All Critics (47) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (2)
Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen spent nearly a decade researching this docudrama about child soldiers in Africa, and the film feels as authoritative as a first-hand account.
A haunting take on unspeakably grim subject matter, shot on location in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A powerful and upsetting portrait of a young girl compelled into unimaginably horrific circumstances.
Nguyen, astonishingly, manages to wring something vaguely like a happy ending from this tragic story.
War Witch is most effective not when we are looking in on Komona but when we are inside her head.
The powerful things we expect from "War Witch" are as advertised, but what we don't expect is even better.
... driven by a remarkably natural, unaffected performance by Mwanza. And Nguyen, despite relying a little too heavily on the initial voice-over for exposition, is a confident and sensitive intelligence behind the camera.
You're likely to ponder its images, its insights into a very foreign (for most of us) location and the tragic situation of Komona (and others like her) for a long time to come.
Is it accurate depiction of Africa's child soldiers? I don't know, thank God. But it feels authentic to its very core, and that makes it as hard to forget as it is to ignore.
Brutal without turning exploitative, the result is harrowing and heartbreaking.
Nguyen creates a mesmerizing tone through his camerawork, editing, sound and the infusion of African folk imagery and ritual, but it's Mwanza's performance as Komona that makes "War Witch" feel so miraculous.
Nguyen reportedly worked on "War Witch" for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.
Made with extremely clear-eyed restraint from harangues, sentiment, message-mongering, or anything else that would cheapen its central character's suffering and fight.
War Witch features a standout performance by Rachel Mwanza, but the supernatural visions don't really suit the film's tone and mood.
Nguyen's compassion and commitment to the issue is admirable, and at its best, War Witch is devastating.
War Witch is remarkable for the fact that it never strays into sentimentality or sensationalism.
...a love story between youngsters who are forced to become adults all too early in their lives.
This is a straight ahead essay on warfare at its worst and the survival of the human spirit at its best.
An astonishing drama set in Africa that vividly depicts the courage and resiliency of a 12-year-old girl whose spiritual gifts enable her to survive.
It is astonishing that film that contains such violence can have such a serene tone. The source of the serenity is the measured, calm narration by Komona (voice of Diane Umawahoro) that is the telling of her story to her unborn child
An exquisitely made film in direct contrast to the ugliness of its subject matter
No quotes approved yet for War Witch. Logged in users can submit quotes.
WASHINGTON -- The first time I met the legendary Sam Jameson we had tea in Tokyo in 1979. He told me with unwavering assurance why he was dedicating his life and talents to Japan.
This tall, stolid Yankee with the open Midwestern smile had arrived in the island nation with the U.S. Army in 1960, when World War II had still not really ended. Parts of Japanese cities were still in ruins and mentalities were still mired in confusion. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the brilliant American substitute for the emperor after the war, had gone home, but the future had not yet arrived.
"I decided I would stay as a correspondent," Sam told me that day. "I wanted to see if two people who had been at war could be friends again."
Those words stayed with me, as from afar I watched Sam go from writing for Pacific Stars & Stripes to the Chicago Tribune and, finally, to a quarter-century as the Los Angeles Times' bureau chief in Tokyo. His first "trick" was to learn perfectly fluent and nuanced Japanese, itself a tremendous accomplishment.
While other correspondents flocked to the "new Japan" and did their jobs well, Sam stood alone in his talents. Whenever his friends from home visited, he took us to his favorite piano bars, and at a certain time, the big Yank got up and sang in perfect Japanese, and the crowd went wild.
Another evening we were having dinner at The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo, and I began complaining that I had been unable to get an interview with Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, already an international leader of considerable note. Sam picked up the phone on the table, dialed Nakasone's private number, spoke a moment in Japanese and hung up.
"Shall we go over there now?" Sam asked, with that wonderful smile hovering on impishness. And that very night, I had an excellent interview with the notably evasive Nakasone.
As Bob Gibson, the L.A. Times foreign editor who worked with Sam, noted this week, "Whereas other reporters often use Western diplomats as sources, Western diplomats in Japan used Sam as a source."
Unfortunately, Gibson was speaking for Sam's obituaries after Sam died at 76 on April 19 of a stroke -- in Tokyo, naturally -- after half a century's work and dedication not only to a profession, but to an idea.
It may seem that I am simply reminiscing here, about someone I greatly admired professionally and had deep affection for personally, but it is more than that. In a time when we have more need in understanding the Chechens, the Afghans, the Sunnis and the Shiites, the Syrians and the Iraqis, and the Malians and the Mauritanians, I am trying to throw much-needed light on how understanding between peoples is best accomplished.
When those two nitwit Tsarnaev boys committed mass murder in Boston, people asked, "Chechen? Chechnya? Maybe, Czech?" And all most writers could come up with was the rather obvious information that Chechnya was a small Muslim tribal area in the Caucasus, and that the Tsarnaev family had come out of Chechnya's wars with the Russians.
This week I found the best analysis to be from Russian writer Konstantin Kazenin, who wrote in Moscow that the Tsarnaev family were not among the Chechen exiles after the wars as expected, but part of a different tragedy.
Instead, this family, which ended up in a unique and unusual diaspora in Boston, is "an example of a Caucasus family which existed in the last Soviet and post-Soviet decades without communal supports and in a vacuum of new unfriendly spaces in which it was necessary to find a way to survive without having any accustomed support," according to Kazenin.
In short, they were not villagers, with a village to support them. They were not city dwellers who fought off the Russians together. They were part of the groups written about by the great writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in "The Gulag Archipelago" -- effectively atomized individuals and individual families, lost without any support except themselves.
