It's Monday, and you know what that means; another Engadget HD Podcast. We hope you will join us live when the Engadget HD podcast starts recording at 8:30PM. If you'll be joining us, be sure to go ahead and get ready by reviewing the list of topics after the break, then you'll be ready to participate in the live chat.
Emergency personnel respond to one of the people hit by a car, at right, during the beginning of the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Witnesses said the car drove into a crowd at the parade and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Bristol Herald Courier, Earl Neikirk)
Emergency personnel respond to one of the people hit by a car, at right, during the beginning of the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Witnesses said the car drove into a crowd at the parade and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Bristol Herald Courier, Earl Neikirk)
Hiker "Quinoa" talks about being given credit for saving the lives of Carson Balckburn, Dalton Thomason, and Faith Ritchie after he ran them and others off the road with a water gun during a festival parade in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Just as the children ran off the street, a car came down the road and struck several people. (AP Photo/Bristol Herald Courier, Earl Neikirk)
DAMASCUS, Va. (AP) ? About 50 to 60 people were injured Saturday when a driver described by witnesses as an elderly man drove his car into a group of hikers marching in a parade in a small Virginia mountain town.
It happened around 2:10 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of Bristol.
Washington County director of emergency management Pokey Harris said no fatalities had been reported.
The injuries ranged from critical to superficial, he said. Three of the victims were flown by helicopters to regional hospitals. Another 12 to 15 were taken by ambulance. The rest were treated at the scene.
At a news conference, Damascus Police Chief Bill Nunley didn't release the driver's name or age but said he was participating in the parade. Multiple witnesses described him as an elderly man.
Nunley said the man's 1997 Cadillac was one of the last vehicles in the parade and the driver might have suffered an unspecified medical problem when his car accelerated to about 25 mph and struck the crowd on a two-lane bridge along the town's main road. The driver was among those taken to hospitals.
"It is under investigation and charges may be placed," Nunley said.
There were ambulances in the parade ahead of the hikers and paramedics on board immediately responded to the crash.
Nunley cited the "quick action" by police, firefighters, paramedics and hikers to tend to the victims, including a Damascus volunteer firefighter who dove into the car to turn off the ignition. The firefighter, whose name wasn't released, suffered minor injuries.
Nunley said about 1,000 people participated in the parade. Nunley said the driver was a hiker, too ? someone who had traversed the Appalachian Trail in the past.
What caused the car to drive into the crowd wasn't immediately known. A thud could be heard, people yelled stop, and at some point, the car finally stopped.
Witnesses said the car had a handicapped parking sticker and it went more than 100 feet before coming to a stop.
"He was hitting hikers," said Vickie Harmon, a witness from Damascus. "I saw hikers just go everywhere."
Damascus resident Amanda Puckett, who was watching the parade with her children, ran to the car, where she and others lifted the car off those pinned underneath.
"Everybody just threw our hands up on the car and we just lifted the car up," she said.
Keith Neumann, a hiker from South Carolina, said he was part of the group that scrambled around the car. They pushed the car backward to free a woman trapped underneath and lifted it off the ground to make sure no one else was trapped. Another person jumped inside to put it in park.
"There's no single heroes. We're talking about a group effort of everybody jumping in," he said.
Mayor Jack McCrady encouraged people to attend the festival on Sunday, its final day.
"In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.
McCrady said a donation fund was being set up to assist the injured, some of whom don't have medical insurance.
"We want to make sure they don't suffer any greater loss than they already have," he said.
Eesha Khare, 18, of Saratoga, Calif., received the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award of $50,000 for the invention of a tiny energy-storage device.
Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.
The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time.
What's more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to Eesha Khare of Saratoga, Calif.
"My cellphone battery always dies," she told NBC News when asked what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Supercapacitors also allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry ? "really working at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields."
To date, she has used the supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode, or LED. The invention's future is even brighter. She sees it fitting inside cellphones and the other portable electronic devices that are proliferating in today's world, freeing people and their gadgets for a longer time from reliance on electrical outlets.
"It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric," Khare added. "It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense."
Khare's invention won her the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, conducted this week in Phoenix, Ariz. For more information about the event and other prize winners, check out our earlier coverage.
John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, visit his website.
Regulators in Canada have been making a push to enhance competition in the mobile space, with Industry Minister Christian Paradis going so far as to lay out a set of rules for the nation's upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction that he promises will give citizens "more choices and more access at better prices." Granted, that ideal world only works if the carriers can stay afloat long enough to bid. According to William Aziz, Mobilicity's own chief restructuring officer, the operator has been "losing a significant amount of money every month." To that end, he reckons that an "acquisition by Telus is the best alternative," and he seems to think that the $380 million deal will receive a hasty approval considering the circumstances.
The purchase price is thought to be high enough to cover the debts looming over Mobilicity, and it'll give its 150 employees a secure job at Telus. If it sails through, a quarter-million Mobilicity customers should see no interruption in service as the integration takes place. Of course, a secondary benefit for Telus is gaining access to the spectrum Mobilicity currently uses. The end result for customers in the world's nicest country? We'd love to say that one fewer player will result in better service, lower prices and greater fulfillment for all... but something tells us that's probably wishing for a bit much.
Colleges offer discounts as enrollments fall short, according to Forbes report. Among the colleges still seeking students for the fall term: Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, the University of Maryland, College Park, The New School in New York City, and Arizona State University in Tempe.
By Andrea Burzynski,?Reuters / May 16, 2013
Students listen to President Obama at a rall on the campu of the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., in 2009. The university is one of nearly 300 colleges still accepting students for the fall. In many cases, colleges offer discounts to fill their classes.
Larry Downing/Reuters/File
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Many leading U.S. colleges and universities face a shortfall in enrollment for fall classes and will offer price discounts as they compete for students in an ever expanding higher education market, according to Forbes.
