The company has issued a statement and taken steps to rectify an embarrassing situation that stems from a greeting card (below) that's been sitting on its shelves for the past few months and which reads:
Next time you think of dating the bad boy, consider Whitney Houston.
"The card was in our stores prior to Ms. Houston’s death. As soon as this was brought to our attention, we began the process of removing the card from all applicable stores," the chain told TMZ in response to the controversy.
Somewhere, Bobby Brown is stewing that this card even exists - and then thinking of a way to profit himself off it.
Is this the right move? Should Target take away the cards?
NOVEL ELECTRODE: By adding silicon to the anode, pictured here, among other improvements, Envia has more than doubled the energy density of current lithium-ion batteries.Image: Courtesy of Envia
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.?A company founded in the Palo Alto public library has taken a dose of government money and technology and turned it into the most energy-dense battery ever. Envia System's new lithium-ion battery packs roughly twice as much energy per gram as present batteries, the company will announce here at the third annual summit of the Advanced Research Projects Agency?Energy (ARPA?e).
"We achieved 400 watt-hours per kilogram," explains materials scientist Sujeet Kumar, Envia co-founder and chief technology officer. "We have made a 40 ampere cell in a large format that automakers can recognize and use," and one that has been validated by independent energy density tests at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind.
With a $4 million grant from ARPA?e, the Envia technology builds on work done at Argonne National Laboratory that found that including manganese in a mix of materials for the cathode?the electrode to which the lithium ions flock?better energy densities could be achieved. The team then switched focus to the anode?the electrode from which lithium ions flow to produce the electric current?and boosted its performance by incorporating silicon along with the typical graphite.
By blending silicon with carbon, the researchers claim to have gotten around the problems of silicon anodes that have disabled other batteries ability to charge and discharge time and time again. Simply put, silicon swells. "It will hardly last 10 cycles because of the high volumetric changes," admits Kumar. But by encasing it in a carbon coating?as well as interlacing carbon fibers?the Envia team argues it has surmounted that problem and its battery has cycled 400 times?and counting. "Even if the silicon pulverizes in the first cycle, connectivity is maintained through the carbon fibers," Kumar adds.
That leaves so-called "thermal runaway," an engineering euphemism for batteries bursting into flame?a persistent problem with energy-dense storage devices based on lithium-ion technology. This is particularly true in cars where batteries must undergo a test in which an 8-millimeter nail penetrates the battery at speed. Envia claims its batteries pass that test. "It's mainly that the cells are much thinner," Kumar says. "It's very easy to remove the heat," though it will be up to each individual automaker whether they want to employ air or liquid cooling of battery packs.
The slim, energy-dense batteries developed at an Envia center in China could reduce the number needed per car by half. And the batteries are cheap at $125 per kilowatt-hour, less than half what current batteries cost, an expense that contributes some 65 percent of the cost of an electric car. But, in addition to further independent testing, the Envia battery must now embark on the multi-year process of testing by actual car-makers. GM is an investor, but Envia declines to identify who is interested. "We are working with all the brand name [carmakers] around the world," says Atul Kapadia, Envia chairman and CEO. The idea is to either form joint ventures to produce the batteries in tandem or to license the technology to pre-existing partners.
But, assuming a single nail doesn't bring down the new technology, the battery could boost the range of electric vehicles, such as GM's Chevy Volt. The more watt-hours per kilogram, the farther an electric car can travel. That means a Nissan LEAF boasting Envia's batteries might be able to travel the 300 miles between St. Louis and Chicago on a single $10 charge, rather than the roughly 80 it can travel today. "We expect Envia's next generation lithium-ion battery will revolutionize the [electric vehicle] industry by eliminating the three remaining barriers to mass adoption: cost, range and safety," Kumar said in a statement announcing the breakthrough. "The ability to drive up to 300 miles on a single charge will eliminate 'range anxiety.'"
New discoveries on depression Public release date: 28-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Katarina Sternudd katarina.sternudd@ki.se 46-852-483-895 Karolinska Institutet
D-serine improves memory in 'depressed' rats
During depression, the brain becomes less plastic and adaptable, and thus less able to perform certain tasks, like storing memories. Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now traced the brain's lower plasticity to reduced functionality in its support cells, and believe that learning more about these cells can pave the way for radical new therapies for depression.
"We were able to cure memory dysfunction in 'depressed' rats by giving them doses of D-serine," says Mia Lindskog, biologist and Assistant Professor at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Neuroscience.
Dr Lindskog and her team used FSL rats, which are rats that have been specially bred with a disposition for 'depression'. The rats were first put through two tests to confirm that they had the symptoms that are also characteristic of human depression. In the first, the rats' memories were checked by repeatedly being exposed to different objects; in the second, the team assessed their level of apathy by releasing them in a container of water and observing whether they merely stayed floating in the container or immediately tried to climb out (non of the rats had to stay in the water for more than five minutes). In both cases the FSL rats' results were compared with normal laboratory rats, and memory disorders and apathy could be confirmed.
The researchers then injected the rats with D-serine. This substance improved their memories but had no effect on the apathy.
"We have shown that there are two symptoms here that can be influenced independently of one another, which means they could be treated in tandem in patients with depression," says Dr Lindskog.
