Wembley Stadium to be renamed in Football Association deal with mobile phone company EE

Many of Britain?s best-known sporting venues have sold naming rights deals over the past decade, with Arsenal among the football clubs whose ground is known by the name of its sponsor. The Kia Oval, scene of some of England?s most memorable recent cricketing achievements, has had three different titles since first selling naming rights, by turns advertising an Australian brewer, an insurance company, and now a South Korean car manufacturer.

But neither Twickenham nor Lord?s, the headquarters of English rugby and cricket respectively, have yet sought to rename themselves in exchange for sponsorship.

The FA agreed a similar deal for the FA Cup, which is now officially known as the FA Cup Sponsored By Budweiser.

Wembley has a number of current commercial deals, but not a lead sponsor. These include a deal with Carlsberg as the ?Official Beer of Wembley Stadium? and commercial tie-ups in the food, soft-drink, confectionary and travel categories.

EE itself was renamed in September having previously been Everything Everywhere, a company formed when Orange and T-Mobile merged in 2010.

The FA has been seeking a lead sponsor for Wembley since the stadium was reopened in 2007. The first incarnation of the stadium was opened in 1923, when it was officially called the Empire Exhibition Stadium in a reference to Britain?s then-vast overseas territories, before becoming Wembley Stadium.

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568303/s/27a35ccf/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Csport0Cfootball0Cteams0Cengland0C9810A0A150CWembley0EStadium0Eto0Ebe0Erenamed0Ein0EFootball0EAssociation0Edeal0Ewith0Emobile0Ephone0Ecompany0EEE0Bhtml/story01.htm

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Foremay claims to have the first 2TB, 2.5-inch SSDs

It's been relatively easy for awhile to get a solid-state drive with 2TB or more of storage -- if you've been willing to buy a large PCI Express card, that is. Foremay is bringing that kind of capacity to a more portable form. It claims that both its TC166 (for end users) and SC199 (industrial) drives are the first to stuff 2TB of flash memory into a 2.5-inch SATA enclosure. The 9.5mm thickness should let them fit into many laptop hard drive bays and space-sensitive machinery without having to give up all those valuable extra bytes. Before reaching for a credit card, however, we'd warn that there aren't many details so far -- we don't know the performance, or how much it costs to buy either model. We've reached out and will get back if there's firmer details, but at least corporate customers who want speed and ample storage in one drive will be glad to hear that Foremay's new SSDs are already in mass production.

Continue reading Foremay claims to have the first 2TB, 2.5-inch SSDs

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/15/foremay-claims-to-have-the-first-2tb-2-5-inch-ssds/

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Broncos OC McCoy hired as Chargers coach

Mike McCoy speaks on a headset during a news conference after being named coach of the San Diego Chargers NFL football team, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in San Diego. The former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Mike McCoy speaks on a headset during a news conference after being named coach of the San Diego Chargers NFL football team, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in San Diego. The former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

New San Diego Chargers head coach Mike McCoy, right, shakes hands with President Dean Spanos during an NFL football news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in San Diego. The former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

New San Diego Chargers head coach Mike McCoy pauses during an NFL football news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in San Diego. The former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

New San Diego Chargers head coach Mike McCoy speaks during an NFL football news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in San Diego. The former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

New San Diego Chargers head coach Mike McCoy, center, poses with President Dean Spanos, left, and general manager Tom Telesco, right, after being introduced during an NFL football news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in San Diego. The former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

SAN DIEGO (AP) ? Mike McCoy's interview with San Diego went so well that both sides felt he was a perfect fit to become the Chargers' new coach.

McCoy had one thing to do, though, before accepting the Chargers' offer, so it was a good thing Chargers President Dean Spanos' private plane was at his disposal.

"There was no doubt in my mind when I got back on that plane to go back home," said McCoy, the former Denver Broncos offensive coordinator who was introduced Tuesday as Chargers' new coach. "They wanted to keep me here last night. But I said, 'I've got to talk to my wife about this before. If I made the decision without talking to my wife, I might get in a little trouble.'"

