Dan Bylsma to coach US Olympic team

Dan Bylsma has never coached hockey at the international level. The Pittsburgh Penguins coach does, however, know how to win while juggling a roster dotted with superstars.

That was good enough for USA Hockey to select Bylsma as coach of the U.S. Olympic men's hockey team at the 2014 Winter Olympics on Saturday, hoping the free-flowing style he teaches translates well to the wider rinks that await in Sochi, Russia in February.

Click to read more.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52351062/ns/local_news-pittsburgh_pa/

iOS 6 Features iOS 6 bank of america Yunel Escobar Eye Black Cruel Summer Endeavor shaun white

Obama says not threatened by China focus on Africa

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) ? President Barack Obama says he doesn't feel threatened by the fact that other countries, led by China, are investing in Africa. In fact, Obama says the more countries that come to Africa, the merrier.

Obama says he's touring three African nations this week because the United States needs to increase its engagement with a continent that's showing promise and possibility.

He says such interaction is good for the U.S. regardless of what other countries do.

But he cautions that Africa must be wary of outside investment and always ask how it will benefit when other countries come seeking its natural resources or to make other investments.

Obama spoke Saturday during a news conference in South Africa with President Jacob Zuma.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-says-not-threatened-china-focus-africa-104209434.html

frank martin pink slime eagle cam trayvon martin case affordable care act the line us soccer

High court to hear NJ housing discrimination case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take another dispute involving race, deciding whether people must prove they were victims of intentional housing discrimination to win lawsuits under federal law.

With highly anticipated decisions on affirmative action and voting rights imminent, the justices added a case to their calendar for the fall that involves the Fair Housing Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, among other categories, in residential property sales and rentals. The issue in the case is whether it is enough to show that a practice has a disproportionate effect on a group or whether there must be proof of intent to discriminate.

The outcome also could affect other laws, including one that prohibits discrimination in lending and is enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

African-American and Hispanic residents of a neighborhood pegged for demolition and redevelopment in Mount Holly, N.J., sued to block the project, saying it targeted a predominantly minority area.

Unlike other anti-discrimination laws, the housing act does not explicitly cover disparate impact claims.

The housing law prohibits discrimination in all sorts of transactions involving real estate and applies to banks and mortgage companies as well as governments, like the one involved in this case.

The Obama administration tried to ward off high court review by telling the justices that the Housing and Urban Development Department has recently adopted a new regulation to deal with the sorts of claims at issue in the case and that no federal appeals court has yet addressed the new rule. The administration also said that 11 federal appeals courts have held that the law does allow for claims based on the results of a project or practice, not just intentional discrimination.

The court originally agreed to take up the issue in 2011 in a case from St. Paul, Minn., questioning whether the city's enforcement of its housing code in low-cost rentals disproportionately occupied by African-Americans violated the fair housing law. But Justice Department lawyer Thomas Perez, now nominated to serve as Labor secretary, prevailed on St. Paul to withdraw its appeal because the outcome could have harmed the department's approach to housing discrimination cases.

Republicans have criticized Perez for his role in a deal between the department and St. Paul that also kept the federal government out of two whistleblower lawsuits against the city that could have returned millions of dollars in damages to the federal government.

In Mount Holly, the township has been trying since 2002 to clear the Mount Holly Gardens neighborhood, described by the municipality as "problematic" for many years because of high crime, poor maintenance and overcrowding. Blacks and Hispanics made up three-quarters of the area in the 2000 census. In all, Mount Holly is about 60 percent white.

The residents and former residents who sued claimed that much higher percentages of Mount Holly's black and Hispanic households would be affected by the redevelopment than would white households. Conversely, a far larger share of white residents would be able to afford the new housing, the plaintiffs said.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia agreed that the residents had made enough of a claim to go to trial on the disparate impact of the township's plan. But the court also found that there was insufficient evidence of intentional discrimination.

The case, Township of Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, 11-1507, will be argued in the fall.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/high-court-hear-nj-housing-144149626.html

erika van pelt pat robertson hunger games trailer hunger games trailer in plain sight hunger games movie review bats

Unions give lift to Turkish protest movement

ISTANBUL (AP) ? Turkish labor groups fanned a wave of defiance against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authority, leading rallies and a one-day strike to support activists whose two-week standoff with the government has shaken the country's secular democracy.

Riot police again deployed in Turkey's two main cities, and authorities kept up their unyielding stance against the street demonstrations centering on Istanbul's Taksim Square. But Monday's police sweep was less forceful than in recent days, with only scattered firing of tear gas and water cannon on pockets of protesters.

After activists were ousted from their sit-in in adjacent Gezi Park over the weekend, two labor confederations that represent some 330,000 workers picked up the slack Monday by calling a strike and demonstrations nationwide. Unionists turned up by the thousands in Ankara, Istanbul, coastal Izmir and elsewhere.

The turnout defied Turkey's interior minister, Muammer Guler, who warned that anyone taking part in unlawful demonstrations would "bear the legal consequences." But one analyst called the rallies a "legitimate and a lawful expression of constitutional rights."

"People are raising their voices against the excessive use of police force," said Koray Caliskan, a political science professor at Istanbul's Bosphorus University. Demonstrators, he said, were showing they were no longer cowed by authorities, and "the fear threshold has been broken."

In a sign that authorities were increasingly impatient, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc floated the prospect that authorities could call in troops to quash the protests.

Erdogan's opponents have grown increasingly suspicious about what they call a gradual erosion of freedoms and secular values under his Islamic-rooted ruling party. It has passed new curbs on alcohol and tried, but later abandoned its plans, to limit women's access to abortion.

The government set off protests nationwide and drew criticism abroad over a police crackdown that began May 31 against environmentalists and other activists in Taksim Square who were protesting against plans to tear down trees and re-develop Gezi Park. Thousands have flooded the streets nightly since then, many honking car horns and waving Turkish flags.

Erdogan, who has held power for 10 years and was re-elected in 2011, mobilized his supporters over the weekend in two huge rallies ? insisting his duty was to keep order, railing against media coverage of the protests and lashing out at unspecified foreigners whom he said want to hurt Turkey.

TV images Monday showed crowds of government supporters in Istanbul facing down some protesters and chanting "the hands targeting the police should be broken." On Twitter, a trending topic urged protesters to stay home ? some expressing concern that pro-government mobs might attack them.

But overnight, for hours, a lone man stood silently on Taksim Square, eventually joined by about 20 other people who did likewise before police escorted them away. The group put up no resistance. Pockets of unrest erupted elsewhere in Istanbul, with police resorting to water cannon and tear gas at times.