The researchers also studied the synaptic activity in the hippocampus of the rats, a part of the brain which plays an important part in the memory. They found that there was a much higher degree of synaptic activity in the brains of the depressed rats than in the controls. However, when the researchers tried to increase the level of signal transmission, they found the brains of the depressed rats to be unresponsive, which indicated that they had a lower plasticity that rendered them unable to increase neuronal activity when needed unlike the brains of the healthy rats. When the brain samples were soaked in D-serine, the plasticity of the depressed rats' brains improved.
D-serine is a substance secreted by astrocytes, which are support cells for brain neurons.
"We don't actually know very much about these glial cells, but it's very likely that they perform a very important function in the brain," says Dr Lindskog.
It is hoped that their discoveries will eventually lead to new therapies for depression.
"D-serine doesn't pass the blood-brain barrier particularly well, so it's not really a suitable candidate on which to base a drug, but the mechanism that we've identified, whereby it's possible to increase plasticity and improve the memory, is a feasible route that we might be able to reach in a way that doesn't involve D-serine," says Dr Lindskog.
###
Publication: 'Dysfunctional Astrocytic Regulation of Glutamate Transmission in a Rat Model of Depression', Marta Gmez-Galn, Dimitri De Bundel, Ann Van Eeckhaut, Ilse Smolders, Maria Lindskog, Molecular Psychiatry, online 28 February 2012.
For further information, please contact
Mia Lindskog, Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Tel: +46 (0)8-524 87081 or +46 (0)703 173272.
Email: Mia.Lindskog@ki.se.
Contact the Press Office and download photo: http://ki.se/pressroom
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New discoveries on depression Public release date: 28-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Katarina Sternudd katarina.sternudd@ki.se 46-852-483-895 Karolinska Institutet
D-serine improves memory in 'depressed' rats
During depression, the brain becomes less plastic and adaptable, and thus less able to perform certain tasks, like storing memories. Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now traced the brain's lower plasticity to reduced functionality in its support cells, and believe that learning more about these cells can pave the way for radical new therapies for depression.
"We were able to cure memory dysfunction in 'depressed' rats by giving them doses of D-serine," says Mia Lindskog, biologist and Assistant Professor at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Neuroscience.
Dr Lindskog and her team used FSL rats, which are rats that have been specially bred with a disposition for 'depression'. The rats were first put through two tests to confirm that they had the symptoms that are also characteristic of human depression. In the first, the rats' memories were checked by repeatedly being exposed to different objects; in the second, the team assessed their level of apathy by releasing them in a container of water and observing whether they merely stayed floating in the container or immediately tried to climb out (non of the rats had to stay in the water for more than five minutes). In both cases the FSL rats' results were compared with normal laboratory rats, and memory disorders and apathy could be confirmed.
The researchers then injected the rats with D-serine. This substance improved their memories but had no effect on the apathy.
"We have shown that there are two symptoms here that can be influenced independently of one another, which means they could be treated in tandem in patients with depression," says Dr Lindskog.
The researchers also studied the synaptic activity in the hippocampus of the rats, a part of the brain which plays an important part in the memory. They found that there was a much higher degree of synaptic activity in the brains of the depressed rats than in the controls. However, when the researchers tried to increase the level of signal transmission, they found the brains of the depressed rats to be unresponsive, which indicated that they had a lower plasticity that rendered them unable to increase neuronal activity when needed unlike the brains of the healthy rats. When the brain samples were soaked in D-serine, the plasticity of the depressed rats' brains improved.
D-serine is a substance secreted by astrocytes, which are support cells for brain neurons.
"We don't actually know very much about these glial cells, but it's very likely that they perform a very important function in the brain," says Dr Lindskog.
It is hoped that their discoveries will eventually lead to new therapies for depression.
"D-serine doesn't pass the blood-brain barrier particularly well, so it's not really a suitable candidate on which to base a drug, but the mechanism that we've identified, whereby it's possible to increase plasticity and improve the memory, is a feasible route that we might be able to reach in a way that doesn't involve D-serine," says Dr Lindskog.
###
Publication: 'Dysfunctional Astrocytic Regulation of Glutamate Transmission in a Rat Model of Depression', Marta Gmez-Galn, Dimitri De Bundel, Ann Van Eeckhaut, Ilse Smolders, Maria Lindskog, Molecular Psychiatry, online 28 February 2012.
For further information, please contact
Mia Lindskog, Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Tel: +46 (0)8-524 87081 or +46 (0)703 173272.
Email: Mia.Lindskog@ki.se.
Contact the Press Office and download photo: http://ki.se/pressroom
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON -- For 60 years, doctors have believed women were born with all the eggs they'll ever have. Now Harvard scientists are challenging that dogma, saying they've discovered the ovaries of young women harbor very rare stem cells capable of producing new eggs.
If Sunday's report is confirmed, harnessing those stem cells might one day lead to better treatments for women left infertile because of disease -- or simply because they're getting older.
"Our current views of ovarian aging are incomplete. There's much more to the story than simply the trickling away of a fixed pool of eggs," said lead researcher Jonathan Tilly of Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital, who has long hunted these cells in a series of controversial studies.
Tilly's previous work drew fierce skepticism, and independent experts urged caution about the latest findings.
A key next step is to see whether other laboratories can verify the work. If so, then it would take years of additional research to learn how to use the cells, said Teresa Woodruff, fertility preservation chief at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
Still, even a leading critic said such research may help dispel some of the enduring mystery surrounding how human eggs are born and mature.