So McCoy flew back to Denver to talk it over with wife Kellie. McCoy, his wife and their two children were back on the same plane Tuesday morning, flying back to San Diego to take the job.

"Without a doubt we knew this was the place we wanted to be," said McCoy, who signed a four-year contract.

McCoy replaces Norv Turner, who was fired along with general manager A.J. Smith after the Chargers finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season.

The move comes three days after the top-seeded Broncos were eliminated from the playoffs in a double-overtime home loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

The 40-year-old McCoy is the same age as Tom Telesco, who was hired as general manager last week. He interviewed after the Chargers already had talked to Seattle defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, fired head coaches Lovie Smith and Ken Whisenhunt, and Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden.

"Once he came in and once we saw how good he was, we just felt we had to have him now," Telesco said of McCoy. "We had to get it done or we'd lose him."

"He was polished, prepared, had great questions, which I think is big, too, that he had a lot of questions for us," Telesco said. "It's a partnership between the GM and the head coach, through and through. We spend more time with each other during the season than we do with our own family so it's got to be a tight relationship. When he came in, after a little bit of time you could tell he was the right guy for us. We went after him hard."

San Diego was scheduled to interview Indianapolis offensive coordinator Bruce Arians on Wednesday. Telesco, previously the Colts' vice president of football operations, called Arians on Tuesday morning and told him the Chargers had hired McCoy.

"It was a tough phone call," Telesco said. "I have so much respect for Bruce. He's an excellent football coach. He's going to be a great head coach in this league. I was honest with him. I said, 'There's different situations, different fits, and right now, this is a fit for Mike McCoy.' He understood."

McCoy inherits a team that hasn't won a playoff game since after the 2008 season.

He thanked all the coaches and players he's worked with over the years for helping him get to this point. He also said he knew just a few minutes into his interview that San Diego was the right place.

"They all laughed at me when I walked in yesterday with this big ol' bag with all these books and binders and everything," McCoy said. "Well, that's my life's work. We've got a detailed plan that Tom and I are going to put together. ... There's going to be some change. There's a reason for change. And change is good sometimes in organizations. We've just got to make the most of the opportunity we have moving forward."

The Broncos have won consecutive AFC West titles. McCoy tutored quarterbacks Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow in 2011, and had Peyton Manning behind center in 2012.

McCoy, who interviewed with the Miami Dolphins last year after retooling Denver's offense to the read-option for Tebow at midstream in 2011, burnished his head coaching credentials this season while blending the power formations the Broncos used in leading the league in rushing last year with Tebow and some of the spread formations that Manning ran in Indianapolis.

"I think he's going to be a great head coach. Very detail-oriented, knows the game, relates with players very well," Broncos wide receiver Brandon Stokley said.

"Peyton does a lot but Mike is very good at what he does and he did a great job this year, so a lot of credit needs to go to him, also," Stokley said. "I think that's what you need to be a head coach ? you need to be flexible. You need to do whatever you think is the best for your team to win and you know that's what he's done. You saw that last year. Not a lot of offensive coordinators in the NFL like running that kind of offense, but that's what he did and it was successful."

McCoy said he was "a bit stubborn" after Tebow was made the starter in 2011, but then realized he needed to change the offense.

"You take advantage of what your players do best," McCoy said.

With the Chargers, McCoy will work with Philip Rivers, who struggled this season in large part because he was under siege behind a shaky offensive line. Rivers was sacked 49 times and committed 22 turnovers, giving him 47 turnovers in two seasons.

"You go through the disappointment from the season and losing your coach to now having a new GM, new coach, and you get excited and ready to go for this 2013 season," Rivers said.

"Once I found out that we were bringing him in on Monday, I was hoping he wasn't going to leave again. I'm excited that was the case and I'm looking forward to getting started."

Denver swept the Chargers in 2012, including an epic 35-24 victory at San Diego on Oct. 15 when Manning calmly led the Broncos back from a 24-0 halftime deficit.

McCoy was a walk-on quarterback at Long Beach State under coach George Allen. After the 49ers dropped football, he transferred to Utah. He signed with the Broncos as a free agent and spent his rookie season on Green Bay's practice squad. He had stops in NFL Europe and with San Francisco, Philadelphia and in the CFL. He began his pro coaching career with Carolina before moving to the Broncos in 2009.