To me, this means that the brothers could be at least as much against America as against Russia: to the Tsarnaevs, both countries are equally huge, impersonal entities in which they are lost and afraid; both are enemies undeserving of pity.
Another excellent analyst of the Chechens, Almut Rochowanski, coordinator of the Chechnya Advocacy Network, also writes brilliantly about the Chechens' "exaggerated masculinity, the way a 'real man,' a 'real Chechen,' has to conduct himself, and the treatment he is entitled to expect from others."
The Chechen boy in a world like America brings with him the idea that "he should get respect from everyone and tolerate no slights; he should control 'his' women or else lose his honor." And if he doesn't, he strikes out against the society that ignores him.
In Japan after World War II, Douglas MacArthur relied on total victory, but also upon cultural wisdom about Japan from American anthropologists he hired, such as the great Ruth Benedict. In Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, our forces instead treated locals as if they were poor copies of ourselves. We know the tragic outcomes.
Now, as we try to figure out the "whys" of Chechen and other terrorists -- and as more and more talk is given to "getting into Syria" -- it is time that we dig deeper, as my dear friend Sam and even MacArthur so surprisingly did.
(Georgie Anne Geyer has been a foreign correspondent and commentator on international affairs for more than 40 years. She can be reached at gigi_geyer(at)juno.com.)
TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 startup alley company Koupah is a fresh take on the tablet-based point-of-sale space, which is growing in popularity among SMBs who want a solution that's flexible, extensible and less expensive than legacy POS-specific hardware systems. Koupah takes the model a step further by offsetting some or all credit card transaction fees with advertising.
By Ryan Rigley While there may not be all that much to go off of for the upcoming "Star Wars VII" as of yet, it seems as if that won't be the case once the film actually goes into production. "I think the whole issue of confidentiality is gonna be fascinating as we move into [...]
when i leave college i want to grow to be a teacher. i dont know which one yet it will either be a primary college teacher or a secondary school teacher teaching maths. if i was to become a secondary school teacher teaching maths, in university will I be capable to study maths as an undergraduate and for a post graduate course do educational research. will this nonetheless qualify me to become a maths teacher in a secondary college?
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asia needs to guard against asset bubbles and its emerging economies must improve government institutions and liberalize rigid labor and product markets if they wish to reach the level of developed countries, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday.
"Emerging Asia is potentially susceptible to the 'middle-income trap,' a phenomenon whereby economies risk stagnation at middle-income levels and fail to graduate into the ranks of advanced economies," the IMF said in its latest Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and the Pacific.
"MIEs (middle-income economies) in Asia are less exposed to the risk of a sustained growth slowdown than MIEs in other regions. However, their relative performance is weaker on institutions," the international funding agency said.
IMF's warning about the emerging risks faced by Asian countries come at time when the region looks set to lead a global economic recovery as risks from a meltdown in Europe recede.
"While the external risk of severe economic fallout from an acute euro area crisis has diminished, regional risks are coming into clearer focus. These include some ongoing buildup of financial imbalances and rising asset prices," the IMF said.
IMF was monitoring credit ratios and output levels in Asia closely as conditions can worsen very quickly, the fund's director for Asia and Pacific region, Anoop Singh, told reporters at a briefing in Singapore.
He said regional authorities needed to respond early and decisively to potential overheating.
IMF, which recently cut its 2013 and 2014 growth forecasts for Greater China, India, South Korea and Singapore but raised its outlook for Malaysia and the Philippines, nevertheless sounded generally positive about near-term prospects.
"Growth in Asia is likely pick up gradually in the course of 2013, to about 5.75 percent, on strengthening external demand and continued robust domestic demand," it said.
ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, JAPAN
The IMF said India, the Philippines, China and Indonesia needed to improve their economic institutions while India, the Philippines and Thailand were also exposed to a larger risk of growth slowdown stemming from sub-par infrastructure.
Malaysia and China were the highest-ranked developing Asian countries in an IMF chart measuring institutional strength while Indonesia, India and the Philippines were at the bottom.
IMF defined institutional strength as demonstrating higher political stability, better bureaucratic capability, fewer conflicts and less corruption.
For many developing Asian economies, there remains ample room for easing stringent regulations in product and, in some cases, labor markets, the fund added.
The IMF also said various statistical approaches indicate that trend growth rates have slowed in both China and India
For China, trend growth appears to have peaked at around 11 percent in 2006-07, while India's trend growth is now around 6-7 percent compared with about 8 percent prior to the financial crisis.
"By contrast, trend growth for most ASEAN countries seems to have remained stable or to have increased somewhat, with the notable exception of Vietnam," the fund said.
ASEAN is the acronym for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations whose members include Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar.
Turning to Japan, Singh said the IMF "welcomed" Japanese efforts to stimulate its economy, and said quantitative easing was just part of a package of measures that included cutting debt and embarking of structural reforms such as increasing female participation in the workforce.
"In Japan, we have welcomed the measures taken. It's because they are focused on addressing the deflation that has affected Japan for the last 10-15 years."
"As Japan moves back to sustainable positive growth, it's going to help the region and the global economy and that is the most important," he said.
The Portland-based Vizify came out of TechStars' accelerator in 2011 with the goal of helping everyday people turn their personal data -- the stuff that's fragmented across scores of profiles, networks and websites -- into one, unified visual profile. Essentially, piggybacking on the rise of digital portfolio platforms that aim to recast how we use the resume, Vizify wants to help change how we build our identities online.
Start out your daily app downloads with Mobli, a photo- and video-sharing app that brings you lots of options for the memories you capture. We've also got the newly updated and redesigned Washington Post for iPad for all your news needs, and Dragon City, a management game in which you build a city, raise dragons, and use them to fight other dragons.