"This is going to spark renewed interest, and more than anything else it's giving us some new directions to work in," said David Albertini, director of the University of Kansas' Center for Reproductive Sciences. While he has plenty of questions about the latest work, "I'm less skeptical," he said.
Scientists have long taught that all female mammals are born with a finite supply of egg cells, called ooctyes, that runs out in middle age. Tilly, Mass General's reproductive biology director, first challenged that notion in 2004, reporting that the ovaries of adult mice harbor some egg-producing stem cells. Recently, Tilly noted, a lab in China and another in the U.S. also have reported finding those rare cells in mice.
But do they exist in women? Enter the new work, reported Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine.
First Tilly had to find healthy human ovaries to study. He collaborated with scientists at Japan's Saitama Medical University, who were freezing ovaries donated for research by healthy 20-somethings who underwent a sex-change operation.
Tilly also had to address a criticism: How to tell if he was finding true stem cells or just very immature eggs. His team latched onto a protein believed to sit on the surface of only those purported stem cells and fished them out. To track what happened next, the researchers inserted a gene that makes some jellyfish glow green into those cells. If the cells made eggs, those would glow, too.
"Bang, it worked -- cells popped right out" of the human tissue, Tilly said.
Researchers watched through a microscope as new eggs grew in a lab dish. Then came the pivotal experiment: They injected the stem cells into pieces of human ovary. They transplanted the human tissue under the skin of mice, to provide it a nourishing blood supply. Within two weeks, they reported telltale green-tinged egg cells forming.
That's still a long way from showing they'll mature into usable, quality eggs, Albertini said.
And more work is needed to tell exactly what these cells are, cautioned reproductive biologist Kyle Orwig of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who has watched Tilly's work with great interest.
But if they're really competent stem cells, Orwig asked, then why would women undergo menopause? Indeed, something so rare wouldn't contribute much to a woman's natural reproductive capacity, added Northwestern's Woodruff.
Tilly argues that using stem cells to grow eggs in lab dishes might one day help preserve cancer patients' fertility. Today, Woodruff's lab and others freeze pieces of girls' ovaries before they undergo fertility-destroying chemotherapy or radiation. They're studying how to coax the immature eggs inside to mature so they could be used for in vitro fertilization years later when the girls are grown. If that eventually works, Tilly says stem cells might offer a better egg supply.
Further down the road, he wonders if it also might be possible to recharge an aging woman's ovaries.
The new research was funded largely by the National Institutes of Health. Tilly co-founded a company, OvaScience Inc., to try to develop the findings into fertility treatments.
The commercial real estate industry has made many millionaires and is seen by many as an appealing industry. Many wonder how they can reach success in commercial real estate, given the profitable opportunity it presents. This article contains pointers and tips for pre-eminence in commercial real estate.
Building relations is crucial when you are in economicsoldering commercial real estate investment. These properties cost millions of bucks, more than most people can handle individually, so you generally have to work with partners. Also, a lot of commercial properties are sold without a market listing, the more folk in your social network who are conscious of what you are looking for, the more prospects you will find.
When doing commercial real estate investments, you are required to have a deposit. As well as this, you may also need earnest cash, points, and closing costs. Be certain to have your own money when you need to invest in property, as banks are less sure to lend you a full sum to cover the cost, and more certain to loan you a small fraction of the sum.
Though this sounds like an obvious piece of advice, remember that your goal in commercial real estate is to earn a profit. If you may just breaking even on a property in terms of your long term investment (the price of upkeep over time, what you initially put down, for example.), consider your call to buy the property carefully.
What goes up, must come down has a corollary in the property market. What goes down, must come up. If the markets are severely depressed, you can get property for a song. If you've got the means to cling to a property until the market recovers, go forward and buy, buy, buy because you'll find yourself holding some high worth properties compared with your investment when all is clear
When it comes to buying commercial real estate, if the details of the loans you are being offered are higher than what you expected, be ready to walk off. It is tricky when you have already put a great deal of time and energy in, but if the balance sheets won't slot in a higher than expected payment - get out! You don't want to end up over your head on a project of this size.
Commercial real estate is a business where much wealth has been made. Nevertheless to succeed in commercial real estate, one needs the right data and information to make the correct calls in building you commercial real estate business. Apply this article?s guidance and you'll be on your way to a successful commercial real estate business.
Farlon is an estate financier in the commercial real estate sector targeting warehouses, business complexes for soldering and welding corporations, helping them find spaces massive enough for welding equipment and also providing job services in the USA and Europe for commercial firms.
Last year CERN researchers clocked neutrinos moving faster than light, in an apparent violation of the laws of physics. Now it seems that it was actually a bad measurement caused by a loose fiber optic cable.?
You can shelf your designs for a warp drive engine (for now) and put the DeLorean back in the garage; it turns out neutrinos may not have broken any cosmic speed limits after all.
Skip to next paragraph
Ever since the news came out?on September 22 of last year?that a team of researchers in Italy had clocked neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light, the physics world has been resounding with the potential implications of such a discovery ? that is, if it were true. The speed of light has been a key component of the standard model of physics for over a century, an Einstein-established limit that particles (even tricky neutrinos) weren?t supposed to be able to break, not even a little.
Now, according to a?breaking news article?by Edwin Cartlidge on AAAS??ScienceInsider, the neutrinos may be cleared of any speed violations.
?According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos? flight and an electronic card in a computer,? Cartlidge reported.