The labor rallies had a more structured feel than the counterculture-style sit-in at Gezi Park's tent city, and the work stoppage involved many professionals who make up a liberal, urban class that mostly backs the anti-Erdogan protesters. But labor strikes often have little visible impact on daily life in Turkey, a country of about 75 million, and Monday's rallies were no different.

Feride Aksu Tanik, of the Turkish Doctors Union, said it had called its work stoppage "to protest against the police force that attacks children, youngsters and everyone violently, and to the detentions of doctors who provide voluntary services to the injured."

Turkey's doctors association said Monday that four people, including a police officer, had died in violence linked to the crackdown, and an investigation was ongoing into the death of a fifth person who was exposed to tear gas. More than 7,800 people have been injured; six remained in critical condition and 11 people lost their eyesight.

The tough tactics used by the government to disperse protesters during the past two weeks have drawn international criticism.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany ? home to some 3 million Turks ? told German broadcaster RTL she was "appalled" to see footage of police forces moving in to clear Gezi Park over the weekend. She criticized the crackdown by Turkish police as "much too strong."

___

Keaten reported from Ankara, Turkey. Ezgi Akin in Ankara, Burak Sayin and Sophiko Megrelidze in Istanbul, and Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/unions-lift-turkish-protest-movement-002632503.html

Royal Rumble 2013 senior bowl norovirus Eclampsia Kendrick Lamar JJ Abrams New Orleans Pelicans

Mapping translation sites in the human genome

June 16, 2013 ? Because of their central importance to biology, proteins have been the focus of intense research, particularly the manner in which they are produced from genetically coded templates -- a process commonly known as translation. While the general mechanism of translation has been understood for some time, protein synthesis can initiate by more than one mechanism. One of the least well understood mechanisms is known as cap-independent translation.

Now, John Chaput and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute have produced the first genome-wide investigation of cap-independent translation, identifying thousands of mRNA sequences that act as Translation Enhancing Elements (TEEs), which are RNA sequences upstream of the coding region that help recruit the ribosome to the translation start site.

The new study outlines a technique for mining whole genomes for sequences that initiate cap-independent translation within the vastness of the genome.

The research has important implications for the fundamental understanding of translation in living systems, as well as intriguing potential in the biomedical arena. (Many viral pathogens are known to use cap-independent translation to hijack and redirect cellular mechanisms to translate viral proteins.)

The lead author of the study is Brian P. Wellensiek, a senior scientist in Biodesign's Center for Evolutionary Medicine and Informatics. The group's results appear in the current issue of the journal Nature Methods.

During most protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells, cap-dependent translation dominates. The process begins after DNA is first transcribed into mRNA, with the aid of an enzyme polymerase. mRNA now forms the coded template from which the translated proteins will be generated. The mRNA code consists of sequences made from 4 nucleic acids, A, C, G & U, with each 3-letter grouping (known as a codon), corresponding to one amino acid in the protein being synthesized.

A key component in the translation process is the ribosome, which migrates along the single stranded mRNA, reading the codons as it goes. Before it can do this however, it must locate a special structure at the 5' end of the mRNA strand known as the cap. In normal cap-dependent translation, the ribosome is recruited to the 5' end of mRNA via a specialized cap-binding complex.

Cap-independent translation allows the ribosome to begin reading the mRNA message without having to first locate the 5' cap structure. Cap-independent translation occurs in eukaryotic cells during normal processes including mitosis and apoptosis (or programmed cell death). It is also a feature in many forms of viral translation, where the viral transcript is able to recruit the ribosome and co-opt its function to preferentially translate viral RNA.

In the current study, Chaput designed an in vitro selection strategy to identify human genome sequences that initiate cap-independent translation. The technique is able to select candidates from a pool of trillions of genomic fragments. Once a set of sequences was identified as translation enhancing elements, they were shown to function effectively in both cell-free and cellular translation systems.

As Chaput explains, most research on cap-independent translation has been conducted using RNA fragments derived from viruses. "These RNA molecules will fold into shapes that appear to mimic some of the initiation factors that that you would find in eukaryotic translation," he says. More recently, similar RNA molecules have been identified in cellular systems, though the sequences tend to be much shorter and function in a different manner.

Chaput's method of studying such sequences on a genome-wide scale involves first generating a DNA library of the entire human genome. Using enzymes, the genome is cut into random fragments of around 200 base pairs each. These sequences are then transcribed into mRNA.

Applying a technique known as mRNA display, the fragments are tagged in specific way, such that amino acid sequences resulting from successful translation events remain bound to the mRNA fragments that generated them. "Essentially, what we're doing is taking a library of human mRNA and tagging those sequences that act as translation enhancing elements," Chaput says. Those sequences bearing an attached peptide affinity tag can then be separated out from the remaining untranslated sequences, reverse transcribed, amplified using PCR technology and subjected to subsequent rounds of selection.

The sequences were later mapped onto the human genome. As expected, the complete library of sequences used at the start of the experiments mapped fairly evenly across the genome. But the sequences selected via mRNA display as translation enhancing elements tended to cluster in non-coding regions of the genome. The authors speculate that such sequences may have been evolutionarily selected against, as they have the potential to disrupt normal cap-dependent translation.

Roughly 20 percent of the translation enhancing elements functioned as internal ribosomal initiation sites, again turning up primarily in non-coding genomic regions. The origin of these sequences remains mysterious. It is conceivable that they were surreptitiously brought on board as a result of human interaction with different types of viruses.

Once Chaput's group had acquired a library of 250 distinct translation enhancing elements through selection using mRNA display, the sequences were screened for translation enhancing activity, which was quantified using a light based assay employing a luciferase reporter molecule.

By measuring levels of luciferase, the enhancement of each sequence could be assessed relative to background noise, with the better translation enhancing elements displaying 50-100 fold enhancement (and some as much as 1000-fold enhancement). The next step was to determine which of these sequences could function as internal ribosomal initiation sites.

To do this, the same 250 sequences were inserted into a vector bearing a hairpin structure. As Chaput explains: "If the ribosome latched onto the 5' end, it would hit that hairpin and would fall off. However if the ribosome skipped the hairpin and recognized the sequence on the other side of the hairpin independently and translated it, that's an indication that the sequence is functioning as an internal ribosomal initiation site." Both assays (for translation enhancement and internal ribosomal initiation) were validated under cell-free conditions and in human cells, using a vaccinia virus vector.

A study of this scope is possible thanks to innovative techniques for in vitro selection (such as mRNA display), as well as a revolutionary technology permitting massively parallel RNA sequencing (known as deep sequencing), which provides unprecedented speed and read accuracy.