Also on Appolicious
Zinio put together a survival guide for magazine lovers, now that many magazine and newspaper publishers are embracing digital. Read about their counsel in this Guest Post.
Mobli update (Free)
What?s it about? Share photos and videos better with Mobli, a social network that doesn't crop your photos or limit the length of video you can share on it or other networks.
What?s cool? The main function of Mobli is to share your life as it's happening. The app makes it quick and easy to snap photos and shoot videos, lay down a quick caption, add some hashtags to make the image easier to categorize, and share it with others. Mobli is a social network unto itself, but you can also easily share what you snap or shoot on other networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Best of all, though, there's no limit on the size of photos or the length of videos you post, and includes its own photo and video filters, smart hashtag suggestions, and even filters that are specific to certain locations and events in the Mobli community. The app's latest update beefs up its privacy controls, adds new filters, enhances social sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and adds new camera features for photos and video.
Who?s it for? If you're a fan of capturing everything with your iPhone or iPad, Mobli will help you do it, as well as help you share it.
What?s it like?Try Instagram for more photo-sharing power (and a huge, growing social community), and SocialCam for a more video-focused approach.
What?s it about? The Washington Post brings its newspaper to iPads with the help of Apple's Newsstand feature, bringing users their daily dose of news.
What?s cool?The Washington Post doesn't need a ton of introduction ? if you're familiar with newspapers, you're familiar with one of the biggest in the U.S. ? but its iPad app deserves a place on your radar. The digital version of the paper brings everything print subscribers get, with all the day's top news, videos and other multimedia, more than 40 comic strips, blog posts and instant access to Twitter, as well as an offline mode for reading when you don't have an Internet connection. The Washington Post's latest update brings it into Apple's Newsstand, with a whole new design that brings the entire print edition into an interactive digital format and adds all the Washington Post blogs from its website. The app is also offered for free as a promotion until this summer.
Who?s it for? Fans of The Washington Post in print shouldn't miss the chance to read it on their iPads for free.
What?s it like? For more great digital versions of newspapers, check out USA TODAY's and The New York Times' apps.
What?s it about? Part management sim, part pet battle game, Dragon City has players building and maintaining a ? you guessed it ? dragon city and then using the dragons raised there to fight other dragons.
What?s cool? Making the leap from Facebook to iOS, Dragon City puts players in the role of the manager of a city with a number of structures dedicated to raising dragons. Your job is to use your city to earn money that can be spent to expand it, and as you do so, you'll get new dragons to collect and use in battles against other dragons. The battles are turn-based, just like favorite monster battle titles such as Pokemon, and Dragon City has the benefit of being completely linked to the Facebook version ? so if you're a fan of that, you can still interact with friends and continue the city you've been building on the social network.
Who?s it for? If you like free-to-play management games, check out Dragon City.
What?s it like? Check out Monster Life and Pocket Summoner for some more monster-battling action.
More than a few iOS-based Twitter users were happy to see Twitterrific 5 appear late last year with a fresh design, but were less than thrilled to go without the push notifications that many take for granted in other apps. Equality has come through Twitterrific 5.2 -- for some, at least. The upgrade at last pops up interactions as they happen, with a symbol to indicate whether it's a conversation, favorite or retweet. Push delivery isn't guaranteed at this point, however. Iconfactory is currently rolling out the beta-level feature to users in batches of 1,000 to avoid oversaturating its servers; you may have to wait awhile. The impatient still get some upgrades to sate their appetite, though, including user banners on profiles, discussion sharing through email and Droplr content thumbnails. If you're willing to pay $6 ($3 on sale) for more than what Twitter gives away for free, the new version may be a good excuse to try something new.
The last time we saw UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, he was defending his belt against Nick Diaz at UFC 158. But now you'll get to see him outside the cage, as he was just cast in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." GSP will play Batroc the Leaper, a French mercenary and kickboxer with a penchant for kicking Captain America.
Japan says it has successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate off its central coast, in a world first.
Methane hydrates, or clathrates, are a type of frozen "cage" of molecules of methane and water.
The gas field is about 50km away from Japan's main island, in the Nankai Trough.
Researchers say it could provide an alternative energy source for Japan which imports all its energy needs.
Other countries including Canada, the US and China have been looking into ways of exploiting methane hydrate deposits as well.
Pilot experiments in recent years, using methane hydrates found under land ice, have shown that methane can be extracted from the deposits.
Continue reading the main story
Methane clathrate - 'Fire ice'
Hydrates are a frozen mixture of water and gas, primarily methane
The methane molecules reside inside a water molecule lattice
The methane will ignite in ice form - hence the "fire ice" moniker
Clathrates tend to form under frigid temperatures and high pressures
They are found in ocean sediments and under the permafrost on land
Vast deposits are thought to exist, rivalling known reserves of traditional fossil fuels
Offshore deposits present a potentially enormous source of methane but also some environmental concern, because the underwater geology containing them is unstable in many places.
"It is the world's first offshore experiment producing gas from methane hydrate," an official from the economy, trade and industry ministry told the AFP news agency.
A survey of the gas field is being run by state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC).
Engineers used a depressurisation method that turns methane hydrate into methane gas.
Production tests are expected to continue for about two weeks.
Government officials have said that they aim to establish methane hydrate production technologies for practical use within five years.
A Japanese study estimated that at least 1.1tn cubic metres of methane hydrate exist in offshore deposits.
This is the equivalent of more than a decade of Japan's gas consumption.
Japan has few natural resources and the cost of importing fuel has increased after a backlash against nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear disaster two years ago.