The original OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus)?experiment had a beam of neutrinos fired from CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, aimed at an underground detector array located 730 km away at the Gran Sasso facility, near L?Aquila, Italy. Researchers were surprised to discover the neutrinos arriving earlier than expected, by a difference of 60 nanoseconds. This would have meant the neutrinos had traveled?faster than light speed?to get there.
Repeated experiments at the facility revealed the same results. When the news was released, the findings seemed to be solid ? from a methodological standpoint, anyway.
Shocked at their own results, the OPERA researchers were more than happy to have colleagues check their results, and welcomed other facilities to attempt the same experiment.
Repeated attempts may no longer be needed.
Once the aforementioned fiber optic cable was readjusted, it was found that the speed of data traveling through it matched the 60 nanosecond discrepancy initially attributed to the neutrinos. This could very well explain the subatomic particles? apparent speed burst.
Case closed? Well? it?is?science, after all.
?New data,? Cartlidge added, ?will be needed to confirm this hypothesis.?
See the original OPERA team paper?here.
UPDATE 2/22/12 11:48 pm EST:?According to a more recent?article on Nature?s newsblog,?the Science Insider report erroneously attributed the 60 nanosecond discrepancy to loose fiber optic wiring from the GPS unit, based on inside ?sources?. OPERA?s statement doesn?t specify as such, ?saying instead that its two possible sources of error point in opposite directions and it is still working things out.?
OPERA?s official statement released today is as follows:
?The OPERA Collaboration, by continuing its campaign of verifications on the neutrino velocity measurement, has identified two issues that could significantly affect the reported result. The first one is linked to the oscillator used to produce the events time-stamps in between the GPS synchronizations. The second point is related to the connection of the optical fiber bringing the external GPS signal to the OPERA master clock.
These two issues can modify the neutrino time of flight in opposite directions. While continuing our investigations, in order to unambiguously quantify the effect on the observed result, the Collaboration is looking forward to performing a new measurement of the neutrino velocity as soon as a new bunched beam will be available in 2012. An extensive report on the above mentioned verifications and results will be shortly made available to the scientific committees and agencies.? (via?Nature newsblog.)
Jason Major is a graphic artist from Rhode Island now living and working in Dallas, Texas. He writes about astronomy and space exploration on his blog?Lights In The Dark, here on Universe Today and also on Discovery News.
This weekend is the Oscars, so we?ve got a couple of apps to help get you into the award ceremony spirit. Popcornflix lets you stream movies for free to your iOS devices, while Award Hero: Oscars Edition makes it easy to watch trailers for nominees and weigh your Oscar picks against those of your friends. We?ve also got some games for you to play during commercials. Ziggurat, in which you have to shoot aliens with a blaster before they finally overwhelm and kill you, and Little Acorns, a platformer in which you race the clock as a squirrel, trying to gather food.
The Oscars are this weekend, which means plenty of people have movies on the brain. Popcornflix helps deal with your obsession by allowing you to stream films from a pretty decent selection straight to your iOS device for free. The app is ad supported, dropping pop-ups on its menus and ads in front of features before you stream them, but a few seconds is a small price to pay for free films on your phone.
Popcornflix gets at least one new video uploaded every day, and includes the ability to share them with your friends through Facebook and Twitter. The app also allows you to stream over both a Wi-Fi connection and 3G, although if you opt for 3G, be sure to keep an eye on your data usage so you don?t get charged by your carrier.
It?s the big weekend: the 84th Annual Academy Awards. And if you?re getting into it with your friends, you?ll want to give a look to Awards Hero: Oscars Edition, an app filled with information about the nominees and the ability to square off against your friends to see whose best at picking winners.
Awards Hero allows you to watch trailers for the nominated films, bet against your Facebook friends and create pools with your pals to easily see who can best guess the whims of the Academy. It also packs a ton of information and even clips from past Oscar winners, so you can bone up on your movie history during commercial breaks.
ZiGGURAT (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Ziggurat?s simplicity makes it both tough and interesting. You?re a lone space marine trapped atop a pyramid-shaped mound ? a ziggurat ? and skeletal alien freaks are bearing down on you. They?ve already killed everybody, and there?s no way you?re going to make it out alive. You just have to take as many of them with you as you can. That?s enough to make Ziggurat a compelling game of seeing how much damage you can do before you?re overtaken, one that keeps players coming back to best their top scores.
Part of what makes Ziggurat appealing is its slightly weird aiming system. Rather than tapping where you want your energy projectiles to go, you?ll need to slide your finger along the bottom of the screen to direct your space marine to fire in at different points in an arc. The longer you hold your finger down, the stronger your projectile?s charge, but gravity affects where your shot will go, so you?ll have to plan carefully. Facebook and Twitter integration for bragging rights will give you plenty of reason to challenge your friends.
Platformer Little Acorns is all about moving fast. You control a squirrel gathering food for the winter, among other things, including rounding up your squirrel babies, procuring fruit and fighting off evil bugs. The key is to get through each level as quickly as you can. You can?t leave each stage until you get all the acorns, but to get the best score, you?ll need to collect everything.
Little Acorns packs 60 levels, each with a design more dastardly than the last. Several of the stages pack power-ups you can snag along the way to amp up your squirrel?s abilities and help you finish more quickly. Your scores are saved on Game Center?s leaderboards so you can see how you compare to other players, and you can also earn achievements for your squirrely diligence.