Much remains to be learned about atypical translation processes. The mechanism of action for translation enhancing elements is still obscure, particularly in the case of internal ribosomal initiation sites. Similarly, the particular gene products that may result from cap-independent translation have yet to be identified and characterized.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/giXLkqwIWhM/130616155211.htm

Stand Up to Cancer Azarenka NFL fantasy football Chris Kluwe Jennifer Granholm Tulane player injured fox sports

Marco Rubio: President's Inaction Has Led to 'Worst Possible Scenario' in Syria (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/313101528?client_source=feed&format=rss

WrestleMania 29 Lilly Pulitzer Ben And Jerrys Accidental Racist Lyrics Mad Men Jenna Jameson melissa mccarthy

UFC 161?s Three Stars: James Krause, Shawn Jordan and Stipe Miocic?s night

UFC 161 wasn't the greatest of cards, but some fighters did stand out. Who stood out for you? Speak up on Facebook or Twitter.

No. 1 star -- James Krause: In 2009, Krause had two fights in the WEC. He lost to Donald Cerrone and Ricardo Lamas and missed his chance to get into the UFC when it merged with the WEC. Krause kept training and kept fighting, putting together a seven-fight win streak in promotions like Resurrection Fighting Alliance and Shark Fights.

He was ready when the UFC called and asked him to fill in at the last minute for a tough match-up with Sam Stout. He not only had an entertaining fight with Stout, he finished him with a guillotine with 13 seconds left in the fight. He won both a Fight of the Night bonus and a Submission of the Night bonus, totaling $100,000.* After years of training and fighting in smaller promotions, that money is an excellent reward for keeping the faith.

No. 2 star -- Shawn Jordan: Perhaps it's just that Shawn Jordan is a really busy guy. He has many items on his to-do list, and he doesn't have time to waste on knocking out a fighter. He quickly finished Pat Barry, earning the TKO in 59 seconds. Next item on the to-do list? Heading to the bank to cash his $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus.*

No. 3 star -- Stipe Miocic: Does it actually take throwing a kitchen sink at Roy Nelson's head to knock him out? Because Miocic's strikes were just short of kitchen-sink-level, and Nelson remained standing. That Miocic was able to put such a beating on Nelson showed that he is back to being the striking stud he was before being knocked out by Stefan Struve.

*UFC bonuses are paid out after fighters have passed their post-fight drug tests.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-161-three-stars-james-krause-shawn-jordan-153134442.html

Ryder Cup 2012 Johnny Lewis yom kippur yom kippur avengers soa andy williams

Oriental Trading Company Craft and Party Supplier Review!

Hi all and Happy Father's Day! A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a large box of craft good from Oriental Trading Company in the mail, and today I'm so happy to be able to share my thoughts on their wonderful company with you! Among the craft sets were some wonderful Mother's and Father's Day crafts that made days like today extra fun and special for our family!

?

Oriental Trading Company is?the nation's largest direct merchant of value?priced party supplies, arts and crafts, toys and novelties, and a leading provider of school supplies and affordable home d?cor and giftware. OTC has been recognized as one of the Top 50 Internet Retailers and one of the Top 50 Catalog Companies. You may be familiar with many of their products from your child's classroom or your own; their products are showcased in schools all over the U.S.!

?

I recognized the company from having seen their things in teacher's classrooms growing up, but had no idea that Oriental Trading Company sold so many other great products! From a quick browse on their website, I saw that OTC sells frames and photo supplies, party supplies and gifts for every occasion, graduation garb, and tons of do-it-yourself crafts for hours of fun!
?

Upon receiving the box of goodies, Angie and I were so excited to peek inside. The first thing we pulled out were blank cards, blank gift bags, and some awesome Mom and Dad themed foam stickers!! This was the beginning of our venture into the land of Mother's and Father's day crafts for that day, and we had a blast decorating cards and bags for Mom and Dad! The stickers are super cute and there was SUCH A VARIETY, it was awesome! I loved that not all the stickers said the words "Mom" or "Dad" on them, so they could be used for decorating birthday cards for friends or other types of crafts as well!
?

Since receiving the box of crafts, I've used the blank cards and bags for other purposes as well, such as end-of-the-year thank you notes for teachers! I loved added a couple foam flower stickers to the outside of the envelope for a special treat!

After decorating our cards and gift bags, it was on to the crafts for Angie and I! We were lucky enough to receive two Mother's Day and two Father's Day crafts, and had so much fun creating them! The final products of our Oriental Trading Company crafts looked really well done, yet they had been so easy to create, and that is what I love about this company! The directions were very easy to follow, and every craft bag included extra pieces which was a great add-on in case we made a mistake or lost a piece. It was good to have a glue-gun on hand, which wasn't required for some of the crafts but was something Angie and I found to be helpful. Here are some pictures of the super cool crafts we made!!

?

?

I love the availability of personalization with the crafts from Oriental Trading Company. Even though Angie and I were making crafts from the same kit, both of our creations came out looking uniquely our own, and were both special for our mom and dad! The Mother's Day cards allowed us to include our pictures and handprints, and the Father's Day crafts let us add a picture as well! This was a really nice touch, and definitely made the gifts more special for our parents. Way to Go Oriental Trading Company!!
All of the crafts came in sets of 12, which would have been great for teachers or moms who are buying crafts sets for a birthday party activity (which is something I HIGHLY recommend!) However, since Angie and I only made one each of every style of craft, we were able to donate the rest to an after school program at Angie's school. The teachers sent us a lovely thank you note letting us know the children had LOVED the crafts from Oriental Trading Company, and were so excited to give them to their parents!

The last thing we received from Oriental Trading Company was a pad of craft paper. This paper is so fun and includes many, many spring designs! We discovered that as well as being great craft paper, this paper makes fun and eco-friendly wrapping paper for gifts! How fun to have around!!

I would definitely recommend Oriental Trading Company as an AMAZING company with such a variety of crafts for children and party supplies for adults! I wish my mom had known about this company when I was younger, because they sell everything a family would want for a great themed birthday party. Teachers and Summer Camps can find a variety of crafts to keep children entertained that will not only keep them busy but give them something nice to take home as well! In addition, here are some great products I found on Oriental Trading Company that I personally would love to have for my dorm room this year:

?

?

?

Dorm DIY-ing is all the rage with college girls right now, and I know my friends and I would have a ton of fun making some great dorm accessories from the variety of jars and scrapbooking paper sold at Oriental Trading Company! Additionally, OTC has many great stationary products for college dorm rooms, such as these adorable Sandal Notepads!!

?

?

Highly encouraged for teachers!!

?

?

?
?

Source: http://notoneordinarymoment.blogspot.com/2013/06/oriental-trading-company-craft-and.html

chris kreider correspondents dinner 2012 white house correspondents dinner 2012 whcd 2012 nfl draft jazz fest zurich classic

Hong Kong rally backs Snowden, denounces allegations of U.S. spying

By Grace Li and Venus Wu

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A few hundred rights advocates and political activists marched through Hong Kong on Saturday to demand protection for Edward Snowden, who leaked revelations of U.S. electronic surveillance and is now believed to be holed up in the former British colony.