Mar. 13, 2013 ? Scientists are reporting an advance toward overcoming a major barrier to tapping the potential of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and India's Ayurvedic medicine in developing new and more effective modern drugs. Their report appears in ACS' Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling.
Andreas Bender and colleagues explain that TCM has made key contributions to modern medicine. In the world's largest international clinical trial, for instance, scientists concluded that Artesunate, a derivative of the Chinese herb qinghao, should replace quinine as a treatment for severe malaria in both adults and children worldwide. Traditional medicines have a track record in benefiting human health that spans thousands of years. However, gaps in knowledge about how these medicines work in the body, their "mode of action" (MOA) -- limit their use today. Information about a drug's MOA is important for better understanding of both the beneficial effects and side effects of treatments.
They describe an algorithm that can help explain how these substances work in the body, and use of it to help understand the MOA of traditional anti-inflammatory medicines. An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure to generally analyze data, which the scientists applied to predicting how the active chemical ingredients in traditional medicines affect biological processes. "By establishing the MOA of these compounds, the gap between Western and traditional medicine can be reduced," the report concluded.
The authors acknowledge funding from Unilever, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Fazlin Mohd Fauzi, Alexios Koutsoukas, Robert Lowe, Kalpana Joshi, Tai-Ping Fan, Robert C. Glen, Andreas Bender. Chemogenomics Approaches to Rationalizing the Mode-of-Action of Traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicines. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 2013; : 130218071700008 DOI: 10.1021/ci3005513
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Dancers stage the Microsoft logo against the side of a building in New York.
By Robert Scheer
Go offshore young man and avoid paying taxes. Plunder at will in those foreign lands, and if you get in trouble, Uncle Sam will come rushing to your assistance, diplomatically, financially and militarily, even if you have managed to avoid paying for those government services. Just pretend you?re a multinational corporation.
That?s the honest instruction for business success provided by 60 of the largest U.S. corporations that, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, ?parked a total of $166 billion offshore last year? shielding more than 40 percent of their profits from U.S. taxes. They all do it, including Microsoft, GE and pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories. Many, like GE, are so good at it that they have avoided taxes altogether in some recent years.?
But they all still expect Uncle Sam to come to their aid with military firepower in case the natives abroad get restless and nationalize their company?s assets. We still have a blockade against Cuba because Fidel Castro more than a half century ago dared seize an American-owned telephone company. During that same period, we have consistently intervened to maintain the lock of U.S. corporations on the world?s resources, continuing to the present task of making Iraq and Libya safe for our oil companies.?
America?s multinational corporations still need the Navy to protect shipping lanes and the Commerce Department to safeguard U.S. copyrights. They also expect the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to intervene to provide bailouts and cheap money when the corporate financial swindlers get into trouble, like GE, which almost went aground when its GE Capital financial wing got caught in the great banking meltdown.?
They want a huge U.S. government to finance scientific breakthroughs, educate the future workforce, sustain the infrastructure and provide for law and order on the home front, but they just don?t feel they should have to pay for a system of governance, even though it primarily serves their corporate interests. The U.S. government exists primarily to make the world safe for multinational corporations, but those firms feel no obligation to pay for that protection in return.
Think of that perfectly legal and widespread racket when you go to pay your taxes in the next weeks, and consider that you have to make up the gap left by the big boys? antics. Also, when you contemplate the painful cuts coming because of the sequester that undoubtedly will further destabilize the economy, remember that, as the Wall Street Journal estimated, the tax savings of just 19 of those companies would more than cover the $85 billion in spending reductions triggered by the congressional budget impasse.
The most skilled at this con game are the health care and technology companies, which, as a Senate investigation last year revealed, have become quite expert at shifting marketing rights and patents offshore to low-tax countries. Microsoft boosted its foreign holdings by $16 billion last year, and by the end of the company?s fiscal year on June 30, 2012, had $60.8 billion stashed internationally. Through creative accounting, Microsoft was able to claim that only 7 percent of its pretax profit last year was domestically generated.
Oracle increased its foreign holdings by one-third, including new subsidiaries in low-tax Ireland, and thereby was able to add a cool $272 million to the company?s bottom line by avoiding U.S. taxes. Abbott estimates that it saved $1.6 billion in U.S. taxes through its operations in more than a dozen countries. By moving $8.1 billion of its profits overseas, Abbott was able to claim a pretax loss on its U.S. operations. Johnson & Johnson, another health industry giant, has almost all of its cash?$14.8 billion out of $14.9 billion?abroad, yet still claims to be a U.S. company.?
One of the longtime leaders in offshore tax avoidance has been that once-American-as-apple-pie company GE, which in a more innocent time hired Ronald Reagan to advertise its wares. Now GE has nearly two-thirds of its jobs abroad, avoided U.S. taxes in the previous two years and has $108 billion stashed overseas.
Two years ago, President Obama appointed GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair his Jobs Council, despite the fact that Immelt had cut his company?s U.S. workforce by a fifth. GE?s expertise is no longer in appliance manufacturing, a division Immelt has tried to shed, but rather in financial manipulation.?
GE Capital was a leader in the financial scams that still haunt the U.S. economy, and Immelt has been most effective in lobbying Washington politicians to rig the tax laws to benefit his and other multinational corporations. He has created some jobs, but unfortunately, they are abroad, along with his company?s untaxed profits.?
For all these multinational corporations, the love of profit trumps loyalty to country.
Click here to check out Robert Scheer?s new book, ?The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.?
Keep up with Robert Scheer?s latest columns, interviews, tour dates and more at www.truthdig.com/robert_scheer.
Get truth delivered to your inbox every week.
Previous item: Ryan in Fantasyland
Next item: Cool Heads Needed by Geo-Engineers
New and Improved Comments
If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.