McCoy said he learned about detail and preparation from Allen, who coached the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins.

"He was not a big yeller and screamer, he just expected you to go out there and do your job and execute the system the way it was supposed to be executed," McCoy said.

McCoy said he planned to hire an offensive coordinator to call plays. Turner called his own plays. McCoy was non-committal about defensive coordinator John Pagano, saying he planned to evaluate the entire staff.

___

AP Sports Writers John Wawrow in Buffalo and Arnie Stapleton in Denver contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-01-15-FBN-Chargers-McCoy/id-e8c2a635b7f44fe0ac856b261a52048b

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BBB: Weight Loss, Diet & Health Club Programs | FOX2now.com ...

(KTVI) - Almost as soon as consumers push away from holiday dinner tables, advertising for weight loss products and health clubs begins to hit the airwaves, the Internet, newspapers and other media.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) advises consumers to be skeptical of ads promising quick and easy ways to lose weight. Doctors, dietitians and other experts agree that the best way to lose weight is to eat less and increase your physical activity so you burn more energy.

At this time of year, you?re likely to see claims such as, ?Lose weight without diet or exercise,? ?Block the absorption of fat, carbs or calories!? or ?Lose weight with our miracle diet patch or cream.? Some companies use celebrity endorsements to promote their products.

One particularly annoying ad online shows a woman?s midriff that shrinks and expands, while promoting ?one weird trick? or tip to lose weight that is revealed if you click on the ad. The Federal Trade Commission has linked the belly ad and similar ones to a network of companies that promote everything from African mangoes to potions made from acai berries. The FTC says that millions of people have been conned by the ads.

?Deceptive ads lure consumers into buying diet pills, treatments or ?cures? with the promise of better health, fitness or appearance,? said Michelle Corey, BBB president and CEO. ?But many of these products are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and may be ineffective or even harmful. In most cases, they?re a waste of money.?

The BBB processes hundreds of complaints against weight loss products and health clubs every year. Complaints range from recurrent charges on credit cards for ?free? products to dissatisfaction with the hours or service provided by fitness clubs.

The BBB advises you to watch for false claims and consider your needs and budget:

1. Avoid products that claim to help you lose weight without diet or exercise. Doctors, dietitians and other experts agree that losing weight takes work. Pass up any product that promises miraculous results without any effort.
2. Be skeptical of claims that you don?t have to give up favorite foods or reduce the amount you consume. Try filling up on healthy vegetables and fruits so you can resist high-calorie treats. However, eliminating all your favorites could set you up to fail. It?s better to limit portion size or how frequently you indulge.
3. Determine your fitness goals. It?s hard work to lose weight, and you need to find a program you can stick with, and preferably one that you enjoy. Find a health club or exercise facility that is convenient and that offers times that fit with your schedule.
4. Visit the facility before joining. Check on cleanliness, adequacy of space, machines and qualifications of instructors and any other factors important to you. Ask if you can try the facility out before you join.
5. Consider your budget. Ask the health club about joining or enrollment fees and ongoing monthly costs. Does a weight loss plan require you to buy special foods? Can you cancel if you move or find that the program doesn?t meet your needs? If the facility closes, can you transfer your membership to another facility?
6. Read the entire contract. Does it list all services and facilities and hours of operation? Is everything the saleperson promised included in the contract? What?s included in the monthly fee and what will cost you extra? What is the total cost, including enrollment fees and finance charges?
7. Check with the BBB first. Anyone can check a company?s BBB Business Review at www.bbb.org or by calling 314-645-3300 during business hours. Look at the firm?s complaint history and whether the complaints were resolved.

In Missouri, consumers have three days after signing a contract with a health spa to cancel the agreement. Clubs must refund money within 30 days if they cancel within three days. Consumers aren?t responsible for the balance due on a health club contract if the club has closed and failed to provide alternative services within 10 miles of its original location.

