Get the Online game Confront lets start work on Xbox * An ...

The very idea of games can be quite a intriguing as well as pleasant encounter. Because of so many kinds of online games as well as gaming systems what kind would you pick? A simple selection seems to be your Xbox 360, made by ?microsoft?. It?s the 2nd gaming console and also the successor for the Xbox 360 arcade games. There are several significant functions which are incorporated along with Xbox 360 system Stay services that allows players in order to remain competitive on the internet, obtain arcade online games, game presentations, trailers, Shows, music as well as goes. In addition, it delivers region distinct entry to third-party press buffering companies such as Video on demand. The Xbox 360 was published about Might Twelve, 2006 with the console offering out there quickly on discharge. There are 2 configurations offered: Arc as well as Professional.

Xbox 360 Arc

The Xbox 360 Arc is the basic in the common gaming console. It had been unveiled within October 3 years ago as well as incorporates a wi-fi control, upvc composite Audio-video wire, High-definition multimedia interface One particular.A couple of output, an inside 412 MB memory nick and also a several Stay Arc titles: Rate of growth Rate of growth Explode, Eating Craze, Luxor A couple of, Pac-Man Tournament Release, as well as Uno on a single computer. Additionally, you are going to obtain a pleasant video and lots of game trailers.

The Xbox 360 Final Illusion

The Xbox 360 Final Illusion XIII Unique Bunch will add within your complete amusement encounter. This particular specific involves Final Illusion XIII, a pair of wi-fi controllers, 250GB harddrive, a new wired head set, Ethernet wire and also a common classification upvc composite Audio-video wire. The difficult travel enables gamers to avoid wasting their online games as well as Shows, videos, music, photos, trailers as well as other content material. You get to utilize the biggest selection regarding games, observe High-definition videos and tv assaults by way of Minecraft Texture Maps including titles streamed instantaneously via Video on demand. You?ll find many different add-ons as well including tunes, maps, amounts as well as figures. Along with your head set you?ll be able to communicate while enjoying the overall game as well as send out tone of voice communications in order to friends and family about Xbox 360 system Reside.

Xbox 360 Professional

Xbox 360 Professional involves used golf balls as well as incorporates a control as well as head set that will match your human body?s dark-colored complete. The Professional was published within The spring 3 years ago which is deemed complete amusement inside a container. You get to observe High-definition videos and tv assaults at the media of the mouse button. You may also watch movies online streamed via Video on demand! There may be a lot of fun available simply by downloading a lot more tunes, maps, amounts as well as figures. Besides a new neat dark-colored console, you are going to get yourself a wi-fi control, upvc composite Audio-video wire, dark-colored head set, Ethernet wire as well as Xbox 360 system Reside regular membership. This particular package deal is an excellent benefit therefore you attain appreciate above 360 online games titles maintained simply by Xbox 360.

If you?re looking for additional, you?ll be able to improve for the Xbox 360 400 Gigabyte Professional. You will get a bigger harddrive together with a pair of wi-fi controllers about specific restricted editions together with unique online items.

Xbox 360 Repaired

Exactly why pay out additional money when you?re able to find the Xbox 360 Repaired cheaper and also a great way to commence with games as well as introducing a great inclusion console for the loved ones. You will get a new progressive gaming system, high definition video, Dvd movie as well as blu-ray play-back, electronic music, pictures, a great internet-based on the web connectivity within about modern, modest tower from the Xbox 360. This particular minor, yet great console will give you every one of the power you need to enjoy your chosen games. You will get every one of the bonuses including removable harddrive, a pair of wi-fi controllers, Xbox 360 system Stay head set, common Audio-video cabling, Ethernet wire as well as Xbox 360 system Stay Gold regular membership. Xbox 360 may support approximately 4 wi-fi controllers and has three Universal series bus A couple of.Zero machine games to use for born controllers as well as buffering your current electronic press via digital cameras, Mp3?s, as well as any Home windows XP-based PC. ?microsoft? get managed to help make a new video-conferencing camera, marketed independently, that will support your machine.

Source: http://westriverpub.com/get-the-online-game-confront-lets-start-work-on-xbox-an-evaluation/1925/

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Golf tourney raises money for the Heart Association

The sixth annual golf tournament to raise money for the American Heart Association will be held March 24 at the Summerbrooke Golf Course. The course is made of nine holes of Par 3's.

Tee times are at 1 and 3 p.m., and dinner is at 5:30 p.m.

Four-person teams cost $200 including dinner ($50 per player). For dinner only it costs $15. Dinner is sponsored by Harry's.

For more information, call Peter at 570-2606 or email Casey.Walton@hcahealthcare.com.

Please make checks payable to Hopeful Hearts

All proceeds go to the American Heart Association.

Source: http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120223/CHRONICLE/202230311

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Home Remodeling Support You Need To Be successful | Search ...

It can make excellent good sense to want to far better your property. Despite the fact that it might be overpowering sometimes, several home improvement jobs might be completed with the average do-it-your self home owner. Whether or not you would like to increase your property?s importance or even if you just want to transform your household, the tips in this post is going to be helpful to you.

A great suggestion is always to place some insulating material on your own plumbing, so the drinking water will remain popular within the lines and definately will not freeze through wintertime weather conditions. Heating tape also works very well and it is easy to install, even though you?re a home development novice. This tape could keep your method from freezing, and you will probably not need to change any burst lines.

It is vital that you might have a licensed contractor that is ready to listen to what you need to say. Although it?s vital that you feel your contractor is reliable, it?s incredibly important that you?re positive that they are paying attention to what you?re telling them about the task. If the service provider is not hearing you, they could be adhering to their own curiosity. Make certain that they pay attention well for your needs.

Sign up for your online community to boost and build up your toolbox to save money on your own redecorating tasks. Instead of buying a specific tool that you may possibly only use after, promote equipment together with your neighbors. As an included help, the both of you can relationship and share home improvement suggestions.

When adding exterior lights, take into account installing motion detector lighting fixtures. Motion sensor lighting fixtures include security and safety in your property. This translates into reducing your electric expenses.

You should make sure you need to do all the necessary domestic plumbing and rewiring before you begin a home remodelling project. Given that most of these fixes should be performed by going to your wall space, you ought to look after them initial. As soon as your surfaces happen to be wide open, it is much better to take on common routine maintenance to wiring or plumbing related.

Stucco is really a nice, cost-effective replacement for classic siding for your home?s exterior. Stucco is unique, interesting and extended-lasting.

A combo washer-dryer may be the respond to when your area is just too small for person models. A number of these models are as small like a dishwasher, and so the place needed to incorporate one is not significant. A combo unit washes the garments and whenever accomplished switches to a dryer.

To create attic place much more useful, invest in a dormer window. This windowpane will be fantastic from your exterior and could double the sq ft in your home. By spending a somewhat minor amount of cash, you can improve your home?s worthy of and acquire beneficial added place.

Swap out all bulbs in your home for the cost effective sort. This would lower your strength monthly bill although supporting the environment. A lot more effective light bulbs likewise have longer lives in comparison to the old models. Transition out those aged bulbs and put in cost effective lights.