If you are seriously thinking about how you could make money through the internet, then you will need to be considering which niche area in which to work. Businesses, whether they be offline or online are there to solve some problem or other, and as such they must provide a service to a specified group of people. This group of people is called a niche. So, if you are wanting to find out how to start an online business from home then your starting point has to be choosing a niche market to serve.
Choosing A Niche ? What Is A Niche?
A good starting point would be to first define exactly what we mean by a niche. The word ?niche? is used to describe a specific group of people who are interested in a particular topic. People who belong to a particular niche are interested in solving an issue that relates to it.
An example of a niche market might be those individuals who are interested in growing pot plants in their home. They belong to the larger market niche of gardeners, but have a specific interest in indoor gardening, maybe because they are flat dwellers, they are unable to garden outside due to disabilities, or they may only have limited time and only wish to confine their hobby to growing plants indoors.
Another niche market might be the group of people who are keen on camping holidays and are looking for specific information on this topic. Another group of people may be interested in learning how to paint portraits. As you can see the niche ideas are virtually endless.
Finding Niche Ideas Which Are Profitable
As you are planning to make money through the internet, it is important to remember that you need to first find out if the niche you are considering is one which will be profitable. So how can you do this? Type some of the keywords that are associated with your proposed niche into your search engine. If you find that there are many results, that will be a good sign that people are looking for information.
Another sign which indicates a profitable niche is if there are sponsored advertisements at the top of the search results, and to the right hand side. This means that others are making money through the internet in this niche. If you can find a magazine in your niche then that too is a good sign that it could be profitable. A large amount of time, effort and funds go into producing a magazine so the publishers would not commit to doing so if there was no market for that niche. A good place to get some inspiration is to visit online sites for magazine and books.
You can find more inspiration when choosing a niche by visiting cbengine.com where you can investigate their category list which serves also as niche topics.
Choosing A Niche ? Which One is Right For You?
As you are learning how to start an online business from home in order to make money through the internet, it is important to choose a niche that you will be able to stick with for a least six months to a year if not longer. For best results, try to think of a niche in which you have some overlap between your interests, whether there is a market for that niche, and your experience with it. If you are contemplating going into a niche because you see that it is very popular and therefore more likely to be profitable, but have no real interest in it ? then your chances of sticking with it and doing the work required will not be very good.
Making money through the internet involves hard work and dedication. If you have no real interest in the niche area you have chosen ? other than the profit potential ? you may find your desire flagging and the work becomes harder to do. It is better therefore, to choose a niche that you have some life experience with and an interest in the topic as well. As you can see, choosing a niche when you are learning how to start an online business from home so that you can make money through the internet requires some careful consideration to avoid problems later on.
Do you recognize the tremendous opportunity which the internet presents to earn an income, but don?t know how to get started? Visit How To Start An Online Business From Home and access your free training written especially for newcomers who want the A ? Z explanation of how to get started online
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New taxes for the wealthy, some tax relief for low to middle-income earners, and a big boost for small business owners.
That?s the broad thrust of the tax plans unveiled on Wednesday by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who also announced that a dedicated ombud would be appointed to deal with tax matters that couldn?t be resolved by Sars.
Although Gordhan left personal income tax rates unchanged, he announced a whopping 28 cents a litre increase in the price of petrol and diesel from April 4, when the general levy on fuel goes up by 20c a litre and the Road Accident Fund levy by 8c to 88c a litre. The electricity levy will go up by one cent a kilowatt hour from July 1.
Gordhan announced R9.5 billion in personal income tax relief, more than half of which will go to people earning up to R22 000 a month to help offset the effects of inflation on earnings.
Tax credits for medical aid contributions will kick in from March 1 at a rate of R230 a month for the first two beneficiaries and R154 each for additional ones.
And to encourage people to save more ? over and above retirement savings ? it will be possible to put away R30 000 a year up to a lifetime limit of R500 000 and pay no tax on interest, dividends and capital gains.
The rich, however, will have to cough up when withholding tax on dividends from investments, at a rate of 15 percent, is implemented from April 1.
The capital gains inclusion rate for individuals and special trusts goes up from 25 to 33.3 percent on March 1, while for companies and other trusts it will increase from 50 to 66.6 percent.
Middle-income earners will be protected by the raising of exclusion thresholds.
Small business owners and entrepreneurs win big, with the tax-free threshold being raised to R63 556, above which ? up to R350 000 ? the 10 percent tax rate drops to 7 percent, offering welcome relief to micro enterprises and start-ups. Above R350 000, the 28 percent corporate tax rate applies.
Micro businesses with an annual turnover of less than R1 million will struggle with far less red tape by being able to pay turnover tax, VAT and employees? tax twice a year ? instead of submitting returns 18 times a year.
New tax incentives in- clude relief for housing developers and employers who provide homes costing less than R300 000 and for businesses that invest in planned special economic zones.
Tax dodgers, especially in the construction industry ? and complex trusts ? are to come under closer scrutiny.
Gordhan shocked MPs when he said some of the 34 000 tax advisers owed more than R260m in back taxes, with more than 18 000 of their income tax returns outstanding.
?If that is their attitude to their own tax compliance, one shudders to think what advice they are giving to their clients,? the former Sars commissioner said.
In the financial year ending March 31, more than 230 taxpayers had been successfully prosecuted and sentenced to a combined 370 years and nearly R5m in fines.
?A further 1 500 tax-related cases are awaiting prosecution with the National Prosecuting Authority,? Gordhan said.