Marchers gathered outside the U.S. consulate shouting slogans denouncing alleged spying operations aimed at China and Hong Kong, but the numbers were modest compared to rallies over other rights and political issues.

"Arrest Obama, free Snowden," protesters shouted outside the slate grey building as police looked on. Many waved banners that said: "Betray Snowden, betray freedom", "Big brother is watching you" and "Obama is checking your email".

Some blew whistles in support of Snowden, 29, the American former CIA contractor who has acknowledged being behind leaks of the surveillance programs by the National Security Agency.

The procession moved on to government headquarters in the city, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 but enjoys far more liberal laws on dissent and freedom of expression.

About a dozen groups organized two rallies, including the city's two largest political camps. Leaders of major political parties sought explanations for Snowden's allegations of spying.

Hong Kong's largest pro-Beijing political party, the DAB, demanded an apology from Washington, clarification of "illegal" espionage activities and an immediate halt to them.

"I think the Hong Kong government should protect him," the DAB's vice-chairwoman, Starry Lee, said outside the consulate.

Snowden reportedly flew to Hong Kong on May 20. He checked out of a luxury hotel on Monday and his whereabouts remain unknown. Snowden has said he intends to stay in Hong Kong to fight any potential U.S. moves to extradite him.

CHINA AVOIDS COMMENT ON CASE

China has avoided any explicit comment on its position towards Snowden. A senior source with ties to the Communist Party leadership said Beijing was reluctant to jeopardize recently improved ties with Washington.

Snowden told the South China Morning Post this week that Americans had spied extensively on targets including the Chinese University of Hong Kong that hosts an exchange which handles nearly all the city's domestic web traffic. Other alleged targets included government officials, businesses and students.

Snowden pledged not to "hide from justice" and said he would place his trust in Hong Kong's legal system. Some legal experts, however, say an extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the United States has functioned smoothly since 1998.

It is unclear whether Chinese authorities would intervene over any U.S. attempts to extradite Snowden, though lawyers say Beijing has rarely interfered with extradition cases.

His arrival comes at a sensitive time for Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying, whose popularity has sunk since taking office last year amid a series of scandals and corruption probes into prominent figures. Leung has offered no comment on Snowden.

Interest among residents into the case is growing and numbers could rise if extradition proceedings are launched.

Demonstrations on issues ranging from denunciations of pro-communist education policy imposed by Beijing, high property prices and a growing wealth gap have attracted large crowds.

A vigil marking the anniversary of China's June 1989 crackdown on democracy advocates drew tens of thousands this month and a record 180,000 last year.

Diplomats and opposition figures in the city have warned of growing behind-the-scenes meddling by Beijing in Hong Kong's affairs, as well as deep-rooted spying activities.

(Additional reporting by James Pomfret and Anne-Marie Roantree; Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-rally-backs-snowden-denounces-allegations-u-121300393.html

dominos Perez Hilton Michelle Obama Oscars Wissam Al Mana seth macfarlane oscar winners anne hathaway

Review: Man of Steel - Montreal Gazette

Man of Steel

Rating: 3 stars

Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon

Directed by: Zack Snyder

Running time: 143 minutes

Parental guidance: Violence, coarse language

Playing at: Angrignon, Banque Scotia, Brossard, Cavendish, Cin?ma Carnaval, Colossus, C?te des Neiges, Kirkland, Lacordaire, March? Central, March? Central (Imax), Sources, Sph?retech, Taschereau cinemas

Playing in 3D at: Angrignon, Banque Scotia, Banque Scotia (Imax), Cavendish, Cin?ma Carnaval, Colossus, C?te des Neiges, Deux Montagnes, Kirkland, Lacordaire, LaSalle, March? Central, March? Central (Imax), Sources, Sph?retech, StarCit?, Taschereau, Taschereau (Imax) cinemas

Once upon a time, Superman was the cheeriest of superheroes, a clean-cut do-gooder with a clean-cut conscience. That was back when you could believe truth, justice and the American way were not only possible, they were synonymous.

Now there's a new Superman for a new world: darker, anguished, beset by the responsibilities of his great powers. In Man of Steel, the reboot of the Superman franchise, he's not exactly a bulletproof Batman, but he's torn between loyalties to his native planet and the strange Earthlings who torment him here.

It starts on the planet Krypton, a dark place of spaceships and flying monsters that is about to be destroyed because it has greedily mined the energy in its own core, a sort of intergalactic anti-fracking message. Top scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) puts his newborn baby Kal-El in a rocket ship and sends him to safety on Earth, a step ahead of the evil General Zod (Michael Shannon), who is against babies or something.

Then Jor-El is killed and Zod is banished from the planet. However, both will return later in the movie - and at these prices, they'd better.

We next see the boy - now called Clark Kent - as a bearded seaman who must rescue workers on an exploding ocean oil rig. He has grown up to be Henry Cavill, an absurdly bemuscled British actor who moreover has the most bankable dimple since Kirk Douglas. Clark is moving from town to town, or rather from disaster to disaster, disappearing after his heroic feats to remain anonymous. This isn't easy because, in moments of high stress, laser beams come out of his eyes.

Nevertheless, as we learn in one of several flashbacks, his adoptive Earth father, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner), has told him he must keep his superpowers a secret. "When the world finds out what you can do, it's going to change everything," he says.

It's an intriguing notion, developed by director Zack Snyder, a veteran of this kind of 3D abs-over-matter legend-making (300, Watchmen) in the picture's more grounded first half.

The Superman story has always served as a sort of Christian parable, the tale of an only son sent to the world to save mankind, and Man of Steel underlines the notion: "They'll kill him," his mother says as they prepare the infant to go to Earth. "He'll be a god to them," his father says.

Jonathan's concern adds a note of ontological interest, creating a more realistic approach: Learning there's a flying alien in our midst could alter our understanding of the universe. However, in the end, when the world does learn of the man of steel, it doesn't seem to make much difference. Everyone just accepts him as a saviour in a red cape. As often happens in big-budget Hollywood films, the philosophical danger turns out to have been exaggerated.

Of course, by then everyone has been battered senseless by the never-ending final hour of Man of Steel, a battle on land, sea and air among flying creatures, U.S. Air Force bombers, long metallic tentacles that come from a spaceship that looks like a flying clam, and the sadly inevitable trope of airplanes flying into buildings, sending glass and concrete tumbling.

Snyder seems more interested in the spectacle of the thing. It lacks any sense of tragedy that you might expect from such a conflicted hero in a post-9/11 world.