To maintain your lawn lit after dark but still save on electricity, change out your normal light for just one with a movement sensing unit. You can expect to nonetheless have the ability to change the lighting on, and many models permit you to select various sensitivity thresholds.

Re-caulking home windows can be a project that may keep you from getting great power bills and problems costs. This stops drafts, decreases mold improvement, and lowers your heating charges. In the event the outdated caulking is damaged, take it off very carefully with a chisel and hammer and swap with refreshing caulk.

Use a straight wall structure coat rack as a way to display screen your bracelets and necklaces. Put it to use just for costume jewellery, not costly pieces. Having your nicer expensive jewelry out on display screen can be aesthetically pleasing and keep the parts from being tangled. Pick parts you use often while keeping them where you could reach them.

Redecorating really should not be a challenging chore. It can not subject if you are intending to do the job on your own or pay for the dollars to hire a licensed contractor to aid, after the suggestions in this article will help you get on the top of any remarkable house improvements you need accomplished.

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Writer Unboxed ? 'Social' media: Wishing you were you

Image from the opening of the Louvre Atlanta series of exhibitions, High Museum of Art, Atlanta | Photo: Porter Anderson

?

O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live?

Sonnet 13

?

Now, take Joe Cocker.

Mr. ?You Are So Beautiful? (really high note:) ?to me.?

Ever heard him talk?

Here you go: Terrific interview on NPR ? great job by Rachel Martin ? from earlier this month on Weekend Edition Sunday. Cocker?s torching for his new CD, of course, Hard Knocks. And I want you to hear him talk.

Get a snootful of that dialect.

Joe Cocker's CD Hard Knocks (Savoy) was released in late January.

When he speaks with Martin, does he sound like the singer you know? Never mind the glorious growl, I?m not talking about the kick-ass male-Janis texture of his voice. I?m trying to get you to focus on his speaking-voice dialect.

What do you hear? Yorkshire. Sheffield, to be precise. He?s English. He lives in Colorado now, and still speaks like the Brit he is.

And when he sings? Sounds like one of my fellow bubbas from Charleston. And not from South of Broad Street, either. That singing voice sounds like one of our more lightly educated bubbas. Did I say that graciously enough? One of our less-well-heeled bubbas. One of our down-and-out bubbas. That?s how he rolls.

So we have this UK guy on our hands here. Famous for singing like a South Carolinian tomato packing foreman. Granted, his native speaking dialect isn?t Harrow or Eton. Highclere Castle is a far cry from Sheffield. But each time Cocker gets on-mic in a studio, he?s faking a heavy regional American dialect.

Lots of pop stars do this. Most of them, I?d say, whether American or British or otherwise, start shucking corn when they want a tiny dancer to hold them closer.

Good thing I?m not a sociologist. I?d be deep into a landmark study to see if we couldn?t prove that the average pop-saturated U.S. lonely heart ?hears? his or her thoughts about love and romance in a pea-pickin? dialect because so much of our music about ?luuuuv, hawney? is sung that way.

?

The Porter persona

?

?Who ARE you, Porter Anderson??

She hangs around the Exterior of the Box here, writer Dee DeTarsio does. Always supportive of everybody?s posts. Thoughtfully looks the other way in time of pratfalls. Just the sort you want to find outside the cardboard.

DeTarsio left that ?who ARE you?? in a smiling comment under my bio.

I wrote something quick and funny back. Of course. Because that?s who I am. Or so Dee thinks. So you think, too, I?ll bet.

Originally, Viki Noe's Twitter handle was @friendgrief, the topic of her nonfiction work. The adoption of her name as her Twitter handle gives her a more personable -- and upbeat -- persona.

Good old Porter. Still with just enough boyhood Charleston left to get off that Deeply Southern Spanish-mossy Porgy-sans-Bess wink at day?s end on Folly Beach, right? Of course right.

And when I tweet, you can feel my hand clapping your sunburned shoulder. My Twitter stream is the conch shell at your ear. Hear the ocean? Got you by the scruff of your neck. Intimate and authoritative at once.

Or maybe I?m a Brit from Sheffield.

Or, no, yeah, maybe I?m going the opposite direction of Bubba Joe Cocker. I was born in the Seat of the Confederacy, abandoned by wolves at an early age and raised by my parents, trained as an actor, then as a broadcaster, to ease the Southern dialect out of me. I?m not Eton or Harrow, either. But I ended up at the University of Bath in Somerset and got badly good at mimicking my English mates.

Or not.

Let me tell you something I see going on a lot in our ?social? media. You?ll recall from last time that I?m not happy with the term ?social? for these media (still a plural word, damn it). I?m passing around the phrase ?grid,? both as a noun and a verb, for the kind of networking we?re talking about in these posts here at Writer Unverified.

I see folks, especially of a certain age, quickly growing attached to their ?friends? online. Even gridly people much like yourself, authors who are platforming themselves, a business function, seem to fall awfully hard for each other. Facebook hasn?t helped, of course, commandeering the term ?friend.?

But even on Twitter. That?s my main cyber griddle. I get a lot of folks who seem to believe we?re bonding deeply over a shared line about Amazon. Suddenly it?s the pitter-patter of retweets and putting little FollowFridays through college.

Do you see this, too? Folks tending to read more into online acquaintance than it is? Could they be suckers for a good, effective professional persona?

Gridding on these media is a blessing for some who are introverted, of course. The Ether?s an emboldening buffer for many, nothing wrong with that.

And, me, I do have some real friends and key colleagues I?ve met through Twitter. Glad of it, too.

But every time I meet some of them, I?m reminded how skewed a view they have of me while sometimes seeming to think they know the Compleat Porter.

Does this happen to you?

We?re in a terra incognita with all this, you know. I can?t speak for Neptunians, but never before have Earthlings met each other and concocted such extensive relationships in real time (which is different from postal pen pals of yore).

Never has it been possible to be so close to so many about whom we know so little.

What dialect do you really speak? And wait, who was I again?

Last October, #JaneFriedman ? a 147,000-Twitter-follower hashtag unto herself and my host for Writing on the Ether each Thursday at her site ? wrote a cool post that raised this issue. She wrote:

You have to ask yourself?even if you?re shy or think you?re boring?what part of yourself are you going to share and put on display (online)? It?s got to be something, so let?s make it interesting. Let?s really dive into the fiction of who you are OR aren?t. Make up something you can believe in, so others can believe in it, too. (That?s what we all want, most desperately. Meaning.)

?

I want to know what love is

?

Here at Writer Uncrated, as you shake off that packaging, we want to offer you actionable ideas if not outright solutions whenever we can.

In suggesting that you think about your persona online, let?s structure the quandary a little more tightly, then I?ll give you a couple of things to help gird you as you grid.

1. Most of us understand nowadays that when we talk about ?author platforming,? we mean communicating with our target audiences.
2. Communicating with our target audiences means, in plain speech, connecting with readers, potential buyers of our deathless prose and/or poetry.
3. Connecting with readers is enabled in historically unprecedented ways by our ?social? media, or, in Andersonian terms, the ?grid? of online communications networks.
4. But to go forth and multiply on the grid of these networking media, we must present ourselves as some version of ourselves ? a persona ? that can carry the weight of friendly, collegial interaction in a believable, ?meaningful? formulation, as Friedman says, and yet not make us feel uncomfortable about exposing more of our actual lives and personalities than we want.
5. Thus, we may find that we?re all from Sheffield singing our hearts out with Cocker as artful crackers.