(Reuters) - The National Football League and General Electric Co are teaming up to improve the diagnosis and treatment of brain injuries amid growing concerns about sports-related concussions in youth and professional sports.
On Monday they announced a $60 million effort with leading neurologists to speed up research into brain injuries and the development of new technologies to help protect the brain from traumatic injury.
The initiative includes a $40 million research program and an additional $20 million program that aims to develop new tools for tracking head impacts in real time.
The NFL and GE, the largest U.S. conglomerate, are backing the effort. Also joining the tool development program is the sporting brand Under Armour.
The initiative comes nearly two months after the Institute of Medicine launched a sweeping study of sports-related concussions, particularly those in young people from elementary school through early adulthood.
Americans are increasingly worried about brain injuries suffered by children and adolescents playing sports.
A 2010 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that U.S. emergency rooms yearly treat 173,000 temporary brain injuries, including concussions, related to sports or recreation among people less than 19 years old.
In professional sports, the NFL last year adopted stricter rules to determine when players can return to the playing field after suffering a concussion.
The new rules followed a lawsuit by some 2,000 former NFL players against the league, alleging it concealed the risk of brain injury from players while marketing the game's hard hits.
(Reporting by Kevin Gray; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Andrew Hay)
Contact: Barry Whyte barry.whyte@embo.org 49-622-188-91108 European Molecular Biology Organization
HEIDELBERG, 12 March 2013 Attaching chains of the small molecule ADP-ribose to proteins is important for a cell's survival and the repair of DNA damage, making this process a promising target for the development of new cancer drugs. Researchers have now identified a much sought after enzyme that removes such ADP-ribose modifications from proteins by studying a genetic mutation that causes neurodegenerative disease in humans. These findings, published today in The EMBO Journal, suggest that not only addition but also removal of ADP-ribose from proteins is essential for normal cell function.
Poly(ADP-ribose) chains have key roles in the repair of cellular DNA damage, as well as in the control of gene expression and cell death. Pharmacological drugs called PARP inhibitors prevent the addition of ADP-ribose or ADP-ribose polymers to proteins. Several of these drugs are undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of different types of cancers.
EMBO Young Investigator Ivan Ahel, a group leader at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Manchester, has been studying the underlying molecular processes, including an enzyme that shortens such chains piece by piece. "An enzyme that could completely uncouple ADP-ribose from proteins has remained elusive, even though such a cellular activity has been known to exist for more than 30 years," commented Ahel. "Our approach has been to combine clinical, biochemical and structural studies to see if we could pin point this enzyme activity in humans."
The eventual breakthrough came when Ahel and his collaborators Scott Williams (National Institutes of Health, USA), Gyula Timinszky and Andreas Ladurner (both from Ludwig Maximilians University Munich) teamed up with a group of clinical geneticists lead by Reza Sharifi at the Human Genetics Research Center at St George's University of London. "By studying genetic mutations in a group of patients with severe neurodegenerative disease, we found a gene that was mutated in a family that had several cases of severe progressive neurodegenerative and seizure disorder," remarked Sharifi. The product of this gene, which was named TARG1 (for terminal ADP-ribose protein glycohydrolase), exhibited the long-sought-after enzyme activity that fully removes ADP-ribose from proteins, and was further required for the proliferation of cells and response to DNA damage.
The researchers note that further work is needed to investigate the exact cellular processes where TARG exerts its functions, and to understand in more detail why mutation of this gene causes neurodegenerative disease. "Our discovery suggests a new pathogenic mechanism that may operate in a wider range of neurodegenerative disorders, the genetics of which generally remain very poorly understood," concluded Sharifi.
###
Deficiency of terminal ADP-ribose protein glycohydrolase TARG1/C6orf130 in neurodegenerative disease
Reza Sharifi, Rosa Morra, C. Denise Appel, Michael Tallis, Barry Chioza, Gytis Jankevicius, Michael A. Simpson, Ivan Matic, Ege Ozkan, Barbara Golia, Matthew J. Schellenberg, Ria Weston, Jason G. Williams, Marianna N. Rossi, Hamid Galehdari, Juno Krahn, Alexander Wan, Richard C. Trembath, Andrew H. Crosby, Dragana Ahel, Ron Hay, Andreas G. Ladurner, Gyula Timinszky, R. Scott Williams, Ivan Ahel
Read the paper:
http://www.nature.com/emboj/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/emboj201351a.html
doi: 10.1038/emboj.2013.51
Further information on The EMBO Journal is available at http://www.nature.com/emboj
Media Contacts
Barry Whyte
Head | Public Relations and Communications
barry.whyte@embo.org
EMBO is an organization of more than 1500 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a European research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO helps young scientists to advance their research, promote their international reputations and ensure their mobility. Courses, workshops, conferences and scientific journals disseminate the latest research and offer training in techniques to maintain high standards of excellence in research practice. EMBO helps to shape science and research policy by seeking input and feedback from our community and by following closely the trends in science in Europe.
For more information: http://www.embo.org
[ | 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.
Contact: Barry Whyte barry.whyte@embo.org 49-622-188-91108 European Molecular Biology Organization
HEIDELBERG, 12 March 2013 Attaching chains of the small molecule ADP-ribose to proteins is important for a cell's survival and the repair of DNA damage, making this process a promising target for the development of new cancer drugs. Researchers have now identified a much sought after enzyme that removes such ADP-ribose modifications from proteins by studying a genetic mutation that causes neurodegenerative disease in humans. These findings, published today in The EMBO Journal, suggest that not only addition but also removal of ADP-ribose from proteins is essential for normal cell function.