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The magazine highlighted 50 public and private U.S. colleges listed in the Princeton Review's "Best Colleges" list that are still accepting students in their 2013 freshman classes.
In their scramble to fill empty seats, colleges are likely to offer significant tuition discounts in the form of grants in a type of free market pricing that goes on behind the scenes, Forbes said.
"There are many more colleges in the United States than is economically viable," wrote Matt Schifrin, managing editor of investing content at Forbes Media. "Many colleges make deals with families, offering significant rebates to their advertised prices."
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) ? A simple test could have alerted officials that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, long before authorities determined that as many as a million Marines and their families were exposed to a witch's brew of cancer-causing chemicals.
But no one responsible for the lab at the base can recall that the procedure ? mandated by the Navy ? was ever conducted.
The U.S. Marine Corps maintains that the carbon chloroform extract (CCE) test would not have uncovered the carcinogens that fouled the southeastern North Carolina base's water system from at least the mid-1950s until wells were capped in the mid-1980s. But experts say even this "relatively primitive" test ? required by Navy health directives as early as 1963 ? would have told officials that something was terribly wrong beneath Lejeune's sandy soil.
A just-released study from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry cited a February 1985 level for trichloroethylene of 18,900 parts per billion in one Lejeune drinking water well ? nearly 4,000 times today's maximum allowed limit of 5 ppb. Given those kinds of numbers, environmental engineer Marco Kaltofen said even a testing method as inadequate as CCE should have raised some red flags with a "careful analyst."
"That's knock-your-socks-off level ? even back then," said Kaltofen, who worked on the infamous Love Canal case in upstate New York, where drums of buried chemical waste leaked toxins into a local water system. "You could have smelled it."
Biochemist Michael Hargett agrees that CCE, while imperfect, would have been enough to prompt more specific testing in what is now recognized as the worst documented case of drinking-water contamination in the nation's history.
"I consider it disingenuous of the Corps to say, 'Well, it wouldn't have meant anything,'" said Hargett, co-owner of the private lab that tried to sound the alarm about the contamination in 1982. "The levels of chlorinated solvent that we discovered ... they would have gotten something that said, 'Whoops. I've got a problem.' They didn't do that."
Trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), benzene and other toxic chemicals leeched into ground water from a poorly maintained fuel depot and indiscriminate dumping on the base, as well as from an off-base dry cleaner.
Nearly three decades after the first drinking-water wells were closed, victims are still awaiting a final federal health assessment ? the original 1997 report having been withdrawn because faulty or incomplete data. Results of a long-delayed study on birth defects and childhood cancers were only submitted for publication in late April.
Many former Lejeune Marines and family members who lived there believe the Corps still has not come clean about the situation, and the question of whether these tests were conducted is emblematic of the depth of that mistrust.
Marine Corps officials have repeatedly said that federal environmental regulations for these cancer-causing chemicals were not finalized under the Safe Drinking Water Act until 1989 ? about four years after the contaminated wells had been identified and taken out of service. But victims who have scoured decades-old documents say the military's own health standards should have raised red flags long before.
In 1963, the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery issued "The Manual of Naval Preventive Medicine." Chapter 5 is titled "Water Supply Ashore."
"The water supply should be obtained from the most desirable sources which is feasible, and effort should be made to prevent or control pollution of the source," it reads.
At the time, the Defense Department adopted water quality standards set by the U.S. Public Health Service. To measure that quality, the Navy manual identified CCE "as a technically practical procedure which will afford a large measure of protection against the presence of undetected toxic materials in finished drinking water."
Also referred to as the "oil and grease test," CCE was intended to protect against an "unwarranted dosage of the water consumer with ill-defined chemicals," according to the Navy manual. The CCE standard set in 1963 was 200 ppb. In 1972, the Navy further tightened it to no more than 150 ppb.
In response to a request from The Associated Press, Capt. Kendra Motz said the Marines could produce no copies of CCE test results for Lejeune, despite searching for "many hours."
"Some documents that might be relevant to your question may no longer be maintained by the Marine Corps or the Department of the Navy in accordance with records management policies," she wrote in an email. "The absence of records 50 years later does not necessarily mean action was not taken."
But the two men who oversaw the base lab told the AP they were not even familiar with the procedure.
"A what?" asked Julian Wooten, who was head of the Lejeune environmental section during the 1970s, when asked if his staff had ever performed the CCE test. "I never saw anything, unless the (Navy's) preventive medicine people were doing some. I don't have any knowledge of that kind of operation or that kind of testing being done. Not back then."
"I have no knowledge of it," said Danny Sharpe, who succeeded Wooten as section chief and was in charge when the first drinking water wells were shut down in the mid-1980s. "I don't remember that at all."
Wooten was an ecologist, and Sharpe's background is in forestry and soil conservation. But Elizabeth Betz, the supervisory chemist at Lejeune from 1979 to 1995, was also at a loss when asked about the CCE testing.
"I do not remember any such test being requested nor do I remember seeing any such test results," Betz, who later worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's national exposure branch at Research Triangle Park outside Raleigh, wrote in a recent email.
Hargett, the former co-owner of Grainger Laboratories in Raleigh, said he never saw any evidence that the base was testing and treating for anything beyond e coli and other bacteria.
"That was a state regulation ... that they had to maintain a sanitary water supply," he said. "And they did a good job at that."
Motz, the Marine spokeswoman, told the AP that the method called for in the manual would not have detected the toxins at issue in the Camp Lejeune case.
"The CCE method includes a drying step and a distillation (evaporation) step where chloroform is completely evaporated," she wrote in an email. These volatile organic compounds, "by their chemical nature, would evaporate readily as well," she wrote.
ATSDR contacted the EPA about the "utility" of such testing and concluded it would be of no value in detecting TCE, PCE, or benzene, Deputy Director Tom Sinks wrote in an email to members of a community assistance panel on Lejeune.
"It is doubtful that the weight of their residue would be detectable when subjected to this method," Sinks wrote.