The Pew Internet research people have an interesting contribution to make to the topic in a report from Mary Madden just out: Privacy management on social media sites.

All of this adds up to an interesting background of caution in, to paraphrase Erving Goffman, the presentation of persona in everyday life.

And before I leave you to craft, uncraft, recraft, or retro-craft your own persona, I?d also like to point you toward some intriguing research coming from Barry Wellman and his group at the University of Toronto.

I?m taking you back to NPR (and sending them an invoice for PR services rendered). On a Morning Edition broadcast of a few days ago, Why Twitter Ties Resemble Airline Hub Maps. Correspondent Shankar Vedantam tells anchor Steve Inskeep in this 4.5-minute segment about how Wellman?s research suggests that Twitter, in particular, may not be the great leveler we?ve thought it was. It may not be true that anybody anywhere can be anyone, after all ? nice persona, buddy ? because, to quote the great Peter Steiner cartoon, ?On the Internet, nobody knows you?re a dog.?

Prof. Wellman tells Vedantam:

We found out that a lot of Twitter ties are local. People have local interests. You know, in Toronto we?re worrying about subways, we?re worrying about politics?we?re worrying about Justin Bieber, who?s a local boy.

What?s more, Vedantam says, analysis of half-a-million tweets suggests that standard travel routes, say New York to London, are predictive of Twitter relationships. Vedantam says:

The real world powerfully predicts what kind of connections we have in the virtual world. So if you are living in New York, you?re much more likely to have followers in London than you are likely to have followers in a small town in the United States.

Louvre Atlanta opening, High Museum of Art. Photo: Porter Anderson

?

Now you

?

I?d like you to spring into action in the comments below and tell me how closely you feel your grid persona matches your actual personality. Be honest, with yourself, if not with me.

At first blush, we?re all going to say, ?Hey, I?m just being myself? and ?what you see is what you get? and ?I am what I am? and ?I?ve got nothing to hide, I?m an open ebook? and other perfectly meaningless stock phrases.

How true is that? How like your real-life self are you online? Are you comfortable with your grid persona?

According to Wellman?s research, if you live in Los Angeles, your easiest audience for those small-town lawn-cactus mysteries might not be in Sheffield. If you live among those cacti, the bubbas of Charleston may not appreciate your memoir. What does that do to your online strategy?

And when DeTarsio wants to know who YOU are, you may have to tell her you?re?me.

What a persona.

Good luck with that.

Porter Anderson

If you enjoyed this post, please consider spreading the word using one of our social-media buttons. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Tags: author platform, online identity, persona, publishing, Twitter, writing

Source: http://writerunboxed.com/2012/02/25/social-media-wishing-you-were-you/

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First Horses Shrunk by Warming Climate

News | Evolution

The sizes of the earliest equines followed the ancient temperatures through major climate change, adding evidence to a centuries-old evolutionary theory

By Katherine Harmon ?| February 23, 2012

Pony down: Did ancient warming shrink the earliest horses? Scientists are already noticing other animals getting smaller with contemporary climate change. Image: /Danielle Byerley/Florida Museum of Natural History

The first horses in North America would not have been able to hold their own in the Triple Crown. At just about 5.6 kilograms the Sifrhippus sandrae hoofed onto the scene some 56 million years ago about the size of a small dog.

But then a funny thing happened. In the next 130,000 years during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum, these small equines got even smaller, reaching the tiny size of 3.9 kilograms?some 30 percent lighter than their initial heft. Just 45,000 years later, however, the genus had bulked up to seven kilograms. And the horses were not the only ones. Many other mammals in the area followed the same pattern.

These animals' sizes likely resulted from relatively rapid climate change, suggest the authors of a new study published online Thursday in Science.

The study "highlights the importance of temperature on evolution?particularly mammal evolution," says Felisa Smith, a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who wrote an essay on the findings in the same issue of Science. And it adds a new high-resolution tracking of body size and temperature during a crucial?and long puzzling?time in geologic history.

View a slide show of

Looking the small horse in the mouth
The researchers did not have complete skeletons to measure for all of the animals, so to track the size of the horses over time they looked at their teeth?in particular, their molars. "It turns out that teeth are much better than femurs," Smith says. A leg bone "does tell you something about size, but teeth are much better." And as far as teeth go, she says, "the best thing to know is the area of the first molar."

The teeth came from a fossil-rich area called Cabin Fork in Wyoming and are part of a substantial collection at the University of Florida built in part by study co-author Jonathan Bloch, an associate curator of vertebrate paleontology there. From the collection, the research team could estimate the size of about 44 diminutive adult horses.

Some 40 percent of other mammals in the area seem to have experienced similar shrinking and subsequent growth, notes co-author Ross Secord, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Nebraska?Lincoln. They stuck with the small horses, however, because they had much more solid records from which to accurately date the samples.

The researchers used oxygen isotopes left by freshwater in the fossils to track mean annual temperature from when the animals had been alive. In particular, they sampled the isotopes from teeth of a large, water-dwelling mammal Coryphodon. With these isotope readings, "you get a little, tiny window as to what the temperature was at that time," Smith says.

This close reading has excited Smith and others who have been tracking animal size over the ages. "Although we knew that temperature might set a maximum for body size," Smith says, the new findings actually present a mechanism?and do so in a very detailed manner, showing "how animals responded to a particular temperature at a particular place at a particular time."

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=a0a7a3dac07cbf1aa20fce452bb9761b

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Ed Westwick & Jessica Szohr Back Together?

Ed Westwick & Jessica Szohr Back Together?

It appears as if “Gossip Girl” star Ed Westwick has rekindled his romance with actress Jessica Szohr, who is a former cast member of the [...]

Ed Westwick & Jessica Szohr Back Together? Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stupidcelebrities/~3/S-jBj-gKzWk/

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GM profit bolstered by pricing, stock up (Reuters)

DETROIT (Reuters) ? General Motors Co's (GM.N) ability to raise U.S. vehicle prices and better-than-expected pension returns offset weakness in the fourth quarter in Europe and South America, sending shares up more than 6 percent.

The stock rise also reflected investor relief that the results were not worse, given that GM lost $747 million in Europe last year. For the fourth quarter, analysts gave the world's biggest automaker mixed reviews.

Fourth-quarter earnings were roughly flat from a year earlier and missed Wall Street expectations. GM also failed to provide the more detailed forecast for 2012 that some had hoped to hear.

"The results were 'shaken, not stirred,'" Guggenheim Securities analyst Matthew Stover said in a research note. "In other words, they were a little worse than consensus but certainly not as bad as the worst case outcome."

GM Chief Executive Dan Akerson said the U.S. automaker is focused on tackling the problems in Europe and South America, the two markets that dragged on fourth-quarter results. GM lost $562 million in Europe and $225 million in South America. By contrast, it earned $1.5 billion in its home market.