Poly(ADP-ribose) chains have key roles in the repair of cellular DNA damage, as well as in the control of gene expression and cell death. Pharmacological drugs called PARP inhibitors prevent the addition of ADP-ribose or ADP-ribose polymers to proteins. Several of these drugs are undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of different types of cancers.
EMBO Young Investigator Ivan Ahel, a group leader at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Manchester, has been studying the underlying molecular processes, including an enzyme that shortens such chains piece by piece. "An enzyme that could completely uncouple ADP-ribose from proteins has remained elusive, even though such a cellular activity has been known to exist for more than 30 years," commented Ahel. "Our approach has been to combine clinical, biochemical and structural studies to see if we could pin point this enzyme activity in humans."
The eventual breakthrough came when Ahel and his collaborators Scott Williams (National Institutes of Health, USA), Gyula Timinszky and Andreas Ladurner (both from Ludwig Maximilians University Munich) teamed up with a group of clinical geneticists lead by Reza Sharifi at the Human Genetics Research Center at St George's University of London. "By studying genetic mutations in a group of patients with severe neurodegenerative disease, we found a gene that was mutated in a family that had several cases of severe progressive neurodegenerative and seizure disorder," remarked Sharifi. The product of this gene, which was named TARG1 (for terminal ADP-ribose protein glycohydrolase), exhibited the long-sought-after enzyme activity that fully removes ADP-ribose from proteins, and was further required for the proliferation of cells and response to DNA damage.
The researchers note that further work is needed to investigate the exact cellular processes where TARG exerts its functions, and to understand in more detail why mutation of this gene causes neurodegenerative disease. "Our discovery suggests a new pathogenic mechanism that may operate in a wider range of neurodegenerative disorders, the genetics of which generally remain very poorly understood," concluded Sharifi.
###
Deficiency of terminal ADP-ribose protein glycohydrolase TARG1/C6orf130 in neurodegenerative disease
Reza Sharifi, Rosa Morra, C. Denise Appel, Michael Tallis, Barry Chioza, Gytis Jankevicius, Michael A. Simpson, Ivan Matic, Ege Ozkan, Barbara Golia, Matthew J. Schellenberg, Ria Weston, Jason G. Williams, Marianna N. Rossi, Hamid Galehdari, Juno Krahn, Alexander Wan, Richard C. Trembath, Andrew H. Crosby, Dragana Ahel, Ron Hay, Andreas G. Ladurner, Gyula Timinszky, R. Scott Williams, Ivan Ahel
Read the paper:
http://www.nature.com/emboj/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/emboj201351a.html
doi: 10.1038/emboj.2013.51
Further information on The EMBO Journal is available at http://www.nature.com/emboj
Media Contacts
Barry Whyte
Head | Public Relations and Communications
barry.whyte@embo.org
EMBO is an organization of more than 1500 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a European research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO helps young scientists to advance their research, promote their international reputations and ensure their mobility. Courses, workshops, conferences and scientific journals disseminate the latest research and offer training in techniques to maintain high standards of excellence in research practice. EMBO helps to shape science and research policy by seeking input and feedback from our community and by following closely the trends in science in Europe.
For more information: http://www.embo.org
[ | 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.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Roman Catholic cardinals prayed on Tuesday for divine help in choosing a new pope, hours before they go into a conclave to elect a pontiff who will face one of the most difficult periods in the Church's history.
The red-hatted cardinals filed into St. Peter's Basilica as choirs sang at a solemn Mass that traditionally precedes the secret conclave, which could last for several days.
Italian Angelo Sodano, dean of the cardinals, called for unity in the Church, which has been riven with intrigue and scandal, and urged everyone to work with the next pope.
"My brothers, let us pray that the Lord will grant us a pontiff who will embrace this noble mission with a generous heart," Sodano said in his homily, receiving warm applause when he thanked "the beloved and venerable" Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict abdicated last month, saying he was not strong enough at 85 to confront the woes of a Church whose 1.2 billion members look to Rome for leadership. He has secluded himself from public life and was not present at Tuesday's service.
The Mass was the last event for the cardinals before they enter the Sistine Chapel and start their balloting for the next pontiff underneath the gaze of the divine presence represented through Michelangelo's famous fresco of the Last Judgment.
Only the 115 "princes of the Church" who are aged under 80 will take part in the vote, which is steeped in ritual. A two-thirds majority is needed to elect the new pope.
No clear favorite has emerged to take the helm of the Church, with some prelates calling for a strong manager to control the much criticized Vatican bureaucracy, while others want a powerful pastor to combat growing secularism.
Italy's Angelo Scola and Brazil's Odilo Scherer are spoken of as possible frontrunners. The former would return the papacy to Italy after 35 years in the hands of Poland's John Paul II and the German Benedict; the latter would be the first non-European pope since Syrian-born Gregory III in the 8th century.
However, a host of other candidates from numerous nations have also been mentioned as "papabili" - potential popes - including U.S. cardinals Timothy Dolan and Sean O'Malley, Canada's Marc Ouellet and Argentina's Leonardo Sandri.
MANY CHOICES
The cardinals will only emerge from their seclusion once they have chosen the 266th pontiff in the 2,000-year history of the Church, which is beset by sex abuse scandals, bureaucratic infighting, financial difficulties and the rise of secularism.
Many Catholics are looking to see positive changes.
"He must be a great pastor with a big heart, and also have the capacity to confront the Church's problems, which are very great," said Maria Dasdores Paz, a Brazilian nun who attended the Mass in Rome. "Every day there seem to be more."
In the past month, Britain's only cardinal elector excused himself from the conclave and apologized for sexual misconduct.
Mexican Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera told Italy's La Stampa newspaper there were differing views about who should be the next pontiff, with some wanting an academic, others seeking someone close to the people, and others a good manager.