Kaltofen, a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, acknowledged that CCE is "a relatively primitive test." But in addition to the water's odor, Kaltofen said, "there are some things that a careful analyst would easily have noticed."
Hargett agreed.
"It would have prompted you to simply say, 'Wow. There is something here. Let's do some additional work,'" he told the AP. Any "reputable chemist ... would have raised their hands to the person responsible and said, 'Guys. You ought to look at this. There's more here.'"
The Marines have said such high readings were merely spikes. But Kaltofen countered that, "You can't get that level even once without having a very serious problem ... It's the worst case."
In a recent interview, Wooten told the AP that he knew something was wrong with the water as early as the 1960s, when he worked in the maintenance department.
"I was usually the first person in in the big building that we worked in," he said. "And I'd cut the water on and let it run, just go and flush the commodes and cut the water on and let it run for several minutes before I'd attempt to make coffee."
Wooten said he made repeated budget requests for additional equipment and lab workers. But as Betz told a federal fact-finding group, "the lab was very low on the priority list at the base."
She said her group ? the Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Department ? was "like the 'red headed stepchild.'"
Even a series of increasingly urgent reports from an Army lab at Fort McPherson, Ga., beginning in late 1980, failed to prompt any real action.
"WATER HIGHLY CONTAMINATED WITH OTHER CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS (SOLVENTS!)" cautioned one memo from the Army lab in early 1981.
Because the base water system drew on a rotating basis from a number of different wells, subsequent tests showed no problems, and officials chalked these "interferences" up to flukes. One base employee told the fact-finding group that in 1980, "they simply did not have the money nor capacity" to test every drinking-water well on the base.
"This type of money would have cost well over $100,000, and their entire operating budget was $100,000," the employee said, according to a heavily redacted summary obtained by the AP from the Department of Justice through the Freedom of Information Act. "However, they did not do the well testing because they did not think they needed to."
So, from late 1980 through the summer of 1982, the former employee told investigators, "this issue simply laid there. No attempts were made to identify ground contamination" at Hadnot Point or Tarawa Terrace, where most of the enlisted men and their families lived.
It wasn't until a letter from Grainger in August 1982 reported TCE levels of 1,400 ppb that any kind of widespread testing began. Though the EPA did not yet enforce a limit for TCE at the time, the chemical had long been known to cause serious health problems.
"That is when the light bulb went off," Sharpe told federal investigators in a 2004 interview, obtained by the AP. "That is when we connected the tests of the 1980, 1981, and 1982 time period where traces of solvents were detected to this finding."
Still, it was not until the final weeks of 1984 that the first wells were closed down. Between the receipt of that 1982 letter and the well closures, the employee told the fact-finding group, "they simply dropped the ball."
Each year of delay meant an additional 10,000 people may have been exposed, according to Marine estimates.
Municipal utilities around the country were using far more sophisticated tests to detect much lower contaminate levels, said Kaltofen, while the people at Camp Lejeune were doing "the bare minimum. And it wasn't enough."
Last year, President Obama signed the Camp Lejeune Veterans and Family Act to provide medical care and screening for Marines and their families, but not civilians, exposed between 1957 and 1987 ? although preliminary results from water modeling suggest that date be pushed back at least another four years. The law covers 15 diseases or conditions, including female infertility, miscarriage, leukemia, multiple myeloma, as well as bladder, breast, esophageal, kidney and lung cancer.
Jerry Ensminger, a former drill sergeant, blames the water for the leukemia that killed his 9-year-old daughter, Janey, in 1985. He and Michael Partain ? a Marine's son who is one of at least seven dozen men with Lejeune ties diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer ? have scoured the records, and he thinks the Corps has yet to accept responsibility for its role in this tragedy.
"If I hadn't dug in my heels," Ensminger said, "this damned issue would have been dead and buried along with my child and everybody else's."
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Vin Diesel has been on the road with the "Fast & Furious" franchise for more than ten years, and he won't be done with it anytime soon, if he has anything to say about it.?
HItFix's Guy Lodge sat down with the "F&F" star to discuss the challenge of playing the same character over the course of more than a decade, the return of?Michelle Rodriguez, and what we can expect in the future of the franchise. Watch the full interview above.
With extensive acting training (his father was an acting coach), Diesel says he faced new challenges in playing the character of Toretto for more than ten years,?noting that the time frame led him to incorporate his own growth as a person into the role. This allowed the character to evolve in a naturalistic way, which wouldn't have been possible in just one or two films.?
Diesel also talks up the return of Rodriguez's presumed-dead character Letty. She was revealed to be coming back at the end of "Fast Five."?For Diesel, having Rodriguez ("Avatar") back in the fold was "better than great."
"If it weren't for Letty," he reveals, "we wouldn't have done 'Fast 6.'"
Another big change is rocking the foundations of the "Furious" franchise, as?"Saw" director James Wan is replacing longtime series helmer?Justin Lin for the next film.?
The move will help "Fast 7" go in a new direction.
"'7' is the beginning of the next trilogy in the thought-out story," Diesel contends, noting that the first six films form two distinct trilogies. "The three stories of 7, 8 and 9 are mapped out in a structure, even if they're not signed off on," he continues. "The direction of 7, 8 and 9 is clear."
"Fast and Furious 6" also stars series veterans Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and newcomers Gina Carano and Luke Evans.?
"Fast & Furious 6" opens May 24.?
Dave Lewis has been a Los Angeles-based entertainment writer and editor for nearly ten years. Originally hailing from Minneapolis, he moved to L.A. in 1996 to attend USC, before working for various periodicals and web sites including a lengthy stint at Variety.com. He joined the HitFix staff in 2011.
May 17, 2013 ? A recent study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online? on 5-day old human blastocysts shows that those with an abnormal chromosomal composition can be identified by the rate at which they have developed to blastocysts, thereby classifying the risk of genetic abnormality without a biopsy. In a new study the same group has undertaken a retrospective study, using their predictive model to assess the likelihood of any embryo transferred resulting in a successful pregnancy, with very encouraging outcomes.