Before starting an exercise program or diet, the BBB advises consumers to consult a doctor for an assessment of over-all health risk. Get the doctor?s recommendations on weight-loss options and/or exercise regimens that fit your health status and ability to stick with it.

If your doctor prescribes a medication to assist in weight loss, ask about complications or side effects. Tell the doctor about other medications or over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements you may be taking.? ??

A BBB video on this topic is available at http://youtu.be/vyLU-UIdxmM.?

Consumers can learn how to protect themselves or find a?BBB Business Review by going to www.bbb.org or by calling 314-645-3300.

Source: http://fox2now.com/2013/01/03/bbb-weight-loss-diet-health-club-programs/

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Heating and Air Conditioning Professionals | My WordPress Website

If you are installing an updated heating or cooling system in your home, the most essential choices to make are purchasing high quality materials and trusted service. There are many varieties of furnaces which all have distinct parts and functions. Depending on your home and location, your utility bill and home temperature can improve greatly if you select the right furnace. Air conditioning systems are also quite different and it is essential to purchase a system that is the most effective. When you hire a heating and cooling professional, they will evaluate your home and help select the system that will meet your needs the best. They can also handle all varieties of heating and cooling repairs. Notice a large change in your year-round comfort with professional heating and cooling technicians working for you. New Furnace Salt Lake City Utah

Source: http://charlesvoisin.com/heating-and-air-conditioning-professionals/

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The Opposite of Mining: Tar Sands Steam Extraction Lessens Footprint, but Environmental Costs Remain

MELTING TAR: A production well, like the one pictured here at Cenovus's Christina Lake facility, sucks bitumen melted by steam out of the ground--an alternative to strip mining for tar sands. Image: ? David Biello

CONKLIN, Alberta?The challenge of pulling oil from sand near here has typically required scraping away the boreal forest and underlying peat to expose the tar sand deposits below. The thickened sand is scooped out, then boiled to separate out the bitumen, with the leftover contaminated water and muck dumped in vast holding ponds the size of small lakes. From orbit the enormous strip mines and tailings lakes created by this process stand out, like a spreading sore?a scar on the planet evidencing the American thirst for oil. But the future of this Canadian province's oil sands leaves less of a visible mark, as can be seen near this town that is not so much a community as an intersection of roads that lead to camps for oil sands workers. That means fewer strip mines, tailings lakes and even giant trucks, but it also means more of the invisible greenhouse gas carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and warming the planet.

This future is melting bitumen where it lies at least 200 meters below the surface rather than mining tar sands. In 2011 more than 11,000 barrels of bitumen were melted out of the frozen ground not far from here each day, where the airstrip sees more human traffic than the town as workers commute in and out by plane from as far away as Newfoundland.

"Most of what's going on happens 375 meters below the surface," says Greg Fagnan, director of operations and production at Cenovus's Christina Lake oil sands production facility, during a recent tour. Cenovus extracts bitumen by employing a technique called steam-assisted gravity drainage, which can be thought of as the opposite of mining. Instead of melting the bitumen out of sand in an industrial plant after clawing the tar sands out of the ground, Cenovus melts it out in place with steam. That means Christina Lake is, in a sense, a giant water-processing facility "that happens to produce oil," Fagnan says. "It's not a complicated business, it's just complex."

Conklin is one of the frontier towns of a new tar sands boom, given that 80 percent of the at least 170 billion barrels in the Canadian province's tar sands are only accessible this way rather than by mining. In 2011, for the first time, oil production from such in situ operations surpassed that of mining for oil in the tar sands?a trend that is only likely to increase as more oil sands production comes online in Canada. Already, plumes of steam billow from the boreal forest across northeastern Alberta where a host of developers work?from Nexen, recently acquired by the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), to oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell?like mushrooms springing up from the ground after rain.

But this recovery of bitumen in place will have to continue to improve its efficiency and cost if it is going to compete with other fast-growing oil recovery technologies, such as fracturing rock with high-pressure water, or fracking, to release trapped oil. As it stands, Alberta is estimated to hold more than 400 billion barrels of such "tight oil," which is already being produced in places like North Dakota's Bakken Shale by the number-one customer for Canada's tar sands oil: the U.S.