Man of Steel is a huge production, and the money is splashed across the screen in endless special effects and lots of action. What are missing are the moments of surprise and humour: the joys of seeing the superhero making everyday magic. Cavill is an appealing hunk, but there's no joy in his feats. Anyone can throw spaceships around. Superman needs to come down to earth and cheer up a bit.

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Review+Steel/8523705/story.html

Elder Scrolls Online joe biden lupe fiasco jason wu jason wu Mavericks Surf Stonewall

Hezbollah chief: group will keep fighting in Syria

This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows damaged buildings during battles between the rebels and the Syrian government forces, in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, June 13, 2013. Syria's upwardly spiraling violence has resulted in the confirmed killings of almost 93,000 people, the United Nations' human rights office said Thursday but acknowledged the real number is likely to be far higher. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC)

This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows damaged buildings during battles between the rebels and the Syrian government forces, in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, June 13, 2013. Syria's upwardly spiraling violence has resulted in the confirmed killings of almost 93,000 people, the United Nations' human rights office said Thursday but acknowledged the real number is likely to be far higher. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC)

FILE - This Wednesday, April 17, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a mass burial of people allegedly killed by Syrian Army snipers, in Aleppo, Syria. Syria's upwardly spiraling violence has resulted in the confirmed killings of almost 93,000 people, the United Nations' human rights office said Thursday but acknowledged the real number is likely to be far higher. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)

In this citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, anti-Syrian regime protesters hold a banner and flash the victory sign during a demonstration in Hass town, Idlib province, northern Syria, Friday, June 14, 2013. The Syrian government on Friday dismissed U.S. charges that it used chemical weapons as "full of lies," accusing President Barack Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels. The commander of the main rebel umbrella group welcomed the U.S. move. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

In this citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network (ENN), anti-Syrian regime protesters hold a placard with a caricature during a demonstration at Kafr Nabil town in Idlib province, northern Syria, June 14, 2013. The Syrian government on Friday dismissed U.S. charges that it used chemical weapons as "full of lies," accusing President Barack Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels. The commander of the main rebel umbrella group welcomed the U.S. move. The Arabic on the placard reads, "Let's go to Jihad." (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

BEIRUT (AP) ? The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah group vowed Friday to keep fighting in Syria "wherever needed" and said his Shiite Muslim group has made a "calculated" decision to defend the Syrian regime no matter what the consequences.

The comments by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in a speech to supporters in southern Beirut signaled for the first time the Iranian-backed group will stay involved in the civil war raging next door after helping President Bashar Assad's army recapture a key town in Syria's central Homs province from rebels.

President Barack Obama has authorized lethal aid to Syrian rebels after the U.S. announced it had conclusive evidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons. U.S. officials are still grappling with what type and how much weaponry to send, but the announcement buoyed opposition forces, which have found themselves heavily outgunned and outmanned by the Hezbollah-backed regime.

The Syrian government on Friday dismissed U.S. charges that it used chemical weapons as "full of lies," accusing Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels.

U.S. officials said the administration could provide the rebel fighters with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other missiles. The officials insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions with reporters.

Hezbollah has come under harsh criticism at home and abroad for sending its gunmen to Qusair, and Nasrallah's gamble in Syria primarily stems from his group's vested interest in the Assad regime's survival. The Syrian government has been one of Hezbollah's strongest backers for decades and the militant group fears that if the regime falls it will be replaced by a U.S.-backed government that will be hostile to Hezbollah.

Nasrallah said verbal and other attacks against his militant group "only serve to increase our determination."

"We will be where we should be, we will continue to bear the responsibility we took upon ourselves," Nasrallah said. "There is no need to elaborate... we leave the details to the requirements of the battlefield."

Assad's forces, aided by fighters from Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah, captured Qusair on June 5, dealing a heavy blow to rebels who had been entrenched in the strategic town for over a year.

Since then, the regime has shifted its attention to recapture other areas in the central Homs province and Aleppo to the north.

A visibly angry Nasrallah did not say outright whether his fighters would go as far as fighting in Aleppo, but his words strongly suggested the group was prepared to fight till the end.

"After Qusair for us will be the same as before Qusair," he said. "The project has not changed and our convictions have not changed."

Nasrallah reiterated that the fight in Syria was one against the "American, Israeli and Takfiri project" that was meant to destroy Syria, which along with Iran has been the group's main backer. Takfiri Islamists refers to an ideology that urges Sunni Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel.

Much of the group's arsenal, including tens of thousands of rockets, is believed to have come from Iran via Syria or from Syria itself.

In addition to the increased military aid, the U.S. also announced Thursday it had conclusive evidence that Assad's regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against opposition forces. The White House said multiple chemical attacks last year killed up to 150 people.

Obama has said the use of chemical weapons cross a "red line," triggering greater U.S involvement in the crisis.

"The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, based on fabricated information," a statement issued Friday by the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. "The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama's decision to arm the Syrian opposition," it said.

The statement also accused the U.S. of "double standards," saying America claims to combat terrorism while providing support for "terrorist" groups in Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, with arms and money. The group, also known as the Nusra Front, is an al-Qaida affiliate that has emerged as one of the most effective rebel factions in Syria.

The commander of the main Western-backed rebel group fighting in Syria said he hoped that U.S. weapons will be in the hands of rebels in the near future.

"This will surely reflect positively on the rebels' morale, which is high despite attempts by the regime, Hezbollah and Iran to show that their morale after the fall of Qusair deteriorated," Gen. Salim Idris told Al-Arabiya TV.

Loay AlMikdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said Idris will begin meeting with international players on Saturday to work out the details of the weapons and their delivery.

"We encourage them to take a decision in this relation, by establishing a no-fly zone either all over Syria or areas they choose based on their technical or military considerations on the ground," he said, adding that would ensure safe areas for civilians. "We hope they start arming immediately. Any delay costs blood of Syrians. It is not water, it is blood of the Syrians, women and children and its future."

AlMikdad said the rebels have asked for shoulder propelled rockets, thermal anti-tank missiles, anti-aircrafts missiles, surface to surface missiles and armored vehicles.

The regime's advances have added urgency to U.S. discussions on whether to provide the rebels with weapons. The United Nations said this week that nearly 93,000 people have been confirmed dead in Syria's civil war, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.

Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, disputed the U.S. charge that Syria used chemical weapons against the rebels.

President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that the information provided by U.S. officials to Russia "didn't look convincing."

But he said there was no talk yet about whether Russia could retaliate to the U.S. move to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels by delivering the S-300 air defense missile systems to the regime.

"We aren't competing over Syria, we are trying to settle the issue in a constructive way," he said.

Ushakov warned that providing such assistance could derail efforts to convene a Syria peace conference. The main opposition coalition has already said it would not attend, all but scuttling the initiative.