One of the greatest challenges in assisted reproduction is to find the one embryo, which can develop successfully. Now, combining time lapse imaging of IVF embryos cultured for 5 days to the blastocyst stage with trophoblast biopsy, it has proved possible to correlate the rate of blastocyst formation with chromosomal abnormalities. Such an approach should allow early and widely accessible non-invasive identification of the best embryo to place in the uterus.
"Recently the world of IVF has become very excited by the use of time-lapse imaging (TLI) of early human embryo development to follow the change of embryo morphology over time," explains Martin Johnson, Editor of Reproductive BioMedicine Online. "The data can then be compared with the outcome after the embryos are transferred. The hope is that this morphokinetic analysis will enable reproductive specialists to predict more successfully those embryos most likely to generate pregnancies. The advantage of using morphokinetic analysis to predict outcome is its minimal invasiveness."
The majority of embryos that fail to initiate a pregnancy do so because they have abnormal chromosomes. Unfortunately these embryos cannot be recognized by embryologists using conventional microscopy. Only biopsy of one or a few cells of the early embryo followed by preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) can establish whether the number of chromosomes is normal or not.
In their research Alison Campbell and colleagues of CARE Fertility, Nottingham, went one step further, describing the use of morphokinetic analysis to identify those embryos that have an abnormal chromosomal constitution. In that study, they cultured embryos under time lapse imaging to day 5, by which time they formed blastocysts. These were then biopsied by removing a few of the cells from the outer layer of the embryo, which will normally contribute only to the placenta. The biopsy was then analyzed for its chromosomal constitution. The authors then related the chromosomal make up of each embryo to its morphokinetic history. They found that a proportion of embryos with chromosomal abnormalities were delayed in initiating blastocyst formation and also reached the full blastocyst stage later than did normal embryos. The authors conclude that using this approach they could avoid exposing at least a subset of the embryos to invasive biopsy procedures.
"This non-invasive model for the classification of chromosomal abnormality may be used to avoid selecting embryos with high risk of aneuploidy while selecting those with reduced risk," said lead author Alison Campbell.
The same group has now applied this risk classification model retrospectively to examine the pregnancy outcomes in a series of unselected IVF patients without the use of PGS. A significant improvement in both implantation and live birth rates was observed when low risk embryos were transferred.
Scientist Markus Montag of the Department of Gynecological Endocrinology and Fertility Disorders, University Clinics of Heidelberg, said: "The idea of using time-lapse imaging and morphokinetic analysis is intriguing, because having available a completely non-invasive procedure to predict which embryo is euploid or aneuploid would allow the application of this technique for virtually every assisted reproduction cycle. The potential benefit of such an approach is obvious in view of published data on the incidence of aneuploidy even in oocytes from younger women."
Published on May 15, 2013 by admin ????? No Comments
(NaturalNews) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a new safety warning about an ingredient sometimes added to fitness supplements that it claims could cause health problems in certain individuals. According to a recent public announcement, the FDA has received complaints from a handful of consumers over the years linking the nervous system stimulant 1,3 dimethylamylamine, also known as DMAA, to heart attacks and even death, hence the need for a safety warning.
Even though a definitive causal link has admittedly not been established by the FDA or any other agency between DMAA and the aforementioned conditions, the FDA still saw fit to issue a release urging members of the public to avoid supplements that contain the ingredient. DMAA is apparently so dangerous in the eyes of the FDA that a large image bearing the caption, ?Warning! DMAA ? Risks may include HEART ATTACK & more ?,? can be seen on the FDA announcement page.
?As of April 11, 2013, FDA had received 86 reports of illnesses and death associated with supplements containing DMAA,? states the announcement. ?The majority are voluntary reports from consumers and healthcare practitioners. The illnesses reported include heart problems and nervous system or psychiatric disorders. Note, however, that a report is not proof that the product actually caused the problem.?
Sounds serious, right? Except for that last line, which basically negates the validity of the entire DMAA warning. The FDA likely receives hundreds or even thousands of complaints every day about all sorts of things, but does not necessarily issue safety warnings for all of them. So why DMAA, and why now?
Even though DMAA was technically developed by drug company Eli Lilly back in the 1940s, according to The New York Times (NYT), it is derived from nothing more than the natural oils found in geranium plants. It is commonly used as a natural energy booster and focus enhancer ? and as far as we can tell, there are no legitimate dangers associated with its use, and it has been safely used as an ingredient in a variety of fitness supplements for many years.
But since it is an unregulated dietary supplement and not an FDA-approved drug, DMAA is apparently an easy target for the FDA. Despite the fact that the agency has not officially recalled supplements containing DMAA, its latest scare campaign urging people not to take it has prompted virtually every manufacturer that once used the substance to pull it from their product formulations.
?Reality is, it?s been 15 months (that) the military has been investigating DMAA ? they found nothing that came back,? said GNC CEO Joe Fortunato during a recent conference call. Back in 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) pulled all products containing DMAA from military base stores after two soldiers who had been taking DMAA-containing supplements died. Their deaths, however, were never proven to be caused by DMAA.
?We went to them three times, obviously concerned that if there was any safety issue, we wanted the product off the table. (But) they have nothing,? added Fortunato. ?If anybody has any impact (from using GNC products), that is something that nobody is ever happy about, but it happens occasionally, far more often in pharmaceutical industries.?
Fortunato brings up an important point ? pharmaceutical drugs kill at least 100,000 people every single year, according to a study out of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) back in 2000. Clearly this is far more significant that the five deaths believed, but not proven, to be linked to DMAA, and yet the FDA has issued no such coercive warnings about pharmaceutical drugs.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bomb attacks in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad and in northern Iraq killed more than 30 people on Wednesday, following weeks of violence by Sunni Islamist insurgents determined to spark sectarian confrontation.