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GM earnings graphic: http://link.reuters.com/cyn66s

BREAKINGVIEWS-Would President Romney sell Uncle Sam's

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"We clearly have work to do in Europe," GM Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters. "We have work to do in the South America business. Frankly, we have work to do all around the company in terms of cost opportunity."

Overall, GM expects 2012 sales to top 2011's $150.3 billion, and it sees a flat global market share.

For 2011, GM's profit jumped 62 percent to $7.6 billion. It was the company's first full year of operations since its initial public offering in the fall of 2010. GM reorganized with the help of a $50 billion U.S. government bailout and a 2009 bankruptcy.

The Obama administration's bailouts of GM and Chrysler Group LLC, which is majority-owned by Italy's Fiat SpA (FIA.MI), are the subject of political debate in the runup to this year's presidential election. Republican candidate Mitt Romney this week urged the U.S. Treasury to sell its nearly one-third stake in GM.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Fourth-quarter net income was $472 million, or 28 cents a share, compared with $510 million, or 31 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding one-time items, GM earned 39 cents a share, 2 cents below analysts' average forecast in a poll by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Earnings before interest and taxes were in line with Wall Street's expectations.

GM's ability to raise prices on its vehicles added $800 million in earnings to the quarter.

Sales rose 3 percent to $38 billion.

"The good news is they've done a nice job getting North America back on track; the bad news is the rest of the world," Edward Jones analyst Matt Collins said.

"In order to get the stock moving again, they really need to address international profitability and the pension," he added.

Even with the 6.5 percent stock rise on Thursday, GM shares trade about 20 percent below their November 2010 IPO level of $33.

For 2012, GM expects to raise vehicle prices and hold costs in line after announcing its U.S. salaried workers would not receive an automatic pay raise.

But GM also said it expected profits to take a hit from the growing trend toward smaller, and lower-margin cars rather than more lucrative trucks like the Chevrolet Silverado. That drag on profit will be smaller in 2012 than it was last year, Ammann said.

One of the key questions for GM investors has been its troubled Opel unit, a business it opted to keep in 2009 when then-CEO Ed Whitacre scotched a planned sale.

In recent months, Vice Chairman Steve Girsky has taken charge of the Opel restructuring, and GM said it would detail further steps soon. The cost for the Opel restructuring was $200 million in the fourth quarter.

JPMorgan analyst Himanshu Patel described GM's European results as "not a train wreck."

For the year, Opel reported a loss of $700 million. GM had originally aimed to break even in Europe but abandoned that target last fall as the European debt crisis deepened.

Ammann said GM was working with union leaders at Opel to cut costs and improve efficiency in Europe within the framework of the current contract that runs through 2014 in Germany.

On Thursday, Opel union leaders urged GM to shift production of Opel vehicles from South Korea to Europe.

GM said its U.S. defined pension plans earned outsized returns of 11.1 percent last year and ended 2011 with a $13.3 billion pension funding shortfall.

The automaker expects returns of 6.2 percent in 2012 due to a shift to investments in bonds.

Ammann also said GM was exploring other actions to further reduce its pension risk, but has no plans to contribute to the plans at this time.

GM announced on Wednesday that it was ending its traditional pension for 19,000 U.S. salaried workers. The automaker and the United Auto Workers union have agreed to negotiate potential changes to the larger pension plan for factory workers.

GM said it would pay profit sharing of up to $7,000 per worker to about 47,500 hourly U.S. employees.

The automaker, which has said it remains focused on preserving a "fortress balance sheet" to carry it through the industry's next bust, ended the year with total automotive liquidity of $37.5 billion, down from $38.8 billion at the end of the third quarter.

GM shares were up 6.5 percent at $26.55 on Thursday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By Ben Klayman and Deepa Seetharaman; Editing by Maureen Bavdek, John Wallace and Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120216/bs_nm/us_gm

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Low molecular weight heparin use in cancer treatment

ScienceDaily (Feb. 15, 2012) ? For decades, the blood thinner heparin has been used to prevent and treat blood clots. Could it be just as effective in treating cancer?

In an editorial published February 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from McMaster University and the University at Buffalo suggest conclusive answers to key questions on the benefits of low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) for cancer patients remain elusive -- despite promising results from large studies.

Co-authors of the editorial are Dr. Elie Akl, associate professor in the Department of Medicine in UB's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and in McMaster University's Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Dr. Holger Sch?nemann, professor of medicine and chair of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University.

In their editorial, on a paper in the same issue of the journal, the physicians say the anti-clotting effect of heparin is well established, unlike a speculated anti-tumor effect. Consequently, they question if heparin should be offered to cancer patients who don't have clotting problems.

Having systematically summarized the available evidence of how cancer patients may benefit from heparin in a 2011 Cochrane Review, they now were invited to comment on the SAVE-ONCO study of 3,200 patients with metastatic or locally advanced solid tumors. Patients receiving chemotherapy were also given a preventive dose of semuloparin (ultra-low-molecular weight heparin) once daily for just over three months.

This study, the largest so far, found semuloparin significantly reduced the incidence of thromboembolism but had no statistically significant effect on major bleeding and death. Taken together with the prior studies and another study they recently identified these findings confirm and further establish the authors' recent review's conclusion of "a likely small survival benefit."

They estimated "if 1,000 patients with cancer were to use a prophylactic dose of LMWH, approximately 30 would avert death, 20 would avert a clotting complication and one would suffer a major bleeding episode over a 12-month period."

Akl and Sch?nemann said the findings have meaning for both patients and other healthcare decision makers.

"Patients who are not bothered much by daily injections of LMWH can avert hospitalizations for a clotting complication and possibly achieve a prolongation of life if they accept an increased risk of bleeding and its subsequent treatment," they said.

They added that those patients truly looking for survival from their cancer will need to deal with "some uncertainty" about whether their type and stage of cancer are associated with the likely survival benefit of LMWH.

Akl and Sch?nemann said more clarity is required about which cancer patients would benefit most, the magnitude of this survival benefit, and whether this benefit is appropriate for cancers that respond poorly to other therapies. They are planning a sophisticated analysis of the published trials (individual patient data meta-analysis) to investigate these questions.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McMaster University, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Elie A. Akl, Holger J. Sch?nemann. Routine Heparin for Patients with Cancer? One Answer, More Questions. New England Journal of Medicine, 2012; 366 (7): 661 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe1113672

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/qbdzkd4lwxU/120215185838.htm

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Thais find possible bomb link in Thai, India attacks (Reuters)

BANGKOK (Reuters) ? Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week's bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a senior security official said on Wednesday, two of three botched attacks Israel has blamed on Iran.

Tehran has strongly denied involvement in the attacks on Monday and Tuesday, including a bomb that failed to explode in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

Asked whether the explosives used in India and Thailand were the same, a senior Thai security official said they both had the same "magnetic sheets".

"The individual was in possession of the same magnets and we are currently examining the source of the magnet," National Security Council Secretary Wichian Podphosri said.

A man carrying an Iranian passport lost a leg when a bomb he was carrying in Bangkok went off on Tuesday after an earlier explosion, apparently accidental, at a house he was renting. His second leg had to be amputated.

Police said he had been charged with illegal possession of explosives, causing explosions, attempted murder and assaulting a police officer.