Alexey Pushkov, chairman of Russia's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, wrote on his Twitter account Friday that "the data on Assad's use of chemical weapons were faked in the same place as the lie about (Saddam) Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," referring to the deposed Iraqi dictator.

"Obama is going down the route of G. Bush," he added, in reference to former President George W. Bush's assertion ? never proven, but used to justify the invasion of Iraq ? that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

A lawmaker in Damascus echoed those comments.

"This reminds us of what America did in the prelude to the invasion of Iraq by releasing fabrications and lies to the international community that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," said Issam Khalil, a member of Assad's Baath party.

In Friday's violence, Syrian troops and rebels fought some of the heaviest battles in months in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes were concentrated in the city's eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, calling the fighting "the most violent in months." It said regime troops attacked the neighborhood from two directions but failed to advance, suffering casualties.

___

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-14-Syria/id-37181dd0f401476ebc492f1bfe47a519

solar flare joseph kony 2012 arian foster dennis kucinich apple ipad kony kony 2012

Expert: Dying woman should have got Irish abortion

DUBLIN (AP) ? A miscarrying woman who died in an Irish hospital should have had her blood poisoning detected much sooner and been offered an abortion to improve her odds of survival, an experts' report concluded Thursday in a case that is forcing Ireland to modernize its abortion laws.

The 108-page report into the October death of Savita Halappanavar documented what the lead investigator described as "a cascade of mistakes" overshadowed by officials' refusal to remove the fetus until its heart stopped beating.

That took four days. By then, the report found, the woman's ill-diagnosed sepsis from a ruptured uterus already had reached lethal levels.

"If it was my case, I would have terminated the pregnancy," Dr. Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, a London professor of obstetrics and gynecology who led the seven-month probe, said. The five investigators found that a chain of doctors and nurses all failed to take proactive steps to identify and halt the spread of infection throughout her body.

The report found that when Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist living in the western city of Galway, was hospitalized for back pain 17 weeks into her pregnancy, doctors identified she was miscarrying and the fetus could not survive.

But they consistently missed evidence for days pointing to an existing case of sepsis, or blood poisoning, as the cause. Blood test results were left uninspected and successive shifts failed to read earlier medical notes as vital signs worsened.

The report found that doctors placed too much emphasis on measuring the fetus' heartbeat and too little on investigating why Halappanavar's white blood-cell count was jumping, her blood pressure was falling and her heart rate and temperature were rising. All were signs of growing internal infection linked to a rupture in her uterus that a night-shift doctor identified in notes, but a day-shift doctor failed to read.

Arulkumaran said Ireland's doctors and constitutional lawyers must draft regulations that specify when an abortion can be performed on a pregnant woman suffering sepsis, because such cases can surge to lethal levels within hours.

He said some Irish doctors' wait-and-see approach, fearful of violating Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion, presented an unjustifiable courting of danger to the patient.

"When sepsis sets in, it is difficult to say who is going to live and who is going to die. We are just guessing here," he said, describing the death rate from severe sepsis as 40 percent and septic shock as 60 percent. He said if Halappanavar had received an abortion and aggressive doses of antibiotics early into her hospitalization, "the risk would be much less."

She delivered a dead fetus four days into her hospitalization, and fell into a coma and died of massive organ failure four days later.

The findings came hours after Ireland's government published a bill to create new rules on when doctors can perform abortions to save the life of a woman.

Six previous governments had refused to draft such a bill in support of a 1992 Supreme Court judgment that declared such abortions should be legal, given that the constitution ? despite its supposed blanket ban on abortion ? also guarantees to protect the woman's right to life.

Most controversially, the Supreme Court said abortion should be legal in cases when doctors deem one necessary to stop a woman from killing herself.

Anti-abortion activists argue that permitting a suicide threat as legal grounds would be open to abuse and encourage wider abortion access.

"The suicide ground will lead to abortion on request, and that will be very destructive of unborn children's lives and it's deeply unjust," said Sen. Ronan Mullen, a Catholic conservative.

Previous governments insisted they didn't need to pass any law in support of the court judgment, and instead twice tried to roll back its suicide provision in national referendums that voters rejected in 1992 and 2002. A 2011 European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland's inaction was jeopardizing women's health by forcing seriously ill women to travel overseas for abortions.

The legal limbo also has left Irish maternity hospitals and obstetricians to guess when they could perform an abortion to save a woman's life without facing the risk of a murder charge. Scores of such terminations have occurred annually in total secrecy for the past two decades, with the number of deaths connected to delayed treatment unknown. Halappanavar's case became public only because her widower spoke out, denouncing the imposition of Catholic teaching on a Hindu.

When presenting the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, Prime Minister Enda Kenny declared in parliament that he "happens to be a Catholic" but could not govern as a Catholic prime minister. He wants the bill passed by July and is threatening to expel lawmakers from his party who oppose him.

Kenny's statement, during which he described receiving letters written in blood from anti-abortion activists, is being seen as a watershed moment in church-state relations in predominantly Catholic Ireland, where past generations of leaders showed public deference to church authority and handed substantial control of schools, hospitals and social services to Catholic orders.

The bill would permit abortions for women threatening suicide only if three doctors, including two psychiatrists, ruled that the woman's threat was severe. Abortions for non-emergency cases involving a threat to life would require support from two doctors.

Many lawmakers and doctors say Irish women will sidestep these Irish hurdles and keep traveling to neighboring England for abortions, where the practice was legalized in 1967. More than 4,000 Irish women receive abortions there annually.

"Unfortunately I don't think the provisions on suicide will encourage any woman to go through that system in Ireland," lawmaker Thomas Pringle said.

An opinion poll published Thursday in The Irish Times indicated overwhelming public support for the bill, with strong majorities wishing the bill extended abortion rights further.

The poll found 89 percent want abortions to be granted in cases where a woman's life is endangered from medical complications caused by pregnancy.

About 83 percent also wanted abortion legalized in cases where the fetus couldn't survive at birth, 81 percent for cases of pregnancy caused by rape or incest, and 78 percent where a woman's health ? not simply her life ? was undermined by pregnancy. The bill excludes those three scenarios.

The poll of 1,000 people this week across the Republic of Ireland, a country of 4.6 million, had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

___

Online:

Report on Halappanavar death: http://bit.ly/1bAITHT

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/expert-dying-woman-got-irish-abortion-184528492.html

ufc jones vs evans watergate pregnant man outside lands 2012 lineup beloved ufc results water for elephants

Stefani Jackenthal: Ultra-Running: The Epic Giants Causeway, North Ireland

My feet felt as light as helium balloons and my adrenaline thumped like boiling oil as we sprinted off the starting line. It had been nearly four years since my last ultrarunning race and despite the callous wind knocking me around like a paper doll, I felt dangerously blissful -- as if I sipped one too many espressos.