Tensions between minority Sunni Muslims and the Shi'ites who now lead Iraq are at their highest since U.S. troops pulled out in 2011, with relations coming under more pressure by the day from the largely sectarian conflict in neighboring Syria.
A string of car bombings hit Shi'ite neighborhoods across the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday evening, including one outside a cafe, killing at least 18 people, police said.
Earlier, 10 people were killed when two car bombs exploded near government buildings in the ethnically mixed oil city of Kirkuk.
"There were two bodies on the ground outside the building, people were shouting and it was a mess everywhere," said Rawaa Rahman, a government employee in Kirkuk who was wounded in the hand.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle also blew himself up near a police patrol in northern Baghdad, killing at least two officers, while a roadside bomb killed a policeman in a town near Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) to the north, police and medical sources said.
Relations between Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish communities have come under growing strain since the last American troops left in December 2011.
The coalition government, split among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish political blocs, is hobbled by disagreements about how to share power.
But the conflict in neighboring Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, has also put pressure on Iraq's delicate intercommunal balance.
Although violence is well below the height of sectarian slaughter in 2006-7, when tens of thousands were killed, Sunni Islamist insurgents now carry out attacks almost daily to try to undermine the Shi'ite-led government.
Al Qaeda's local wing, Islamic State of Iraq, and other Sunni insurgents are trying to use Syria's war to gain legitimacy and tap into frustrations among Iraqi Sunnis, hoping to regain ground they lost during their long battle with American troops.
(Reporting by Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk and Kareem Raheem in Baghdad; Writing by Suadad al-Salhy; Editing by Patrick Markey)
Does your Android sound different from your iOS or WP? Perhaps a little, but each has their own quirks when it comes to audio output and hands-free kits. To that end, Jays will launch the a-JAYS Five earphones this summer with a separate version for each. The new buds will draw from the company's experience with the a-JAYS Four, bringing its Swedish design flair along with revised ergonomics, refined sound, an updated version of its flat, tangle free cables, a new cable clip and a premium MEMS microphone. It'll carry a three-button control setup similar to the last model, but will be optimized work differently depending on whether you have the iOS, Windows Phone or Android version -- a concept the company calls "iWA." We're not sure if that'll simmer down any flame wars, but you'll be able to grab one for €90 (or $100) in black or white sometime this summer.
LONDON (AP) ? The Bank of England predicted a modest and sustained economic recovery for Britain on Wednesday, but tempered hope that the worst might be over with predictions that inflation will remain above its targets for the next two years.
In presenting the central bank's quarterly inflation report, Governor Mervyn King offered a twinkling of optimism that good things might be in store for a country struggling to get back on track after the 2008 financial crisis. It has been in recession twice since then.
"This hasn't been a typical recession and it won't be a typical recovery," King said at a press conference to explain the report's findings. "Nevertheless, a recovery is in sight."
The cautiously more cheerful outlook gave King, who will step down as governor in July after 10 years, a chance to deliver his final inflation report with a bit of good news after a tenure marred by global economic gloom.
King has presented 82 inflation reports since joining the central bank 20 years ago ? first as chief economist, then as deputy governor and finally as governor. He will be replaced by Mark Carney, now head of the Bank of Canada.
The report estimated that the U.K. economy should pick up, growing by 0.5 percent in the second quarter of this year, and that the main risks to Britain's economic recovery continue to come from abroad. Many of the country's European trading partners are suffering an economic downturn ? France is in recession and Germany is barely growing.
However, it says inflation, which is stuck above the 2 percent target, is set to edge higher in coming months, partly due to a weakening in the value of the pound, which makes imports more expensive.
The Bank of England's inflation report was the first since official figures last month showed the U.K. had managed to avoid falling into a third recession since 2008 by growing 0.3 percent during the first quarter. The figure was better than expected and offered some breathing space to the government, which is facing criticism for its tough budget austerity policies.
Though rising energy, food and tuition bills are pressuring consumers, King said inflation will be "a little weaker" than expected in the last inflation report issued in February.
The bank now predicts the inflation rate will peak at 3.1 percent after the summer and fall to the 2 percent target by the first quarter of 2015.
Since the last inflation report, oil and commodity prices have fallen, helping to temper inflation. Data on the construction and manufacturing sectors have been encouraging and the services sector has powered ahead.
But experts remain wary.
"There has been a fair bit of excitement about the renewed signs of life in the economy," said Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics. "We would be wary of getting too absorbed in the ebb and flow of the data."
Simon Hayes, an analyst at Barclays bank, noted that while King's remarks were "imbued with a cautious optimism" they also suggested the bank would be unlikely to pump more money into the British economy under a stimulus program commonly called quantitative easing.
Since 2009, the bank has pumped 375 billion pounds ($579 billion) into the British economy. Under the program the bank buys government bonds from financial institutions in the hope they will use the proceeds to lend to companies and households, boosting the economy.
"The improved tone on activity came with the natural corollary of a reduced likelihood of further monetary support," Hayes wrote in a statement.
Journalists tried to press King to wax nostalgic on his many years at the Bank of England, but he dodged sentimentality. When the assembled press applauded, King looked somewhat stunned.
"There are some things about this job that I certainly won't miss but one thing I will miss are these regular Inflation Report Press Conferences," he said. "They are probably the one event I've looked forward to and prepared hard for and believed have been the most valuable."
Cold beer is a staple in Texas. As the mercury starts its inevitable climb into sizzling summer heat, beer?s indelible association with barbecue and other grilled goodies is particularly appealing. Yet aside from its cooling properties as a beverage, beer has a venerable place in the culinary repertoire. With the wide range of excellent beers now available, both foreign and domestic, all those palate-tickling flavors can be as interesting in the cooking pot as they are in a frosted mug.