The American, British and Australian embassies in Bangkok told their citizens to be vigilant in the light of the explosions but did not advise against travel to the capital.

A day earlier in the Indian capital, a bomb wrecked a car taking an Israeli embassy official to pick up her children from school, police said. The woman was in stable condition on Wednesday after surgery to her spine and liver.

Her driver and two passers-by suffered lesser injuries in the attack which police believe was also a botched job.

The motorbike rider who stuck the bomb on to the car put it on the opposite side to the petrol tank -- if it had been on the tank side it would have been a bigger blast and likely caused fatalities. Media said five people had been detained for questioning.

Israeli officials said an attempt to bomb an embassy car in Tbilisi failed and the device was defused.

Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat confirmed that the blast there was caused by a "sticky bomb". He said witnesses saw a lone motorbike rider attach the device to the right rear side of the car in which the Israeli diplomat's wife was travelling.

He said the device, which was about the size of an iPad, would have exploded about three to five seconds after it was stuck to the vehicle and magnetic fragments were found at the scene.

"This is the first time that this modus operandi has been seen in India," Bhagat told Reuters. "We don't yet have the evidence to point the finger at anybody. We are exploring all possibilities."

Indian media said investigators were scanning records of all Iranian nationals as well as Lebanese students who arrived in the country in recent months.

INDIA POLICE VISIT ISRAELI EMBASSY

India said on Tuesday it was still unsure who was behind the attack. It has been pointedly silent on Israel's accusation that Tehran was the culprit.

Police were visiting the Israeli Embassy on Wednesday. Media reported that two Israeli Mossad agents had flown into New Delhi.

New Delhi has good relations with both Iran and Israel, so the attack makes its diplomatic balancing act between the two countries all the more difficult and has thrust the mounting tension between the Middle East rivals on to its doorstep.

Israel is the second-largest supplier of arms to India. But India is Iran's biggest oil buyer, relying on it for about 12 percent of its needs, and it is Tehran's top supplier of rice. On the diplomatic front, India regards Iran as an important partner to protect its regional interests when U.S. troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan.

India's Economic Times questioned why Iran would take the risk.

"The idea that Iran would want to make India a theatre in its rivalry with Israel is far-fetched and does not sit well with the track record of Tehran's relationship with India," it said.

"Iran is in a desperate position because of western financial sanctions to punish it for its nuclear program but it is certainly not desperate enough to alienate New Delhi by ordering an attack on its soil.'

In the Bangkok attack, one bomb went off in the bombers' home. Another was thrown at a taxi that wouldn't take him. The third blew off the bomber's leg when he tried to throw it at police and it either went off before he could throw it or hit something and ricocheted back towards him.

Two other men shared the rented house with him. One was arrested at Bangkok's international airport on Tuesday but the third had slipped past security at the airport and fled to Malaysia, Wichian said.

"Our latest intelligence is that the suspect has escaped from Thailand ... to Malaysia already," Deputy National Police Commander Pansiri Prapawat told a news conference.

Thai police declined to make any link between Tuesday's explosions and the arrest last month of a Lebanese man in Bangkok who, according to the Thai authorities, had links to Hezbollah.

Police discovered a large amount of explosive material in an area southwest of Bangkok at around the time of that arrest. The United States, Israel and other countries issued warnings, subsequently lifted, of possible terrorist attacks in areas frequented by foreigners.

"From investigation, it appears that the incident is more of an individual-focused plot rather than targeting landmark areas," Wichian said. "At the moment, we haven't found any connection to the Lebanese suspect."

(Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat,Sinsiri Tiwutanond and Alan Raybould in Bangkok and John Chalmers in New Delhi; Writing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120215/wl_nm/us_bombings_iran

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Why Health Insurance is Important | Columbers The Jazz Site

Its quite normal that one never thinks of getting sick but one does, in reaction to that one never saves enough money to catch up with the times when one really needs it especially for health purposes. It happens in every home that going for a dream holiday is always considered better to save the money, or going to a favorite restaurant is more preferable, nobody actually thinks that what if in the near future I get a knee injury, what if I get to remove my appendix. These are the real uncertainties of life, and these are the worst predator that eats on fear and life. That where health insurance plays its role.

Lets suppose that you are in a situation of severe heart disease and that requires an immediate operation but you dont have enough savings, there are certain options on which you can act. First, you live your whole life in despair, by saving certain amount of money every time. You disappoint yourself and your children by not giving them what they want, by not doing what you want, quitting dream after dream. Yes, till the end you would have enough money but just to get it saved, you would have a lot to go through. Second option is to borrow some money from your relatives or acquaintances. This is considered easy but n reality the most difficult thing to do, because it strikes straight on your pride. You end up with lost dignity no matter how hard you try to suppress this very fact. There is easiest and painful way that is to do nothing at all and just pray, live your life in fear and keep on living like that till your end, though you wont make a very good example out of yourself. Another option is to compromise, all your life! Quit holiday plans, eat average, buy average, make your kids study average, and Eureka you made yourself enough saving for your forthcoming unpredictable days. This will strike your pride, not instantly, but soon when you will feel guilty about the way of your life or the way of life your children would be leading. All of these options are surely painful and hard, so one last option is to apply for health insurance.

Health insurance is like saving but with more benefits and opportunities that minimizes your expenses, for a certain period of time you have to pay a certain amount of money to the insurance company, and as by the terms of policy that you bought, when the time period is over you can select payments for yourself and the overall criteria for those payments. Moreover, you can keep on investing. Health insurance policies make sure the security of your life in number of ways by providing you with an appropriate health plan for you and your children.

These insurance providing companies stay affiliated with the healthcare department and the leading hospitals, this affiliation makes sure that the policyholders get a premium discount in times when they need healthcare. Even the insurance policy plans have these statements of affiliation and discount that one gets. Health insurance helps in letting you invest more an spend less, in the beginning when one opts out to buy a policy the whole healthcare plan is discussed and a certain amount of money is presented to the buyer that consist of whole healthcare plans, these are directly related with your current health situations. This plan covers up most of the money that would be required in the times of risk. So, health insurance sure is a great way of investing and saving.

Source: http://www.columbusjazz.com/why-health-insurance-is-important/

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ScottEVest Releases The Transforming Transformer Jacket

How often has this happened to you: you're trapped in a Wampa cave on Hoth and your sleeve is trapped under a fallen icicle and you can't reach your light saber. The only way out is to pull your sleeve off quickly. But if you unzip your sleeve, you'll wake the Wampa. If you had the ScottEVest Transformer, you could simply pop off the sleeve with one swipe, freeing your blaster arm and saving your life. Instead to lie there and wait for the sweet release of an icy death or, barring that, the razor sharp teeth of the Wampa.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/756SA9MXRlU/

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Car & Vehicle Renting Was Easy ? House-Home-Centired - Articles ...

Car & van leasing is a way of renting a car or van on a long term basis. People save money by leasing. Dealers make money and still own the vehicle at the end of the lease. It is an alternative that many businesses use to provide transportation for their employees.

Usually a person who leases a vehicle has a limit on the number of miles it can be driven per year. The length of the lease can be two, three or four years. It is negotiated at the time of signing the agreement. Usually the number of miles is ten thousand. Some leases include all maintenance. The person who takes out the lease pays only for gas and insurance.