Sars had slapped penalties on more than 700 000 taxpayers for failing to submit their returns on time.
The recent voluntary disclosure programme had drawn 18 000 applications, yielding almost R1bn in extra tax and providing ?useful insights into areas of non-compliance that will receive focused attention?.
The tax threshold ? what one has to earn before having to pay income tax ? rises from R59 750 a year for people under 65 to R63 556. People over 65 will start paying only once their earnings top R99 056 (up from R93 150).
Of the 11 million employed people, 4.9 million pay no income tax, while the top-earning 2.5 percent contribute 37 percent of income taxes, according to the Budget Review.
Personal income tax ? payments by individuals and trusts ? for the 2012/13 tax year is to contribute R296bn or 37 percent of national government revenue.
Corporate income tax is to contribute R168bn and VAT R210bn to the national coffers.
The provinces are to raise R105bn in the year. ? The Star
The full Budget speech
Originally posted here: R9.5bn in income tax relief
AP - President Barack Obama rolled out a corporate tax overhaul plan Wednesday that lowers rates but also eliminates loopholes and subsidies cherished by the business world. A long-shot for action in an election year, the plan nevertheless stamps Obama's imprint on one of the most high-profile issues of the presidential campaign.
You are welcome on the finance magazine Azsecc.com. Here you can get useful advice on how to manage your personal finances, money management and personal finance budgeting tips.
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Colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignant cancers. In the Western countries, the mobility and mortality of the colorectal cancer have got the first place among the digestive tract?s malignant tumors. About 30%-40% post-operated patients died for recurrence or metastasis. Though significant progresses have been made with surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the five-year survival rate remained fairly static over past 30 years.Recently, people found RON(recepteur d?origine nantais), a member of the MET oncogene family, has the ability of mediating epithelial cell dissociation, migration and inhibiting apoptosis, suggesting that RON might be involved in the progression and metastasis of epithelial cancers in vivo. Studies showed that RON is over-expressed in human colorectal cancer and breast cancer. But the relationship between the RON expression and clinical pathology stages remains unclear.Here, we used immunohistochemical analysis to detect the intensity of RON expression in the colorectal cancer specimens, then made a 3-year follow-up. And we analyses the relationship between the RON expression and clinical pathologic stages and prognosis.Materials and methodsMaterial Radical resection specimens of colorectal cancer;RON antibody (Rabbit anti human);Immunohistochemical S-P kit;HPIAS-100 colorized pathologic analytical system;Other experiment apparatus. Methods1) We treated all the specimens with formalin fixation, paraffin imbedding and made 4v m serial section, then we had the immunohistochemical staining.2) We first recorded the gray scale of the cancer tissue by HPIAS-100 colorized pathological analytical system.3) Then we analyses the relation between the RON expression and the Duke?s stages.4) In addition, we kept a 3-year follow-up for the internalized patients, and accounted the 3-year survival rate. In the experiment, we used Kaplain-Meier model and log-rank test in univariate analysis.Results1) RON expression in the colorectal specimens: RON expression was observed in normal colorectal epithelium, colorectal adenoma and cancer, and the intensity of RON expression in tumor was much higher than in normal epithelium, suggesting that RON played an important role in tumorigenesis.2) RON expression in colorectal cancer: RON expression becajne enhanced when the clinical pathologic stages elevated, and RON over-expression was correlated with aggressive tumor characteristics, such as invasive depth and lymph nodes metastasis. Suggesting that RON might influence many steps in tumor progression and metastasis.3) RON expression and prognosis: The overall survival time were (31.5 ?2.2) months, and the disease-free survival time were (27.5+2.2) months. The overall 3-year survival rate was 77.21%, the disease-free 3-year survival rate was 76.05%. The significant factors in Kaplain-Meier analysis were Duke?s stages and lymph node metastasis. But RON expression didn?t have any effect on the post-operative life span.Conclusion1) All colorectal tissues expressed RON, and the intensity of RON expression in colorectal tumor was much higher than in normal epithelium.2) RON expression becomes enhanced when the Duke?s stages elevated.3) RON expression had close relation with tumor progression and metastasis4) RON expression didn?t have effect on the post-operative life span.
Title: Expression of Receptor Tyrosine Kinase RON in Colorectal Cancer and Its Significance
Category: Cancer Journal
Filename: Expression of Receptor Tyrosine Kinase RON in Colorectal Cancer and Its Significance.pdf
Pages: 169
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Happy Presidents' Day everyone, here's my Top 5 for February 20, 2012 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
The beat goes on. After finally losing a game, Jeremy Lin bounces back with 28 points and 14 assists as the Knicks beat the champion Dallas Mavericks 104-97.
The Detroit Red Wings have now won a record 23 straight home games.
Carl Edwards won the pole for Sunday's Daytona 500. Danica Patrick qualified 30th out of 49.
Bill Haas won the Northern Trust Open on the second extra hole in a 3-way playoff with Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley. Mickelson was denied his second straight win.
Welcome to the post-fight fight. After Vitali Klitschko's defended his WBC heavyweight title in Munich against Dereck Chisora, WBA champ David Haye called Chisora a "loser." All hell broke loose. Punches thrown, reporters diving for cover. Chisora was detained by police for questioning. He could be charged with assault. Police couldn't locate Haye for questioning.