Melting tar
Steam dominates the Christina Lake facility, where mushroom clouds rise into the wintry blue sky, pierced only by the orange glow of a flare near the bitumen processing plant. Nine industrial boilers, powered by natural gas, heat treated brine from nearby aquifers to 350-degree-Celsius to inject it as steam into what can be likened to three giant, underground sandboxes?vast rectangular blocks of oil-bearing sand. Each sandbox is pierced by pairs of pipes, one perforated to release pressurized steam along its 800-meter length and melt oil from the tar sands, another to suck melted bitumen, bits of sand, water and natural gas with electric pumps back up to the surface. The pipes are strung with sensors, gauges and fiber optics, or "jewelry" in the industry jargon, that allow well operators back at the surface to continually monitor conditions under the earth, such as the steam pressure that starts out at a crushing 120-kilogram-force per square centimeter. Christina Lake pumps out a barrel of oil for every 2.3 barrels of injected steam.

Cenovus claims to use just 0.07 barrel of freshwater to produce each barrel of oil at Christina Lake, thanks to the recycling and almost exclusive use of brackish waters. According to the Royal Society of Canada's 2010 report on such tar sands development, a typical facility uses 0.6 barrel of freshwater and 0.4 barrel of brine per barrel of oil. "Conventional oil from the Saudis uses more water than the [steam-assisted gravity drainage] process," says geologist John Zhou, executive director of environmental management at Alberta Innovates, a government-funded technology innovation effort.

Drilling the wells themselves presents the first challenge. During installation, the pairs of wells in each sandbox site are drilled simultaneously, rigorously maintaining a spacing of only five meters apart, with a rig specially modified for this kind of oil sands exploitation. At each site, or well pad, roughly eight such wells are drilled, lining up side by side?on one side eight or more steam injectors and on the other a matched number of oil-producing wells.

After a few years of production, such as at Cenovus's older Foster Creek facility started up in 2001, additional wells are drilled to recover oil from the wedges of tar sand between each steam-created balloon-shaped melt zone. Such wedge wells have enabled Cenovus to add 20,000 barrels of production per day to Foster Creek without requiring any additional steam?and a given well is expected to produce for roughly 20 years, though no well is yet that old.

"These fields are really like laboratories," says Cenovus spokesman Brett Harris, and operators are making continual adjustments and suggesting improvements, such as pumps that can withstand the high temperatures underground but also run on electricity rather than natural gas. Operators are also constantly adjusting the flow of steam, closing off sections of the perforated pipe to shut off heat to certain sections and ensure even melting throughout. Such in situ production has always been experimental, starting with the first attempt back in 1926: The pipes available at the time could not withstand the steam's heat and pressure, resulting in a steam explosion that destroyed the start-up plant and injuries to entrepreneur Jacob Owen Absher, among others.

That is not a problem that has entirely disappeared. Oil company Devon Canada actually used too much pressure on its subterranean sandbox and caused a blowout that shot scalding steam and bitumen into the sky in the summer of 2010 near here, and Total Energy caused a similar explosion of steam, oil and rock north of Fort McMurray in 2006. The steam pipelines themselves have also blown as a result of cooled water trapped inside. Such a "water hammer" has tossed pipelines as much as a kilometer, Cenovus's Fagnan says, leaving them sticking out of the ground like toothpicks embedded more than three meters deep. The steam "packs a pretty big punch," he says.

Better engineering
The engineering challenges faced by in situ projects range from a lack of a sufficient seal above the oil sands deposit?allowing steam to escape without melting oil or, even worse, the oil itself to flow away?to underlying aquifers, or "thief zones," that can quench barrel after barrel of steam heat. And that's after the expensive well pairs have been put in place. At Christina Lake the reservoir sits below a layer not of rock, but of natural gas?and that means Cenovus operators must continually inject air to ensure that the gas pressure matches or exceeds the pressure of the pumped in steam, so the steam doesn't escape without doing its melting work.