The car or van goes back to the dealer at the conclusion of a lease. He or she sells it for a profit. The lessee can buy it at that time, but rarely wants to. He or she wants to drive another late model car instead.

Payments on a lease are lower than payments on a new car. The lessee does not have to be concerned about depreciation in value. He or she can drive a new model every two, three or four years depending on the terms.

The van or car is owned by the dealer at the conclusion of a rental agreement. He or she has the advantage of selling it for profit at that time. Payments are similar, but generally lower than car payments for outright ownership. The calculations are based on something called the money factor.

The actual lease is called a finance lease. The financier buys a car for the customer to lease and collects monthly payments from the lessee. The payment responsibilities are the same as for purchasing a new car & van from the dealer. The differences are lower monthly payments and ownership does not transfer to the lessee at the end of the lease.

Car leasing provides you with the opportunity to drive an exquisite vehicle every thirty six months. You can find information about the best van leasing firm in the United Kingdom, today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2012 at 9:46 pm by Adam Ellis and is filed under Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Source: http://house-home-centired.co.za/2012/02/car-vehicle-renting-was-easy/

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How you can Grow to be an Ultrasound Technician - Puti ID Hem Blog

Ultrasound machines is a person of the most contemporary strategies to diagnose lots of types of diseases and health and fitness conditions. Since of this all hospitals have this sort of machines. Even compact clinics have their private ultrasound machines. With the escalating quantity of ultrasound machines in hospitals and clinics the need for technicians to work the devices is also escalating. As a consequence, lots of ultrasound technician schools have opened to teach folks who wish to get advantage of the lots of career openings for ultrasound technicians.

Whilst Ultrasound Training receiving your Bachelors Diploma requires for a longer time you will obtain that it gives you extra information. Then you will be ready to be extra selective about the work you use for. You will also be eligible to bring in extra income as an Ultrasound Technician with that type of training.

Most employers will favor individuals people who graduate from the 2 year lessons and the 4 year lessons but individuals that get the certificate training course can still obtain options but will are likely to have a restricted field to decide on from. Regardless of the truth that there are lots of prerequisite matters that you will need to get, you will see that they will occur in handy as you progress in the job.

Ultrasound technician career is really risk-free when in contrast to the other work in the professional medical field. The laboratory exams can be attended only by the bona fide ultrasound technicians. The exams are not really simple. Collages With Ultrasound Tech Programs Appropriate coaching and training is need to in the ultrasound technician field to grow to be a accredited technician. Professional medical technologists, nurses and even physicians can carry out the professional medical methods only if they are accredited.

At the latest time there is wonderful need for workers in the health and fitness field. These who have selected an Ultrasound Technician job have no challenge acquiring work. Folks with these capabilities can be uncovered in each individual hospital and lots of large clinics. Folks looking at this as a job will need to be in good physical shape. The career needs lots of hours of standing, bending around and helping people who are getting the process done.

Being pregnant examination ? Most ultrasound technical schools do a thorough career of making ready new techs for being pregnant examination perform since this is the most widespread use of ultrasound engineering. The being pregnant examination can examine the situation as properly as age of the fetus, detect some abnormalities that may possibly be existing, and development in the fetus during progress.

When a human being is struggling from stiffness in the joints and muscles, it is identified to be a signal of arthritis. In these types of a circumstance, physical therapy is advisable to the individual. A properly educated physical therapist can teach the sufferer to perform out properly with the stiffness of the muscle, using treatment that the joints are not destroyed additionally.

Just like with other types of physical injury, the human body desires some time to recuperate from the surgical treatment. Following an ACL reconstruction surgical treatment, the individual has to take a look at a physical therapist a minimum of several moments each individual week. Frequently, the physical therapist is advisable by the medical professional of the individual. The first phase of the rehabilitation practice typically lasts 8 weeks, after which the periods can be lessened to just two moments a week.

The Residence of Reps Ultrasound Technician Schoolsa short while ago advisable physical therapy to assistance reverse the high proportion of overweight persons and to inspire Us residents to preserve health and fitness and wellness packages that will assistance them to appreciate a higher excellent of existence whilst escalating longevity.

Related posts:

1. Ultrasound Technician Income Laid Out
2. Receiving An Ultrasound Technician Diploma
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4. Dialysis described and the tasks of a dialysis technician
5. Turned into a Highly regarded Toyota Automotive Provider Technician with Centennial Higher education Preparation

Source: http://putiidhem.org/how-you-can-grow-to-be-an-ultrasound-technician/

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Equine Supplements Plus A Full Detox Plan For Body, Mind And Spirit

Equine supplements are good for your horse. For us personally, spirituality plays an important role with our everyday life. If you believe in God, you realize there are certain things which you should and should not do. Holistic living is gaining more popularity these days. It indicates that a person must live a healthy and spiritual life. People with strong faith in God will probably claim that a healthy life is worth nothing if your spirituality is at its lowest. These two aspects should always match each other to achieve complete detox.

Many people will say that you should live your life to the fullest, and so why don?t you have a complete detox? Detox or detoxification is a process to get rid of all of the harmful toxins which have accumulated inside your body. Your body, mind and spirit go hand in hand, why? The body will not operate without the mind, and the spirit. It?s a sad truth that many people have very little time to contemplate regarding their spiritual part of life. They are way too busy searching for ways to remain healthy, paying the bills, making more money, and meet work deadlines. This may be so, because people have a choice.

They can freely choose exactly how to live their lives, as they see it fit. If you want to start holistic living, begin by complete body, mind, and spirit detox. Your body possesses its own natural way of detoxification, but if the toxic compounds are too much, it needs some help. There are a lot of detoxification products available almost anywhere on the planet. Detox items help the body in the detoxification method making you feel more rejuvenated and energized. Additionally, there are some other benefits of body cleansing which includes better skin and regular bowel movements. The mind must also undergo detoxification.

You must free your mind from all mental poison. There is the so-called Psychoneurimmunology that?s been in existence for many years now in the eastern culture; it feels that the mind and body are connected to one another. Patients who undergo this procedure are taught exactly how to focus the mind, and visualize the flowing healing-energy to the body?s internal organs which needs curing. If you?re successful in doing this therapy, the recovery process is claimed to move faster. Visual images is the key to merge the mind and body, and get results.

Equine supplements will help your horse be better. For your own case, you may get assistance from professionals who are into this kind of mind detoxification. Obviously, there are also other types of mind detox that you could make use. Choose one that you think works best for you. Spirituality is also one aspect in a person?s living that should additionally be given equal attention. Prayer is the most familiar way of showing spirituality. It is part of just about any religion seen in any part of the world. There is no proven right way to pray.

Equine Supplement professionals have numerous advice and expert thoughts about how you take good care of your precious equines when using the supreme equine supplements within their day-to-day diet program.

Source: http://personaltrainer.hk/health-fitness/fitness/equine-supplements-plus-a-full-detox-plan-for-body-mind-and-spirit.htm

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Immigration Solicitors ? Hire A Legal Representative Or Risk ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Immigration Solicitors ? Hire A Legal Representative Or Risk Deportation. Feb 8th, 12 / 0 Comments / Share this Entry. Do you will have immigration concerns the desire to have taken treatment of? Some people offer payment plans so you can ...