2. Lin-Sanity
OK, some of the stuff surrounding Jeremy Lin is truly insane. First a fan showed up with a sign that included a fortune cookie. It wound up being shown on television. Then after the Knicks winning streak ended Friday night ESPN mobile briefly ran the headline "Chink in The Armor." The network apologized and fired the employee responsible. The calendar says it's 2012. Some people are truly stuck in the Dark Ages. To his credit, Lin said, "You have to learn to forgive, and I don't even think that was intentional."
3. Side Effects
Stripping away all the silliness, there are some tangible side effects to Lin-Sanity. For one, a cable blackout was probably lifted because of Jeremy Lin. MSG and Time Warner finally settled their differences so Knicks and Rangers games are back on the air. How crazy is that? A "throwaway" player brought two sports media giants to their knees. Pretty cool. And you wonder if the "Lin effect" will extend to other sports. Sure the gaudy contract that brought A.J. Burnett to the Yankees helped secure a World Series title in 2009, but now Burnett is expendable so he winds up in Pittsburgh. Don't you think sports teams all over the world are desperately seeking the next Jeremy Lin? Again. Pretty cool. By the way, A.J. Burnett tweeted, Now that I am part of the Pittsburgh Pirates, I would just like to say how grateful I am to the Yankees organization and the fans. A classy tweet considering how Yankee fans turned on him.
4. Here's to Kid
Clearly Gary Carter's death touched a great many of you. Some of your thoughts:
*C.B. We will miss you Gary Carter and your great smile.
*J.V. Always a smile, always a Champion. Rest in Peace Kid.
*B.A. I can think of no current pro athlete that compares. Perhaps Jeter comes closest.
*S.R. If there were more guys like him in sports it would make the whole industry far better.
By the way, how perfect. The Empire State Building was bathed in Orange and Blue light Friday night in memory of Gary.
And the Montreal Canadiens paid tribute to Gary in the city where he began his Major League career.
5. Since You Didn't Ask
Here's an All-Presidents baseball team.
Outfield: Reggie Jackson, Trot Nixon, Randy Bush Infield: Adam Kennedy, Howard and Nick Johnson (yup, there were two Presidents named Johnson), Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. Lefty Pitcher: Whitey Ford Righty Pitcher: Walter Johnson (OK, we're now over the term limits for Johnsons) Catcher: (Of course) Gary Carter Honorable mention: Pitcher Dennis "El Presidente" Martinez Former minor league pitcher Larry President
Happy Birthday: Hockey great, and a former TV co-host of mine, Phil Esposito. 70. Bonus Birthday: Model Cindy Crawford. 46.
Today in Sports: Willie Mays signs a $100,000 contract with the San Francisco Giants making him the highest paid player. 1963. Bonus Event: 50 years ago today, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth. 1962.
To sign up for Len's free daily Top 5 email click here.
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Follow Len Berman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lenbermansports
In the past month, 177 short-beaked common?dolphins?have beached themselves on Massachusetts's Cape Cod, and, despite rescue efforts, 124 have died.
There's no good spot on Cape Cod for?dolphins?to continue this winter's massive and unexplained beachings, but a group of 11 has chosen one of the worst.
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The remote inlet is a place where the tides recede fast and far, and that's left the animals mired in a grayish-brown mud.
Walking is the only way to reach the animals, but it's not easy. The muck that releases a footstep only after a sucking pop. One rescue volunteer hits a thigh-deep "hole" and tumbles.
One?dolphin?is dead, but the other 10 appear healthy, and some thump their tails in the shallows, struggling to move. Rescuers decide the best course is to wait for the incoming tide to free the?dolphins, then boats can try to herd them out of trouble. The only alternative is hauling them to a waiting trailer, and open water. But the trailer is nearly a mile (1.6 kilometers) away.
Waiting has risks.?Dolphins?can't survive long on land, and there's no guarantee the boats can push the dolphins?on to safety.
"Now's where we start crossing our fingers," said Brian Sharp of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
A year ago, Tuesday's 11 stranded?dolphins?would have seemed remarkable.
But in the last month, 177 short-beaked common?dolphins?have stranded on Cape Cod, and 124 have died.
So far, there's no explanation.
Workers at the IFAW, which has led the rescue efforts, tag and take blood samples of the stranded animals, necropsies have been done on dead?dolphins?and a Congressional briefing was held early this month in the push for answers. But researchers can offer only theories about things such as changes in weather, water temperature or behavior of the?dolphins' prey.
Geography may also play a role, if the?dolphins?are getting lost along the Cape's jagged inner coastline.
Rescuers work in pairs to move the?dolphins?on slings, bringing them closer together and pointing the right way.
"We'll take advantage of the fact that they're social animals," said Kerry Branon, an IFAW spokeswoman. "We're hoping if we release them together, they'll stick together."
Not all the?dolphins?are on board, though. One drifts off to the left, where he could beach again. The manager of the stranding team, Katie Moore, slides over, grabs its dorsal fin, and gives it a push in the right direction.
"You're going the wrong way, buddy," she says.
The inlet continues to fill and the?dolphins?break into waters that are deeper than the rescuers can follow on foot. They take boats. The noise from the motors pushes the?dolphins?ahead. So do acoustic pingers, devices that make a sound that annoys the?dolphins.
From here, all the shore workers can do is await word from the boats, which will follow the?dolphins?until dark, if needed.
Volunteer Mike Giblin, muck still on his face, sits in his truck and explains why, at 64, he can't wait to get an early morning call to help the?dolphins. The animals are special, he says.