The trick to cooking with beer is pairing the flavor of the brew with the thing being cooked. Hoppy bitter ales can overwhelm. Keep in mind what you?re after: moisture, richness of flavor, or the frothy character beer adds to batters and stews.
Obviously, borracho beans needs no elaboration, but heavier beers add a depth of flavor to any bean concoction, along with chili or other stews.
The Belgians, more than any other beer-drinking country, have an entire cuisine based on their excellent low-fermentation pils-type ales (i.e. Stella Artois) and high-fermentation darker brews (abbey-style and stouts), including all manner of things stewed or braised: mussels or other shellfish simmered in ale; rabbit stewed in lambic; heavy beef and vegetable stews with dark beers; trout, monkfish, or pork braised in abbey-style ales, sometimes with cheese melted into the broth.
How can you argue with beer soup? Simmer a liter of sweet brown ale with lemon zest, half a cinnamon stick, salt, and a little dried ginger. Thicken with cornstarch paste. Mix half a liter of milk and 2 egg yolks, then whisk into the beer broth and serve with fried bread. The Germans make a similar soup, and a cold one sweetened with sugar and plump currents, thickened with soft pumpernickel breadcrumbs.
Try this beer horseradish sauce on anything grilled: lightly toast 2 Tbs. flour in butter or bacon fat, add 2 Tbs. grated horseradish, salt, pepper, and sharp mustard to taste, 1 cup bock or pilsner, and whisk in 2 egg yolks beaten with 1/2 cup water or cream.
Use beer instead of milk for a fluffy, flavorful batter on deep-fried fish, shrimp, or crawfish: that frothy head is the result of fermented yeast, used as leavening for bread up through the 18th century, as well as in ancient Egypt.
Beer-can chicken is all about moisture, with a hint of flavor: drink half a can of beer, then place the open end of a small, whole, seasoned chicken upright over the remainder, using the can as a stand on your grill or smoker.
I have a Cajun friend who swears by adding 4 cans of cheap pilsner to his 30-serving, party-sized pan of jambalaya ? preferably poured simultaneously by four pretty women standing ceremonially around the pot. And, of course, the most venerable tradition: while cooking, drink beer ? dark, malty, hoppy, or pale ? to taste.
5 / 5L/100km BODY TYPE: Hatchback TECHNOLOGY: Hybrid BASE MSRP: $25,200
Having been advertised for months prior as a Prius beater, Ford?s C-Max Hybrid vaulted to the ninth spot among hybrid sales in its inaugural month last September.
Ford?s ads have especially targeted the spacious 42 mpg Prius v highlighting any perceived advantage. The C-Max Hybrid has been promoted as more fun to drive with 54 more horsepower than the Prius Liftback and Prius v while delivering mileage and interior capacity between the two. Further, drivers won?t have to suffer with unexciting styling, says Ford which has played a strategy of knocking Toyota?s icons while hoping to establish a similar one of its own.
Half a year into it, the five-seater C-Max Hybrid has climbed within top-six sales territory trailing the established number-one Prius Liftback, which outsells any other hybrid by no less than three to one.
The C-Max has achieved this despite an outcry among some buyers who, along with several car reviewers, say they cannot get within five to nine mpg of its 47 mpg EPA rating for city, highway and combined driving.
Several class action suits against Ford are now in process, and we?ll note we have not crested past 42 mpg ourselves, but do not say it?s impossible. Ford has cited many satisfied customers who do get the stated mileage, some even beating it by a few mpg.
The C-Max Hybrid also offers several other unique benefits besides.
(Not) Hybrid Synergy Drive
The architecture underlying Toyota?s ?Hybrid Synergy Drive? is shared in several key points by Ford?s ?Powersplit? system but there?s no infringement because they both cross-licensed each others? patents in the 1990s after first suing each other for potential violations perceived.
Actually, TRW originated the hybrid system?s basic principles in the 1960s, and Toyota and Ford had independently recognized a good thing.
At the heart of Ford?s marriage between gas and electric power is a 2.0-liter Atkinson cycle engine assembled in Chihuahua, Mexico with aluminum block and head and four valves per cylinder. To save parasitic drag, the car has electrically powered water pumps, power steering, and vacuum pump. Also, the air conditioning system draws from the high-voltage 1.4-kwh Li-ion hybrid system battery in the trunk.
The engine displaces 12-percent more volume than the 1.8-liter in both the Prius Liftback and v. It is rated at 141 horsepower, 129 pounds-feet of torque and this exceeds the 134-horsepower gas-plus-electric total output in the powertrain shared by both Prii.
The C-Max?s electric motor contributes 114 horsepower and 177 pounds-feet torque at 6,000 rpm. This output is mated via a planetary gearset that can decouple or combine the two independent power sources for seamless propulsion.
Because the electric motor and gas engine peak at different times, total C-Max hybrid system output routed through the front wheels via an Electronically Controlled Continuously Variable Transmission (eCVT) is 188 horsepower. Torque is unspecified, but it feels like around 200 pounds-feet or so.
Dimensions
While positioned as a competitor to the Prius v, its 173.6-inch overall length is actually shorter than the 181.7-inch-long v and the 176.4-inch-long Prius Liftback. However, the C-Max is 1.9-inches taller than the v, and 5.2 inches taller than the Liftback while also 2.1-inches wider than the v, and 3.3-inches wider than the Liftback.
Interior cargo volume is therefore larger than the Liftback?s, but smaller than the v?s.
The C-Max is also the heaviest of the bunch at 3,640 pounds, compared to the Liftback?s 3,042 pounds, and Prius v?s 3,274 pounds.
Styling
Riding on a global Focus platform, the C-Max is appropriately named. It?s like a Focus that wanted to be a minivan when it grows up.
Up front is Ford?s signature Aston-Martinesque grille, so maybe it also wants to be a Rapide when it grows up.
Actually, it is its own unique creation, and Ford took pains to avoid some of the iconic design cues established by Toyota and mimicked by Honda?s Insight and to an extent, Chevy?s Volt.