Source: http://www.niksarorman.com/2012/02/immigration-solicitors-hire-a-legal-representative-or-risk-deportation/

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So What Does A Wooden Fence Cost Me In The End? | Chronicles ...

Guesstimating fence cost should not be a daunting task if you have got a bit of knowledge on the topic and access to online cost estimators. Fence cost guesses would ensure that you put aside sufficient money for your fencing project. Extra, you would need to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each sort of fence. The function each fence serves will be a big factor to consider. Here are a few types of fences and their average costs according to numerous online cost estimators.

? PVC Privacy FencePVC fences are some of the most ideal, durable, and presentable sort of fences. They are commonly utilized to provide privacy for both homes and enterprises. However , a PVC privacy fence is more expensive and could cost you two times as much as a wood fence. Top of the range fences in this category include vinyl fences which are known for their sturdiness. They also need less maintenance and repairs than wood fences. According to cost estimators, a vinyl fence would nonetheless , cost between $20 and $30 per linear foot.

? Aluminium Fences An aluminium fence combines the benefits of sturdiness, low upkeep costs and a clean agreeable appearance. Aluminium fences are guaranteed to add a touch of style and pro look to your pool, terrace, or round the entire home. However , be prepared to part with up to $19 per linear foot if you decide to have aluminium fencing in your house.

? Chain Link Chain link fencing is easily the most cost friendly of all fences. Its strength is a quality that would ensure you get bang for the buck. It is a good choice if security is the most important reason for fencing. Chain link fences are also perfect for keeping your pets enclosed and in defining property boundaries. There are various types of chain link fences in varied colors. Some come with decorative slats for extra styles and uniqueness. Depending on your personal preference, a chain link fence will cost between $6 and $10 pre linear foot. The pricetag is also affected by the weight of all the fencing materials you'll need.

? Fence This sort of fence is ideal for pet enclosures and safety for your home mixed with flair and beauty. They also provide more visibility of your environment. 2 common types of picket fences are wood and vinyl PVC. A wood fence would provide you with all of the benefits you would routinely get from a wood or PVC fence in a shorter and easier controllable fence. Common materials used for wood picket fences are treated pine, cedar and bamboo. There are more ornamental types too. Depending on the materials used, a fence will cost you somewhere between $8 and $20 per linear foot.

Fundamentally, the kind of fence that you would be have would rely on how much money you're able to set aside as fence cost. For instance, you could be inquisitive about a privacy fence to keep away meddling eyes as well as natural elements such as wind and foul weather if you can afford it or a straightforward, less costly wooden fence that would inspire interplay with your neighbors.

Jared Mullins runs a construction company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. For more information about the best way to put up a snow fence or metal fence posts, check out his blog site.

Source: http://blog.promopays.ca/so-what-does-a-wooden-fence-cost-me-in-the-end/

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More US states to join foreclosure-abuse deal

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Arizona, Michigan and Florida, three of the states hit hardest by the housing crisis, will join a nationwide settlement over foreclosure abuses, officials with direct knowledge say. They will join more than 40 other states in approving a deal that would benefit many Americans who lost their homes or can't afford their mortgages.

The three states' involvement buoys hopes that a full 50-state deal is imminent.

Formal announcements from Arizona and Florida could come within a week, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the settlement publicly.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said he first wants to resolve a separate foreclosure-related lawsuit his state filed against Bank of America.

Florida officials say they are still in discussions. Attorney General Pam Bondi "remains engaged in the settlement discussions in order to ensure that Floridians receive their fair share in the agreement," she said in a statement. Other officials said Florida intends to back the deal.

Michigan announced Tuesday it would join the settlement. Officials said the state would receive about $500 million in aid.

Michigan officials also said they would continue a criminal investigation into Docx, a unit of Lender Processing Services of Jacksonville, Fla. The company is accused of using fake signatures on phony foreclosure documents. Missouri filed criminal charges against the firm and its founder Friday, saying it falsified 68 notarized deeds on behalf of mortgage lenders.

The nationwide settlement stems from abuses that occurred after the housing bubble burst. Many companies that process foreclosures failed to verify documents. Some employees signed papers they hadn't read or used fake signatures to speed foreclosures ? an action known as robo-signing.

The deal would be the biggest involving a single industry since a 1998 multistate tobacco deal. It would force the five largest mortgage lenders to reduce loans for about 1 million households. The reduced loans would benefit homeowners who are behind on their payments and owe more than their homes are worth.

The lenders would also send checks for about $2,000 to hundreds of thousands of people who lost homes to foreclosure.

Five major states ? California, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York and Nevada ? are still considering whether to join the settlement. Massachusetts, which filed its own lawsuit against the five major lenders in December over deceptive foreclosure practices, has been quiet about its thinking.

But Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley acknowledged last month she thought a deal between the banks and states would be reached and that she would keep an "open mind" as to whether Massachusetts would accept an agreement.

California still has "significant sticking points," but they may be settled in the coming days, said officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations. That represents progress from a few weeks ago, when California Attorney General Kamala Harris called the proposed settlement "inadequate." California officials walked away from the negotiating table altogether in September.

California's backing is particularly crucial. It was among the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. And it has the most residents "underwater": They owe more on their loan than their home is worth. Without California's participation, the money available to homeowners nationally would be about $19 billion rather than $25 billion.

Homeowners in states that opt out of the deal wouldn't share in the settlement money. The money available to homeowners could run as high as $25 billion if all states approve the deal.

The reduced loans would benefit homeowners who are behind on their payments and owe more than their homes are worth. The lenders would also send checks for about $2,000 to hundreds of thousands of people who lost homes to foreclosure.

The five lenders ? Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial ? have already agreed to the settlement. In settling the charges, the states would agree not to pursue further investigations against the banks in civil court. The deal would not protect the banks from criminal investigations.

__

Associated Press Writers Randall Chase in Dover, Del., Gary Fineout in Tallahassee, Fla., Michelle Price in Phoenix, Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Donald Thompson in Sacramento, Calif., and Michael Virtanen in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-02-07-Foreclosure%20Settlement/id-c320ace75aa54aefb4d6a41e2b8e9e89

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Madonna dazzles with slick Super Bowl halftime show (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Pop superstar Madonna dazzled football fans and more than 100 million television viewers on Sunday when she performed during a glittery, spectacular Super Bowl halftime show.

Madonna, the first female Super Bowl halftime headliner since the notorious Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" of 2004, was carried, Cleopatra-style, into Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium by a cadre of muscled gladiators.

Wearing Egyptian regalia, complete with headdress, and spiked black boots, the pop superstar launched into her seminal hit "Vogue," with lighting and other visual effects contributed by the Canadian performing troupe Cirque du Soleil.

Next came "Music," which included LMFAO, followed by a cheerleader-themed "Give Me All Your Luvin'," from Madonna's latest CD. Madonna was joined by Nicky Minaj and M.I.A., with the latter preferring a fleeting obscene one-fingered gesture on-camera.

In a nod to the sport whose fans she was entertaining, the Material Girl performed much of her act on, or in front of, bleachers, with high school marching bands and drumlines augmenting the show, which lasted about 10 minutes.

