yahoo and Google data centers around the world.
The Washington Post, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, has reported that the NSA sent records from the companies' internal servers to data warehouses at the agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.
The NSA said such reports have "misstated facts, mischaracterized NSA's activities, and drawn erroneous inferences about those operations." In a detailed statement, the agency said its activities are conducted in accordance with law and policy. And it said the data collection goes after valid foreign intelligence targets that often use communications over satellite links, microwave towers and fiber-optic cables.
"U.S. service provider communications make use of the same information superhighways as a variety of other commercial service providers," the agency said. "NSA must understand and take that into account in order to eliminate information that is not related to foreign intelligence."
Under normal procedures, the NSA is required to sort data based on relevant potential threats and seek additional legal authorities to access the information if the communication involves an American.
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Giving hope for the future of NFC payments rather than notably changing the way anything works today
Changes in Android 4.4 KitKat are going to open up the possibilities of using NFC payments through Google Wallet, but it may not go as far as we would hope. Although the Google Wallet app itself has been opened to install on any device, the ability to use it for NFC payments (aka "tap and pay") at physical stores has been dramatically limited by carriers and manufacturers. Responding to a post by Michael Bond on Google+, the official Google Wallet account gave us a bit of info today on the status as of Android 4.4:
If you have a Nexus 5 device, you can now use Google Wallet to tap and pay in stores with any carrier. We look forward to bringing NFC tap and pay functionality to more Android phones soon.
Now that doesn't exactly mean every device running Android 4.4 — it specifically refers to the Nexus 5. And in that respect, nothing has really changed just yet. The Google Wallet support page, which has been updated to reflect the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 announcement, currently lists every device that is able to use Google Wallet tap and pay and the caveats associated.
In less than 24 hours, the first UK iPad Air customers will be walking out of stores across the land with their new hotness, but for those looking for something a little more subsidized, Three might have you covered. Leaving it almost as late as possible, the carrier has announced pricing for the iPad Air and associated data plans. If you're going subsidized, then you're looking at dropping at least £119 up front.
For that, you'll get a 16GB WiFi + Cellular iPad Air with 15GB of data per month for two-years, at a monthly rate of £29. Pay £179 up front for the same iPad Air and you'll drop the monthly cost down to £25. Prices monthly remain the same and with 15GB of data for the 32GB and 64GB models, but prices up front then start from £219 and £289 respectively. And of course, these prices will include 4G LTE when Three launches it sometime in December.
If you're OK with buying your iPad Air outright – either from Apple or from Three – then you're open to a pretty good 10GB 1-month rolling contract for just £15 per month. The iPad Air will go on sale both online and in-stores at Three tomorrow, November 1. The iPad mini with Retina Display will follow later in November, though when is still anybodies guess. We'll update with pricing as and when we learn more. So, anyone buying this way?
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