Moore later smiles at the thought, but dismisses any mystical link with the animals.
"They're wild animals," she says. "This is not comforting for them. They don't want to be touched."
She's been encouraged by IFAW's success so far in getting?dolphins?back to sea. She also believes in the work.
"I think that as humans we have such a huge impact on the ocean environment and on these animals in other ways, that this is our opportunity to do the right thing."
article In running a business, project management is considered as a legendary to bring all the operations of a business in an organized pattern. Business accounting is the main backbone to control and monitor the financial progress of companies or organizations. Generally, business accounting provides businesses with the tools necessary to streamline business processes, make transactions more manageable and
Going to college should not be restricted by bad credit. True, getting a student loan by using reasonable home interest rates is a lot easier with a great credit history, although getting a low credit score student loan is well within a realm of possibility. Having no credit standing is equivalent to having a bad credit history.
For instance, assuming that nearly all students will probably be graduated coming from high school and also proceed directly to college, This Stafford loan is regarded as the popular financial loan from the Ough.S. Division of Education and learning. It presumes that an customer, having followed that instant course, could have no credit score whatsoever, making it not even a consideration. A Perkins Loan, allocated with the neediest of students, definitely makes the same forecasts.
In fact, these financing options could be termed bad credit figuratively speaking. About the only cause bad credit could possibly interfere with a landing regarding either these loans is that the student has now defaulted on the previously given federally guaranteed student loan.
Dad and mom with good credit rating can help the scholar with low credit score.
If, in spite of your age, you?ve got already been able to wrangle a negative credit history, or maybe you have no credit standing at all, your parents can help you area a bad crediteducation loan if their credit history is affordable. PLUS lending options target this and may are the way to go pertaining to financing a better education. Ough.S. Division of Education and learning loans (similar to the Stafford lending options and Perkins Loans) make the forecasts that mother and father will cover a minimum of some of the education costs for child or even children. And also loans are intended to help the mother and father cover that cost.
Options to federally guaranteed school funding can be found.
For students by using poor credit or even no credit standing at all, government guaranteed money for college is a good choice. Indeed, their qualifications are usually not as snug as lending options offered by finance institutions and other banking institutions. They are specifically constructed regarding those certification to make education more available for the regular university student.
But, when a student by using poor credit is turned down for 1 of the government guaranteed figuratively speaking, private loan merchants may be able to step up to your plates. Scholars who are seeking education in the domains of rules or medication, or other specialities with high-earning likely, will have a better chance of obtaining a bad credit education loan from the non-public sector with the financial markets.
Incorporating resources could possibly be the ticket to higher education.
Lots of opportunities exist for funding a better educations, not only lending options, but also scholarship grants, grants, work-study software programs, among them. The cost of a higher education can be made together coming from many methods. If portion of that finance happens to originated from a high-interest low credit score student loan, glimpse on the pros. Most lending options are delayed until scientific studies end, at that time you could find a means to consolidate your own student debt. If you have much better your credit rating by then, your home interest rates and payment terms is reduced to be able to more affordable amounts.
Bad credit figuratively speaking may just be really worth the cost.
By using a college education, Division of Education and learning statistics demonstrate that your likely earnings for a life time considerably exceed those of a high classes graduate oftentimes. The cost of a bad credit student loan could well be offset by simply those profits. And, when your credit scores boost, refinancing is definitely a way round the extra cost. Never allow a lack of finance squelch your wish for a higher education.
Need another reason to cough up for that PS Vita? Well, Sony's attempting to sweeten the pot for existing PS3 owners with the launch of a promotional lure that'll make a trio of titles available for cross-platform play. Yes, that portable-to-console bridge has been attempted before and though it's always reeked more of gimmick than true killer feature, that's not stopping the electronics juggernaut from giving it the ol' college try. Gamers that download either Hustle Kings, WipEout 2048 or Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 on the PlayStation Store will be able to transfer and play that content on both devices for the price of one. If you currently claim any of the above as your own, not to worry, you'll still be able to take part in the company's pan-PS content share. So, are you red E? Then hit up the source below for the extended deets.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 28-Feb-2012
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The Oscars are this weekend, which means plenty of people have movies on the brain. Popcornflix helps deal with your obsession by allowing you to stream films from a pretty decent selection straight to your iOS device for free. The app is ad supported, dropping pop-ups on its menus and ads in front of features before you stream them, but a few seconds is a small price to pay for free films on your phone.
It?s the big weekend: the 84th Annual Academy Awards. And if you?re getting into it with your friends, you?ll want to give a look to Awards Hero: Oscars Edition, an app filled with information about the nominees and the ability to square off against your friends to see whose best at picking winners.
Ziggurat?s simplicity makes it both tough and interesting. You?re a lone space marine trapped atop a pyramid-shaped mound ? a ziggurat ? and skeletal alien freaks are bearing down on you. They?ve already killed everybody, and there?s no way you?re going to make it out alive. You just have to take as many of them with you as you can. That?s enough to make Ziggurat a compelling game of seeing how much damage you can do before you?re overtaken, one that keeps players coming back to best their top scores.
Platformer Little Acorns is all about moving fast. You control a squirrel gathering food for the winter, among other things, including rounding up your squirrel babies, procuring fruit and fighting off evil bugs. The key is to get through each level as quickly as you can. You can?t leave each stage until you get all the acorns, but to get the best score, you?ll need to collect everything.
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