The ultimate engineering challenge of the tar sands, however, may be coping with greenhouse gases. As a result of increasing in situ production, greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta's tar sands rose by 1.7 percent last year, and are up 16 percent since 2009, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. The newly dominant in situ technology produces oil at a cost of 2.5 times more CO2 emitted to the atmosphere than the more brute-force, conventional mining. Whereas this may be equivalent to what's emitted when using steam to flood out heavy oils in California or Nigeria, neither of those sources of greenhouse gases is growing as fast as the tar sands.

In an effort to get ahead of this climate challenge, Alberta has invested more than $1.5 billion in developing CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technology. But it has yet to be applied to an in situ operation; the one current project in the oil sands involves capturing CO2 emissions from mini-refineries at Shell's operation near Fort Saskatchewan, a project dubbed Quest. That project is slated to open in 2015 and there are, as yet, no plans for CO2 capture and storage at any in situ facilities.

The Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental group, estimates that it would cost more than $200 per metric ton of CO2 to add CCS to tar sands production facilities like Christina Lake. Alberta's current price on CO2 is $15 per metric ton. "The trick is to find a way to make capture and storage economic," Harris says, noting that Cenovus has done exactly that at its Weyburn enhanced oil recovery project in Saskatchewan. The company uses CO2 captured at a gasification plant across the border in North Dakota to scour more oil out of the ground?and the extra oil produced helps pay for the CO2 capture process, although the oil also ends up contributing to the growing greenhouse gas burden when burned.

Reducing energy use, then, may prove a better route. By using solvents, such as the hydrocarbon butane, in situ producers can boost the bitumen recovery ability of the steam itself. Cenovus has been testing the process at Christina Lake since 2004 and will implement it at the company's newly approved Narrows Lake project, slated to start producing oil in 2017. Using such solvents "can drop the energy consumption by as much as 50 percent," says chemical engineer Murray Gray, scientific director of the Center for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta.

Such new technology means more cost to develop and produce what is already among the most costly forms of oil, Gray notes. At present, Cenovus spokesman Harris says that the company needs to earn at least $35 per barrel of oil. With West Texas Intermediate grade oil at $85, that is not a problem, except for the atmospheric warming. And it's not as if in situ development has no impact on the land: there's the industrial plant for producing steam and processing bitumen, tank farms to hold the final product, and big, boxy clearings for well pads kitted out with machinery like an elongated caterpillar with wells for legs that also connects to multiple pipelines snaking through the boreal forest. So do row after row of clear-cut lines for the seismic testing that reveals where the tar sand deposits lie, cuts that take a long time to heal given the slow growth rate of trees this far north.

But the technology for melting bitumen out of the ground is still developing. The first commercial steam-assisted gravity drainage facility only started up in 2001. Already experiments have started with potential advances such as microwaving the ground to loosen the oil, as attempted in tests by U.S. defense contractor Harris Corp. this year. "This industry is so young," says Scott Wenger, manager of government relations at original oil sands company Suncor, which hosted Harris's electromagnetic sand-heating effort. "Who knows what will happen with new technology?"

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b99d8096b032effc8309d6e286f70735

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How Obama won and lost in 'fiscal cliff' deal

President Obama would have looked incompetent if the nation had gone over the fiscal cliff. But now he faces three more cliffs early in 2013, and those could limit his scope.

By Linda Feldmann,?Staff writer / January 2, 2013

President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walk away from the podium after Obama made a statement regarding the passage of the 'fiscal cliff' bill in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington Tuesday.

Charles Dharapak/AP

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On balance, President Obama came out a winner in the last-minute ?fiscal cliff? deal that averted income-tax hikes on most Americans and postponed deep federal spending cuts.

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Had the deal not passed Congress, both the White House and bipartisan leaders on Capitol Hill would have had egg on their faces. The public would have had cause to blame Washington for yet another self-inflicted wound that threatened to send markets into a spiral and put both the US and global economies back into recession. Republicans would have come in for bigger blame than the president, polls showed, but Mr. Obama, too, would have looked incompetent.

Instead, Obama delivered on his top reelection campaign promise: that the wealthiest taxpayers see an increase in their marginal income-tax rate in 2013. True, his definition of ?wealthy? morphed significantly ? from $250,000 to $450,000 in annual family income. Late Tuesday night, after the House passed the bill, Obama persisted in saying that the bill he will sign into law ?raises taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans,? when in reality, it?s more like the wealthiest 0.7 percent.