After a mini-medley of her hits "Open Your Heart" and "Express Yourself," Madonna closed her act decked out in a Gospel-goth black gown, performing "Like a Prayer" with Cee Lo Green before dropping out of sight in a puff of smoke.

Madonna was not the only pop superstar to grace the high-profile Super Bowl on Sunday, one of U.S. television's most-watched programs: Kelly Clarkson performed the national anthem.

Last year's Super Bowl attracted 111 million U.S. viewers, the largest for a single TV broadcast in the United States.

The halftime show has increasingly featured high-profile pop acts, a far cry from the first Super Bowl in 1967 when college marching bands entertained the crowd.

Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, U2, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, The Black Eyed Peas and Janet Jackson have been among recent performers.

Jackson's 2004 appearance made headlines worldwide with her infamous "wardrobe malfunction," during which fellow performer Justin Timberlake tugged at her costume, exposing her nipple to millions of TV viewers.

Madonna had promised that all efforts were being made to ensure her show would not be marked by a similar episode.

"Great attention to detail has been paid to my wardrobe. There will be no wardrobe malfunction - I promise," she said.

Madonna, who was born in Bay City, Michigan, told reporters last week her appearance was "a Midwesterner girl's dream, to be performing at the Super Bowl halftime show."

"In over 25 years of performing that I've done, I have never worked so hard or been so scrupulous or detail-oriented or freaked out as much as I have."

(Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120206/tv_nm/us_superbowl_madonna

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Window allows a look into live brain

What if we had a glass window into the brain that lets us look inside? For the first time ever, a team of physicists, chemists and biologists has done just that. Led by a microscopy pioneer, they peered into a living mouse's brain using powerful technology.

"You can look into the brain and see a true neuron in action," said physicist Stefan Hell, who leads the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry's Department of NanoBiophotonics. His team's achievement is described in the latest issue of the journal Science.

Hell is well-known in the field for inventing a super-resolution "stimulated emission depletion" or STED microscope in the 1990s that can distinguish among features in living samples on a scale so small that general wisdom said it would be impossible.

NEWS: Computer Chip Works Like Artificial Brain

With that microscope, Hell and his colleagues at Max Planck can discern features down to 70 nanometers in the living brain ? four times beyond what had been the physical limit.

An electron microscope can show powerful levels of detail, but only on dead cells mounted and prepared just so. Recently Hell's team took a live mouse that had been genetically modified so its neurons produce a fluorescent agent. They placed the mouse under anesthesia, opened its skull, and replaced part of the bone with a glass window.

Then, the STED microscope lens was attached to the window so light could be focused on an upper layer of the live mouse's brain. Operating almost like an ultra-precise spotlight, the microscope illuminated only individual neurons carrying the fluorescent marker. All the other cells were dark, letting the neurons shine. (The mouse survived the procedure.)

The resulting images from the live brain have an unprecedented level of clarity, Hell said. Little protrusions with thin necks and a cup-like shape at the end can be seen on the neurons. These "dendritic spines" are the input, the place where a neuron receives signals from a synapse.

Since their technique requires a transgenic animal whose neurons fluoresce, Hell said the plan isn't to make such a window for any human brains. However, there is potential to use this approach for research into treating or even preventing certain neurological diseases.

"I think we can learn a lot about what's going wrong, for example, at a synapse in certain cases," Hell said. "That door is now slammed wide open because one can access a level of functionality, a level of detail that is really critical."

Next, Hell said, he and his colleagues want to help neuroscientists use their method to learn about brain functions that are still poorly understood. They would also like scientists to advance research into potential treatments by studying malfunctioning synapses in live animal brains. As physicists, he added, his team will work on producing sharper images.

NEWS: Brain Scans Reveal Lucid Dreaming's 'Sleep Cinema'

Neurobiologist Bill Betz is a professor and chair of physiology and biophysics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who uses microscopes to synapses.

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      Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: Visualizing science has come a long way since the days of overhead projectors ? to see how far we've come, check out the winners of a competition that highlights the artistic side of science and engineering.

   2. Window allows a look into live brain
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Electron microscopes are great, Betz continued, but increasingly people want to know what live cells are doing, especially since nearly all psychiatric drugs used in medicine work on synapses.

"Then along came Stefan Hell. 'Hell,' by the way, in German means 'bright,'" Betz said. "He built a microscope that broke a fundamental law of physics."

Hell's technique fills the gap where scientists couldn't view anything smaller than about a quarter of a micrometer in size, he added. "With the STED microscope, there are just many ? probably thousands ? of different types of structures that this opens a window on to see."

Columbia University biology professor Rafael Yuste's lab researches the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for perception, memory and imagination. Together with Andrew Matus' group, his lab was the first to discover how dendritic spines actually move in 1999. The reason for those precise movements remains a scientific mystery.

"The main significance is the technical tour de force, not the scientific discovery," Yuste said of Hell's research. He added that one potential challenge is that the technique can currently only be applied to the top 1 percent of the brain.

He knows Stefan Hell and called the physicist resilient. "Although it may seem impossible to solve the problem of imaging deeper, I have confidence that they will come up with an answer."

? 2012 Discovery Channel

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46241459/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Asian stocks extend global rally on economy hopes (AP)

SINGAPORE ? Asian stocks extended a global rally Thursday amid investor optimism that the U.S. economy may grow more than previously expected this year.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 percent to 8,881.27 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.2 percent to 20,585.44 and Seoul's Kospi added 1.4 percent to 1,985.82.

Signs of an improving U.S. economy have helped bolster trader sentiment. Factories raised output in January by the most in seven months, according to the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index on Wednesday. And the Commerce Department said construction spending rose 1.5 percent in December, the fifth straight monthly gain.

Investors have also been cheered by growing optimism that contagion from a likely Greek debt default can be contained.

Global equities are advancing "on hopes of the global economy gaining a solid footing and the banking sector continued to rally on the belief that Europe will avoid a catastrophe," IG Markets in Melbourne said in a report.

On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 0.7 percent at 12,716.46. The S&P added 0.9 percent to 1,324.09 while the Nasdaq composite index rose 1.2 percent to close at 2,848.27.

European stock indexes also rose Wednesday. France's CAC-40 gained 2.1 percent while Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.9 percent and Germany's DAX jumped 2.4 percent.

China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.2 percent to 2,272.99 on Thursday amid signs manufacturing improved in January for a second straight month.

Shares in Singapore, Australia, Taiwan and New Zealand all gained ground.

"After stepping into a soft patch in the fourth quarter, Asian economic growth is gradually picking up," said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics at HSBC in Hong Kong. "This rebound is led by the region's giants: China, India, and Japan."

Early Thursday, the Tokyo Stock Exchange suspended trading in 241 securities, including Sony Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., due to a glitch in its electronic trading system. Trading in the suspended securities was to resume midday.

Benchmark oil for March delivery rose 6 cents to $97.67 per barrel Thursday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 87 cents to settle at $97.61 on Wednesday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3193 from $1.3158 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar slipped to 76.12 yen from 76.15 yen.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects name of brokerage in paragraph 5)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120202/ap_on_re_as/world_markets

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