I chased the lead group of runners up the steep asphalt hill leading out of Larrybane Head Quarry for the 50K Lost Worlds Trail Series Causeway Crossing http://www.lostworldsracing.com along the Antrim Coast in North Ireland. The early afternoon May sun on that chilly Saturday played hide and seek behind a band of puffy clouds. We turned onto a windswept field and a gust of wind knocked me back like a boxer hit with a solid right jab. Tall emerald wild grass danced high above the mighty white-capped sea swathed by black volcanic rocks peppering the shoreline below.

I was the lead woman and took a quick glimpse over my shoulder as I unhooked the latch on the first of countless sheep retaining wooden fences. Not another woman in site. I slipped through the opening, picked up my pace and settled into a relaxed, brisk trot. It was a long way to the turn-around at the stone ruins of Dunluce Castle, the headquarters of the MacDonnell Clan in 1513 and target of several takeovers.

My fitness was a crapshoot, considering my "long" training run was three hours in Central Park, NYC, where I live just a few blocks away. I was counting on experience and adrenaline to get me to the finish line of this 31-mile out and back race.

A brief stint back on the asphalt led us down a twisty switchback road that ultimately dumped us onto the rocky kelp beach of Ballintoy Harbour. The pure sea air was delightful as I gently picked my way over colossal piles of slimy kelp - squish, squish, squish - that looked liked seaweed salad on steroids. Cautiously, I crossed slippery taupe and ashen boulders, which were unnerving to navigate for this urban chic.

I was relieved to reach the flat sandy beach and run along the foamy water ebbing out and flowing in. The ocean spray on my face felt refreshing. The booming crashing waves were hushed by viscous headwind that made it feel like I was running through molasses. In the distance, grassy jagged mountains sprouted out of the turbulent ocean.

My wishes were granted when a tall, broad guy clad in a blue-shirt lumbered past me. In a snap, I jumped on his heels for protection from the raging wind, mimicking his stride. An admitted heel sucking pig, I stayed tightly tucked behind him - drafting like a bike racer - until we hit the end of the beach and began climbing to higher ground. Beneath us, cobalt foamy water split shaggy jade sea cliffs.

Approaching the first aide station, a quarter way into the race, Jolene Mellon, a local Ironman triathlete - turned ultrarunner - caught me. A tinge of disappointment lit through me like a lightening bolt. But, after an hour trotting mostly solo, it was nice to have company. I sipped water from my Gregory backpack while we swapped stories about NYC and North Ireland. Jolene lives about 90 minutes away and while she doesn't train in the area, she ran part of the course during the 2009 Causeway Coast half trail marathon, from Ballintoy Harbour to Portballintrae. "It was my very first off-road race and I thought that anyone crazy enough to do a full marathon or heaven forbid an ultra on this course should be institutionalized." she said with a smirk.

As if plucked from a scene of the Hobbit, the sprawling fertile farmland melded with craggy wooly mammoth cliffs that sharply dropped into the ocean. We trotted up slatted staircases, over hilly grassy knolls and past herds of fluffy sheep with black faces. Oddly, the sheep were spray painted with neon blue numbers - apparently, a sort of accounting system.

Monster crosswinds roared as Jolene and I stomped to the upper cliffs. My adrenaline buzz was gone and my legs had turned to anvils. I backed off pace and sucked a chocolate PowerGel, hoping to re-ignite the fire with a shot of sugar and caffeine. Jolene did the same. We upped pace. But my wheels were wobbly and I was unable to keep with her powerful stride. She cut through the violent wind like a chef's knife through paper. While, I felt more like a dull butter knife spreading lard.

I watched Jolene's red and white jersey disappear around the corner of the first set of stairs leading down to the epic Giant's Causeway, inscribed as Ireland's first U.N.E.S.C.O World Heritage Site in 1986. Its some 40,000 interlocking black basalt columns - many hexagonal - sprouting out of the sea, were formed by volcanic eruptions nearly 60 million years ago.

I've raced and run around the globe - Borneo, Ecuador, South Africa, Costa Rica, India, Croatia, Uganda, Tibet - and this was amongst the most beautiful and magical. It was a typical Tim Holmstrom production - visually stunning and equally physically brutal. Once a renowned adventure photographer, Holmstrom turned his eye to creating astounding adventure runs in some of the planet's most magnificent locales. "I believe in the magic and allure of certain places and their profound ability to transport - you if you let them." said Holmstrom, founder of Lost Worlds Racing. "My hope is to offer challenging races in extraordinary locations and create indelible experiences for our runners and their guests."

In 2005, I participated in Holstrom's first international race-directing endeavor, The Coastal Challenge, a six-day, 250K running stage-race in Costa Rica. Each day was a new arduous mountain run along pristine beaches, through mountainous rain and cloud forests. Race staff moved gear to the finish line, where racers camped overnight swapping the day's adventures of Howler Monkey's screeching overhead in canopied jungles, quad-burning downhills and hoofing steep, muddy trails. Next February is the 10th edition, which I'm hoping to run.

"You went off the line pretty quick this morning." said a yellow shirt-clad local runner from Belfast, who appeared beside me. "I never thought I'd catch you." I cringed, thinking, "don't remind me." I tapped his local knowledge for my overnight stay in Belfast after the race. "Go to The Spaniard for a Dark & Stormy!" he insisted. "It's a cozy, funky place with great jazz and drinks." Who was I to argue?

We trotted along a jumble of gravel paths, dodging and weaving through scores of camera-clutching tourists who were admiring the Causeway's feral surroundings. The frenetic energy was jarring after running in remoteness for much of the route.

We crossed paths with local legend Hannah Shields who was competing in the 100K-race, which started earlier that morning. Shields, who is an orthodontist by trade, is the first Irish woman to complete a 350-mile ski race to the Magnetic North Pole, while pulling 100-pound sled and the first North Irish woman to summit Mt. Everest.

This was the second race in the three-part Lost Words Trail Series, offering 100K, 50K or 25K options. The Tuscany Crossing, in Tuscany, Italy took place the prior week and the Ladonia Crossing, starting in Kullabeg - a nature reserve situated on a peninsula, in southwest Sweden - was set for the following. Kristi Battalini, a Chicago police detective, who ran the 50K with us in Ireland, planned to race the 50K in Sweden, after exploring Europe for the week with her Mom.

The Lost Worlds Trail Series Championships are set for summer 2014 in Greece, starting near Meteora, renowned for its 60 million year old grouping of 24 monasteries - a U.N.E.S.C.O World Heritage site - built on 1312 feet sandstone peaks, overlooking Peneas Valley.