Its fuel-saving coefficient of drag is a respectable 0.30 but this trails the Liftback?s 0.25 and v?s 0.29.
Machined alloy 17-inch wheels shod with wide 225/50 series Michelin low rolling resistance tires provide a big footprint and add to a purposeful stance. The Prii come standard with 195 series tires, with 215s optional.
The hood is positioned low and the acoustic laminated windshield provides excellent forward visibility.
The C-Max was styled by Ford?s European design group and follows the company?s ?kinetic? styling themes. Ford calls its edgy look ?energy in motion.?
Out back is an electrically operated tailgate that opens with a kicking motion under the rear bumper assuming you have the remote key with you.
Overall, it?s a tall box shaped as sveltely as possible for a vehicle with the mission of extremely practical fuel sipper. We find it handsome enough from most angles.
Interior
From the driver?s seat, the C-Max Hybrid is modern automotive. Here too, Ford avoided designs too evocative of the green car persona.
The floor is cut low, so the seating position approaches that of a minivan. I?m six-feet-tall, and in the video, you can see the car swallows me up, and I look like maybe I?m 5-foot-6 under the high ceiling.
Knee room is excellent even for long legs, and the car has knee protection airbags among its seven total.
Seats are comfortable front and rear, and our SEL had electrically controlled driver?s seat.
Front and rear HVAC controls are a plus the Ford enjoys over the Toyotas.
Instruments, centerstack and 8-inch touch screen in our SEL model are all well laid out within a sculpted, multi-plane surfaces as contemporary as they come in this segment. They add up to an aesthetically pleasing quasi cockpit-like feel behind a long dash area reaching to the base of the windshield.
Both the SE and SEL trim packages come at least with the useful and effective dual-LCD next-generation SmartGauge with EcoGuide. This has customizable screens to show energy usage, source, and features including Efficiency Coach and Brake Coach.
The SEL is upgraded with SYNC with MyFord Touch, an agnostic interface that allows you to plug in your device of choice to operate on the 8-inch touch screen which, like the main instruments, is nicely hooded to minimize sun glare.
Among optionally available features on our SEL were navigation and voice commands, and connectivity is replete with 12-volt sockets, dual USB plugs, SD card slot for navigation, and coaxial plugs for a video game to be played on the screen if desired.
All controls are within easy reach, and the steering wheel has multi-function buttons that can be learned intuitively by someone only half tech-savvy along with controls for cruise control and phone.
Quality of materials is good in all, with soft-touch vinyl strategically placed on front door panels, dash, with matching harder plastic in back. Some may find the quality of some of the materials to hold an edge over the Toyotas.
Fit and finish for the car put together at the cavernous Michigan Assembly Plant are very good inside as it is also for the rest of the car.
Our SEL included thoughtfully placed ambient lighting in places like the foot wells and door handles. As a whole, the car is quite functional offering many features that only a decade or so ago would have been broaching on luxurious, if not outright not available.
On The Road
Our SEL had pushbutton start, and quietly defaults to EV mode unless accessories demand gas-engine power.
It will drive up to 62 mph in EV mode, maybe a bit faster, but putting your foot down will kick on the gas engine. That said, it?s more likely to stay in EV than the Prii.
The C-Max is quick for being such a heavy car. Various 0-60 mph runs have been made with results ranging from 7.05 seconds to mid 8s with quarter mile time of as low as 15.5 seconds at 92 mph.
This shows how cars have come a long way. Want some perspective? Ford?s new eco car might run with a 1991 Mustang GT with 5.0-liter engine, which records show was good for 7.2 seconds to 60 mph and 15.6 in the quarter.
Comfort-wise, the electronically controlled driver?s seat is sufficiently supportive with decent, non-adjustable lumbar support. Legroom front and rear is sufficient if not ample for an average span of body sizes.
The middle back row may crunch some with longer legs depending on how far back the front seats are adjusted.
Cornering manners are respectable for the four-wheel independent suspension, and combined with the wider tires, brisk back country driving can be more rewarding than with the Toyotas.
The eCVT ? as is typical for CVTs ? does not produce music to the ears of driving enthusiasts accustomed to the up and down melody of a standard car?s exhaust note.
Braking action feels controlled and the Brake Coach encourages best behaviors, but hard stops are no cause for more than the usual level of concern.
Bumps in the road are taken up pretty well. On rough highways, the car did pogo the driver in the seat a few times, but compliance is on par with other cars in this class overall.
Mileage
As for that all-important mpg, we did a few tests, and averaged 36.8 mpg on one, 40.3 on another and 41.13 on another, and never did we measure higher than 42 mpg.
Want a possible explanation?
If you noticed, in this review we mentioned: 1) the engine is bigger than the Toyotas?, 2) the tires which create rolling resistance are wider, 3) aerodynamics for the wider, taller car are less efficient by a notch, 4) curb weight is the heaviest of all.
On paper, it is very difficult to see how the C-Max would usurp the Prius v with all driving conditions being equal. Engineering efficiencies in the powertrain must overcome an inherent set of disadvantages working against fuel economy.
That said, we?ve pushed the Prii on various occasions only to see them not meet their advertised mpg targets either.
Overall, it is easier for a careful driver to make the grade in the Toyotas, but it?s probably not impossible in the Ford.
Ford also says mileage should get better once it?s fully broken in. Our car had around 6,200 miles (10,000 km) on the odometer when received from Ford?s media pool, which means it is pretty well broken in, but might have further to go.
Ford vs. Toyota
If you?re wondering, we could have considered other competitors, but the two Toyotas we?ve been comparing are most like the C-Max, and Ford knows this having spent millions on ads pointing out the differences.
The Ford C-Max SE starts at a base price of $25,200 and the SEL starts at $28,365.
The Prius Liftback Grade Two is the base level among five trim packages available, and starts at $24,200. The Prius v Grade Two is the base among three possible trim levels and starts at $26,650.