But those wealthiest taxpayers will see their top rate go back to where it was during the Clinton era ? from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. During the negotiations, there had been talk of setting the top rate somewhere in between.

All told, the fiscal-cliff deal produces $620 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years, a down payment on what both sides agree needs to be much more. In the cold light of day, many Republicans disappointed by the tax increase agree that the alternative ? no deal ? would have been worse.

?The deal to avoid going over the so-called fiscal cliff was a lousy one: tax rate increases during a weak economy, no spending reductions, nothing on entitlement reform,? writes Peter Wehner, a former Bush White House official, on Commentary Magazine online. ?And yet if House Republicans had succeeded in derailing this deal, negotiated between Senator Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden, it would have been disastrous.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/veYt5biifts/How-Obama-won-and-lost-in-fiscal-cliff-deal

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The findings between DNMs and autism provides global view of mutability on human diseases

The findings between DNMs and autism provides global view of mutability on human diseases

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

A study published online in Cellreports the latest investigation of de novo germline mutation by whole genome sequencing in autism patients. This study provides a global view of the landscape of mutability and its influence on genetic diversity and susceptibility in autism, and its implications on other human diseases. The work was a collaborative effort led by international teams comprised of the University of California, San Diego, BGI, and other institutes. The results are expected to shed new light on a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying genome evolution and human diseases.

Mutation plays an important role in human diseases, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Many cases for ASDs are caused by de novo mutations that are not inherited, but arise spontaneously in the ovum, sperm or fertilized egg. Epidemiologists have reported a higher risk of autism in children with older fathers, but so far there has been few biological evidence to support this theory. To comprehensively explore the genetics of ASDs, it is vital to understand the mutational process and how the de novo germline mutation impacts ASDs.

In this study, researchers applied whole genome sequencing (WGS) approach to characterize patterns of de novo germline mutations (DNMs). A total of 581 DNMs were identified from ten monozygotic twins that suffered from ASDs by comparing with their unaffected parents. To better understand the paternal age effects on mutation rate, the twins were separated into two groups, one with younger fathers (40 years old). The results showed that paternal age accounted for a substantial portion of variability in mutation that happened in offspring, while maternal age has no significant effect.

Mutation is a random process. However, researchers in this study found DNMs displayed a remarkably non-random positioning in the genome and spaced more closely than their expectation. More importantly, the distribution of de novo germline mutation can be explained by characteristics of the genome. Clusters of new mutations could be explained by allelic gene conversion or compound mutation. Clustering on larger scales could be explained by mutation-rate variation. The regional mutation rates are subject to a combination of influences, including DNase hypersensitivity, GC content, nucleosome occupancy, recombination rate, simple repeats, the trinucleotide sequence surrounding the site, among others.

Researchers further examined the landscape of mutability throughout the genome, including hotspots with highly elevated mutability, and warm spots with moderately increased mutability. They found some strong evidences to support that hypermutability is a characteristic of disease genes. Intriguingly, they found the mostly highly mutable sequences in the genome are the most highly conserved. This finding has not been reported in the previous studies.

Another interesting result was that the genes impacted by DNMs in twins demonstrated a significant association with autism in other independent projects. These findings suggest that regional hypermutability is a significant factor shaping patterns in genetic variation and disease risk in humans.

Yujian Shi, Project Manager of BGI, said, "The study opens a new way for pedigree studies on neurological diseases and rare diseases. The novel approach and results here will help to massively analyze lineage or sporadic autism population. We found there was a significant relationship between human diseases and individual genetic variation model shaped by DNMs derived regional hypermutability. Furthermore, the discovery of a large number of novel autism susceptibility genes will lay a solid foundation for the early diagnosis and treatment of autism."

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BGI Shenzhen: http://www.genomics.org.cn

Thanks to BGI Shenzhen for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126071/The_findings_between_DNMs_and_autism_provides_global_view_of_mutability_on_human_diseases

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