Asked if the conclave could therefore drag on, he said: "I do not think it will be long ... we will come to an agreement very quickly".
The average length of the last nine conclaves was just over three days and none went on for more than five.
Signaling the divisions among Catholic ranks, Italian newspapers reported on Tuesday an open clash between prelates in a pre-conclave meeting on Monday.
The newspapers said the Vatican hierarchy's number two under Benedict, Tarcisio Bertone, had accused Brazil's Joao Braz de Aviz of leaking critical comments to the media.
Aviz retorted to loud applause that the leaks were coming from the Curia -- the Vatican's central administration which has been criticized for failing to prevent a string of mishaps during Benedict's troubled, eight-year reign.
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
All the prelates in the Sistine Chapel were appointed by either Benedict XVI or John Paul II, and the next pontiff will almost certainly pursue their fierce defense of traditional moral teachings.
But Benedict and John Paul were criticized for failing to reform the Curia, and some churchmen believe the next pope must be a good chief executive or at least put a robust management team in place under him.
Vatican insiders say Scola, who has managed two big Italian dioceses, might be best placed to understand the Byzantine politics of the Vatican administration - of which he has not been a part - and be able to introduce swift reform.
The still influential Curia is said by the same insiders to back Scherer, who worked in the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops for seven years before later leading Brazil's Sao Paolo diocese - the largest in a country with the biggest national Catholic community.
With only 24 percent of Catholics living in Europe, pressure is growing to choose a pontiff from elsewhere in the world who would bring a different perspective.
Latin American cardinals might worry more about poverty and the rise of evangelical churches than questions of materialism and sexual abuse that dominate in the West, while the growth of Islam is a major concern for the Church in Africa and Asia.
The cardinals are expected to hold their first vote late on Tuesday afternoon - which is almost certain to be inconclusive - before retiring to a Vatican guesthouse for the night.
They hold four ballots a day from Wednesday until one man has won a two-thirds majority - or 77 votes. Black smoke from a makeshift chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel will signify no one has been elected, while white smoke and the pealing of the bells of St. Peter's Basilica will announce the arrival of a new pontiff.
As in medieval times, the cardinals will be banned from communicating with the outside world. The Vatican has taken high-tech measures to ensure secrecy in the 21st century, including electronic jamming devices to prevent eavesdropping.
(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary and Tom Heneghan; Editing by Barry Moody and Alastair Macdonald)
The walls of the human heart are a disorganised jumble of tissue until relatively late in pregnancy despite having the shape of a fully functioning heart, according to a pioneering study.
A University of Leeds-led team developing the first comprehensive model of human heart development using observations of living foetal hearts found surprising differences from existing animal models.
Although they saw four clearly defined chambers in the foetal heart from the eighth week of pregnancy, they did not find organised muscle tissue until the 20th week, much later than expected.
Developing an accurate, computerised simulation of the foetal heart is critical to understanding normal heart development in the womb and, eventually, to opening new ways of detecting and dealing with some functional abnormalities early in pregnancy.
Studies of early heart development have previously been largely based on other mammals such as mice or pigs, adult hearts and dead human samples. The Leeds-led team is using scans of healthy foetuses in the womb, including one mother who volunteered to have detailed weekly ECG (electrocardiography) scans from 18 weeks until just before delivery.
This functional data is incorporated into a 3D computerised model built up using information about the structure, shape and size of the different components of the heart from two types of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans of dead foetuses' hearts.
Early results from the project, which involves researchers from Leeds, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Nottingham, the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield, show that the human heart may develop on a different timeline from other mammals.
While the tissue in the walls of a pig heart develops a highly organised structure at a relatively early stage of a foetus's development, a paper from the Leeds-led team published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface Focusreports that the there is little organisation of the human heart's cells until 20 weeks into pregnancy.
A pig's pregnancy lasts about three months and the organised structure of the walls of the heart emerge in the first month of pregnancy. The new study only detected similar organised structures well into the second trimester of the human pregnancy. Human foetuses have a regular heartbeat from about 22 days.
Dr Eleftheria Pervolaraki, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds' School of Biomedical Sciences, said: "For a heart to be beating effectively, we thought you needed a smoothly changing orientation of the muscle cells through the walls of the heart chambers. Such an organisation is seen in the hearts of all healthy adult mammals.
"Foetal hearts in other mammals such as pigs, which we have been using as models, show such an organisation even early in gestation, with a smooth change in cell orientation going through the heart wall. But what we actually found is that such organisation was not detectable in the human foetus before 20 weeks," she said.
Professor Arun Holden, also from Leeds' School of Biomedical Sciences, said: "The development of the foetal human heart is on a totally different timeline, a slower timeline, from the model that was being used before. This upsets our assumptions and raises new questions. Since the wall of the heart is structurally disorganised, we might expect to find arrhythmias, which are a bad sign in an adult. It may well be that in the early stages of development of the heart arrhythmias are not necessarily pathological and that there is no need to panic if we find them. Alternatively, we could find that the disorganisation in the tissue does not actually lead to arrhythmia."
A detailed computer model of the activity and architecture of the developing heart will help make sense of the limited information doctors can obtain about the foetus using non-invasive monitoring of a pregnant woman.
Professor Holden said: "It is different from dealing with an adult, where you can look at the geometry of an individual's heart using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or CT (Computerised Tomography) scans. You can't squirt x-rays at a foetus and we also currently tend to avoid MRI, so we need a model into which we can put the information we do have access to."