My Belfast friend took off and again, I was alone - but not for long. About two miles from the turn-around, a local woman Col Conway caught me. She was gung-ho to hammer. We traded places into the turn-around at Dunluce Castle, an archaic crumbled stone structure that castle was destroyed in an epic storm in 1639. I was relieved to have the first 15.5 miles done and happier about the tailwind home. Admittedly, I thought about the opulent 20-year old Bushmills Whiskey that I sipped at Clenaghans Pub http://www.clenaghans.com in Moira on my first night in Ireland - as we were just a couple a miles from the Bushmills Distillery.

The tailwind felt divine and infused me with renewed bounding energy. I passed Col on a sloping downhill section, only to be passed back by her upon hitting a rocky section with a pushy side-wind. At the three-and-half hour mark the wheels came off my bus. My legs were as heavy a whiskey casks and I caught my toe on rock. Splat! Superman crashed onto the spongy green meadow. It knocked the wind out of me, like a boxer to the matt. Other than a scraped knee and sore ribs - I was OK.

Buena vistas rewarded me as I pushed down on the top of my aching quads helping to propel my weary legs up the long, steep rock staircase winding up and out of the Giant's Causeway. Despite fatigue, I couldn't stop saying "This is f**king amazing!"

At the top, I ran into Michael and Jordan Napoli, a father and 22-year old daughter from Orlando, Florida. The Napoli's, who do marathons and adventure races for family fun, made the 25K the start of their Ireland family vacation. "We saw the race video on Facebook and decided we HAD to do it!" said Michael, a software applications developer, whose wife Mary-Jo, a subcontract administrator for a defense contractor, had started the 25K with them, but turned back due to a foot injury. "After doing this we are going to do the Tuscany race in 2014."

I was relieved to finally reach the beach, knowing I was nearing the finish. As I diligently dibbed and dabbed across the slippery rocks, another local women passed me. "Ugh!" I let out an audible Charlie Brown howl. My heart sunk. So close to the finish and I was going to lose podium. I needed conserve my energy - and not get hurt. So, I let her go, but kept her in lassoing range.

Once clear of the technical terrain, I found my mojo. My posture straightened and leg speed hastened as I hoofed past her using my last reserves of energy. I huffed and puffed up the twisty, steep long asphalt road out of the Harbour and I glanced back to confirm my lead. She was walking up the hill. Phew! I joyously galloped across the gusty field and shuffled down the dirt path. Music and cheers filled the air. My heart raced. With pumping elbows and knees - and a big ole smile - I crossed the finish line, placing 3rd amongst the women in just over five hours.

Side Note:
In Belfast, the day after the race: Following a lovely refueling dinner in The Great Room in the Merchant Hotel http://www.themerchanthotel.com, my race pal Ty Stevens and I tracked down The Spaniard http://www.thespaniardbar.com and ordered Dark & Stormy's - 1 oz dark rum, 2 oz ginger beer, squeezed fresh lime, 2 shakes of bitters, served over ice. We toasted a fantastic race - and the guy in yellow shirt. Cheers!

?

Follow Stefani Jackenthal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@stefjackenthal

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefani-jackenthal/ultrarunning-the-epic-gia_b_3422611.html

ios 5.1 apple tv update new ipad release pregnant jessica simpson international womens day joe the plumber lra

Cool muscles: Storing elastic energy for flight - Science News

(Phys.org) ?Flying has always fascinated humans, probably because we are so relentlessly Earthbound. One of the things that interests researchers who study flight is the question of how animals that do it can generate the energy required. Flying is an intensely power-hungry activity that is less than 10% efficient. Some studies have suggested that physical properties of the molecules involved in insect flight might contribute small amounts of energy to the flight "power grid" through potential energy savings in the form of elastic strain energy.

Insight into this question has been provided by research completed at the Biophysics Collaborative Access Team (Bio-CAT) beamline 18-ID at the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory.

The study, by researchers from the University of Washington, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Harvard University combines time-resolved small-angle x-ray diffraction with measurements of mechanical energy-exchange in the wing muscle of the moth Manduca sexta to create high-speed video of muscle motion at the molecular level. Their results, published in Science magazine, show that temperature differences between the dorsal (top) and ventral (bottom) sides of the wing create an opportunity for elastic strain energy to be stored in the cooler regions of the muscle and then released during the transitions between contraction and relaxation to assist with the inertial power costs associated with accelerating and decelerating the wings.

The breakthrough in this work was the development of an apparatus that allowed the team to make high-speed x-ray diffraction measurements at the same time as they measured wing-muscle motion mechanics.

To do this, the researchers first fixed the body and flight muscle of the moth onto a "work-loop" apparatus that allowed them to stimulate muscle contractions in a controlled manner that simulated flight while measuring the forces of those contractions.

Next, the work-loop apparatus was aligned into the x-ray beam and a custom shutter was installed to allow for high-speed measurements. The team recorded 5 diffraction images per wing-beat cycle, 1 every 8 milliseconds, for 100 cycles at 25? C and at 35? C.

The force generated during muscle contraction is known to result from the ratcheting of cross-bridge proteins along other muscle filament proteins. As the cross-bridge proteins bind, move, and release the filament, they generate force. As with all molecular interactions, the cross-bridges move faster at higher temperatures. These researchers had already shown that the temperature of the muscle on the dorsal and ventral sides of the moth wing can differ by as much as 6.9? C during flight.

By taking their x-ray diffraction images at 25? C and 35? C?temperatures that cover the range observed for M. sexta wing muscle?they were able to see what was going on at each temperature at the molecular level.

The x-ray diffraction data showed differences in the spacing of the molecules involved in muscle contraction depending on the temperature. This indicated that the cross-bridges cycled faster at the warmer temperature and slower at the cooler temperature.

These results support a model in which the cross-bridges that drive the muscles on the warmer, underside of the wing cycle quickly during flight, while cross-bridges on the cool, top side of the wing remain bound to filaments longer, building up strain until it is released as elastic energy as the muscle advances into its next phase of shortening or lengthening.

According to Professor Tom Daniel, lead author of the study, "The combination of advanced technologies at the APS and the x-ray expertise of Tom Irving, Director of Bio-CAT and our collaborator on this project, made possible a new view of how temperature, strain, and molecular motors conspire to produce a range of functions in a single muscle: from an actuator to a spring."

This work provides important information about how flying species meet the energy needs of their powerful adaptation and may have implications for locomotion in general.

Explore further: Hybrid carbon nanotube yarn muscle

More information: George, N. et al. The Cross-Bridge Spring: Can Cool Muscles Store Elastic Energy? Science 340(6137), 1217 (7 June 2013). DOI:10.1126/science.1229573

Source: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-cool-muscles-elastic-energy-flight.html

Aaron Ross Sikh temple Nastia Liukin Gabby Douglas hair Kayla Harrison Mars landing Gabby Douglas