He added: "Effectively, at the moment, foetal ECGs are not really used. The textbooks descriptions of the development of the human heart are still founded on animal models and 19th century collections of abnormalities in museums. If you are trying to detect abnormal activity in foetal hearts, you are only talking about third trimester and postnatal care of premature babies. By looking at how the human heart actually develops in real life and creating a quantitative, descriptive model of its architecture and activity from the start of a pregnancy to birth, you are expanding electrocardiology into the foetus."
###
University of Leeds: http://www.leeds.ac.uk
Thanks to University of Leeds for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
Alibaba, Vendio and Auctiva surveyed 600 small business owners in December 2012 to gauge how prepared they were to run their business if a natural disaster struck. The findings showed 74% of American small businesses do not have a disaster preparedness plan. 84% of them do not have any natural disaster insurance. More than one third don?t know how quickly they can get back on their feet after a natural disaster. Interestingly, mobile and cloud computing technologies might be coming to rescue as 62% of respondents said they could run their business from a mobile device and 30% of them store their business information in the cloud.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Facing heightened expectations from gay rights supporters, the Obama administration is considering urging the Supreme Court to overturn California's ban on gay marriage ? a move that could have a far-reaching impact on same-sex couples across the country.
The administration has one week to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the justices outlining its opinion on the California ban, known as Proposition 8. While an administration brief alone is unlikely to sway the high court, the government's opinion does carry weight with the justices.
Opponents of the Proposition 8 ban believe the president signaled his intention to file a brief when he declared in last month's inaugural address that gays and lesbians must be "treated like anyone else under the law." An administration official said Obama ? a former constitutional law professor ? was not foreshadowing any legal action in his remarks and was simply restating his personal belief in the right of gays and lesbians to marry, though the official said the administration was considering filing a brief.
The Proposition 8 ballot initiative was approved by California voters in 2008 in response to a state Supreme Court decision that had allowed gay marriage. Twenty-nine other states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, while nine states and Washington, D.C., recognize same-sex marriage.
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is consulting with the White House on the matter, according to a senior administration official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to address the private deliberations publicly.
While the Justice Department would make the filing, the president is almost certain to make the ultimate decision on whether to do so.
"I have to make sure that I'm not interjecting myself too much into this process, particularly when we're not a party to the case," Obama said Wednesday in an interview with San Francisco's KGO-TV.
He said his personal view was that gay couples should have the same rights as straight couples and said his administration would do whatever it could to promote that principle.
Obama has a complicated history on gay marriage. As a presidential candidate in 2008, he opposed the California ban but didn't endorse gay marriage. As he ran for re-election last year, he announced his personal support for same-sex marriage but said marriage was an issue that should be decided by the states, not the federal government.
To some, Obama's broad call for gay rights during his Jan. 21 inaugural address was a sign that he now sees a federal role in defining marriage.
"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law," Obama said during his remarks on the west front of the Capitol. "For if we are truly created equal, than surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."
Seeking to capitalize on growing public support for gay marriage, advocates are calling on the administration to file a broad brief not only asking the court to declare California's ban unconstitutional but also urging the justices to make all state bans illegal.
"If they do make that argument and the court accepts it, the ramifications could be very sweeping," said Richard Socarides, an attorney and advocate.
The administration could also file a narrower brief that would ask the court to issue a decision applying only to California. Or it could decide not to weigh in on the case at all.
The Supreme Court, which will take up the case on March 26, has several options for its eventual ruling. Among them:
? Uphold the state ban on gay marriage and say citizens of a state have the right to make that call.
? Endorse an appeals court ruling that would make same-sex marriage legal in California but apply only to that state.
? Issue a broader ruling that would apply to California and seven other states: Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island. In those states, gay couples may join in civil unions that have all the benefits of marriage but may not be married.
? Rule that the Constitution forbids states from banning same-sex unions.
For weeks, supporters and opponents of Proposition 8 have been lobbying the administration to side with them.
Last month, Theodore Olson and David Boies, lawyers arguing for gay marriage, met with Verrilli and other government lawyers to urge the administration to file a brief in the case. A few days later, Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending Proposition 8, met with the solicitor general to ask the government to stay out of the case. Those kinds of meetings are typical in a high court case when the government is not a party and is not asked by the court to make its views known.
Boies and Chad Griffin, president of the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, also had a meeting at the White House on the case.
Ahead of next week's deadline, nearly two dozen states have filed briefs with the court asking the justices to uphold the California measure.
Public opinion has shifted in support of gay marriage in recent years. In May 2008, Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans felt same-sex marriages should not be recognized by the law as valid. By November 2012, 53 percent felt they should be legally recognized.
One day after the court hears the California case, the justices will hear arguments on another gay marriage case, this one involving provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The act defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits.
The Obama administration abandoned its defense of the law in 2011 but continues to enforce it.
___
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
It's been seven years since the giant, boxy, expensive, hugely-fun and hyped PS3 first arrived. Seven years is a long time. But the next expensive, gorgeous era of gaming is here: the PlayStation 4. Everything looks better, yes, but it's definitely more of the same. More »
TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 startup alley company Koupah is a fresh take on the tablet-based point-of-sale space, which is growing in popularity among SMBs who want a solution that's flexible, extensible and less expensive than legacy POS-specific hardware systems. Koupah takes the model a step further by offsetting some or all credit card transaction fees with advertising.
The Portland-based 
What?s it about?
What?s it about?
What?s it about?
It doesn't look like he'll have to do much research to figure that part of the character out.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_upeYnUpyn-cqabi0diS7q_qy6tFvIB2Oo8sHA7R5tbqVm2XVvIkYbueDFtrcmdcnizzEjVV4vOL5rFKrPJX2YcJE8vPHN-KtLKtbzBADE=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 12-Mar-2013
Share ] 