Next to a Prius Liftback.
Specifying options above this will naturally shift the variables, but what about those operational costs?
Hypothetically if you only managed to get 39 mpg in a C-Max, and assuming the Prii did make their EPA numbers, that would mean at 15,000 miles per year you?d burn roughly 384 gallons in the Ford, 357 gallons in the Prius v, and 300 gallons in the Prius Liftback.
Now, take the difference and multiply it by your price of gas. Assuming an average of $3.50 per gallon, driving the Ford would cost $94.50 more annually than for the Prius v, and $294 more than the Prius Liftback. At $4 per gallon, it rises to $108 more than the Prius v, and $336 more than the Liftback.
Further, if the C-Max only got 39 mpg, but is advertised at 47 mpg, the extra cost per year would be $227 at $3.50 per gallon, and $260 per year for $4.
If you liked the Ford equally to the Prius v, and the Toyota cost $1,450 more, it would take several years to burn $1,450 in excess fuel consumption in the Ford even if it only got 39 mpg, and assuming fuel prices will rise.
Of course, as Ford has pointed out, you may meet the 47 mpg number, in which case our above scenarios are void, but we?re just putting these out there to get the mental wheels rolling.
Beyond mpg questions, the U.S.-built Ford is nicely appointed inside and avoids the uber-greencar look inside and out if that?s of value to you. It is more sporty, faster, more solidly handling, with more usable space than the Liftback, but less than the v.
The Ford is loaded also with technology ? especially if you upgrade to the SEL ? and these must be compared and contrasted as well.
Thanks to Baldwin?s Book Barn, West Chester, Pa., for letting us shoot the video with this backdrop.
Unknown is the C-Max Hybrid?s long-term reliability record, and here Toyotas? head start is worth considering.
In sum, assuming the C-Max Hybrid proves durable, even if it does have a tougher time meeting EPA numbers, it may still be worth it depending on one?s preferences, but this may not be a black-and-white decision.
The C-Max Hybrid we drove is a bright Candy Blue. It pops in the photos, but Ford?s new hybrid offers pros and cons that ? when compared to the competition ? blur the value presentation picture with shades of gray.
TPM LIVEWIRE | The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday continued an extensive markup session on the so-called Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, considering whether to tack on hundreds of proposed amendments.
One such amendment, put forth by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), would restrict the legal flow of future low-skilled immigrants to the country because of Sessions? concern that they would depress wages and threaten employment for U.S. citizens. Conservative firebrand and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who staunchly opposes the immigration bill and often characterizes it as amnesty, spoke up in opposition to the measure.
?I intend to vote no on this amendment,? Cruz said. ?The reason is I think legal immigration is a fundamental pillar of our country. I regret this committee voted last week down each of the amendments that would have put real teeth in the border security provisions and would have made the ? what have gone a long way to making the borders secure. I am an advocate of legal immigration.?
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ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - BlackBerry announced plans on Tuesday to offer its popular instant messaging system on rival devices and introduced a new mid-tier smartphone targeted at countries where its faded brand remains strong.
Tapping into its still robust popularity outside North America, BlackBerry said the new Q5 smartphone would be available starting in July in selected markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The Q5 includes the tiny qwerty keyboard that still sets BlackBerry apart from most rivals.
It gave no prices, but as BlackBerry opens the latest chapter of its turnaround attempt, it will clearly target a younger, more price-sensitive crowd with the device, which will be available in colors including pink, red and white.
"BlackBerry is clearly aiming to replicate the success of the BlackBerry Curve in emerging markets," Ovum analyst Adam Leach said, referring to the company's Curve smartphone, which has been popular in India and other developing countries.
But other manufacturers are also seeking a foothold in those markets with low-cost devices, Leach noted.
BlackBerry, under its old name Research In Motion, virtually invented the concept of on-your-hip email with a series of blocky devices with tiny thumb-operated keyboards.
But in recent years it has bled market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co's popular line of Galaxy devices powered by Google's Android operating system, forcing it into big job cuts and a huge rethink of its products and priorities.
"You know it hasn't been that easy and you also know there is still a lot of work to do, but man, we have reached solid ground with this company," Heins told delegates at the BlackBerry Live conference in Orlando, Florida.
To those who ask if the company can survive the drastic changes he brought in, Heins said: "We are not only still here, we are firing on all cylinders as a company."
Shares in BlackBerry were about 4 percent lower early on Tuesday afternoon as analysts wondered what the Q5's price tag would be. They also questioned if the move to open up BBM, as the BlackBerry Messaging service is popularly known, was too little, too late.
Former co-CEO Jim Balsillie had sought to offer BBM on iPhones and other rivals in a broad strategy shift before he was overruled. He cut all ties to the company early last year.
Heins said BlackBerry Messaging will be offered free of charge to consumers using rival phones.
"This is such a great experience, it is just too good to keep it only to ourselves. It's time to bring BBM to a greater audience," he said, noting that BBM is used for 10 billion messages a day.
BlackBerry long relied on BBM to keep customers tied to its own devices, so the shift recognizes a new reality where many customers have already fled.
"The guy on the iPhone is gone already, he's lost," said Colin Gillis, a technology analyst at BGC Partners in New York. "The point is the guy on the BlackBerry can at least now talk to his friends."
Once a unique tool to send messages without running up SMS charges, BBM now competes with mobile instant messaging products from Facebook, Apple and others, and less directly with the micro-blogging service Twitter.
Heins said he is confident that BlackBerry can offer the service more broadly without losing its own customers.
BlackBerry has gambled its future on new devices using its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, and Heins said the two new BB10 smartphones that BlackBerry has already started selling have given it its most successful launch year.
The touchscreen Z10 device is now available in many countries, including the United States, and Heins said the keyboard Q10 phone will be launched in the United States next month.
BlackBerry's volatile shares were down 3.7 percent at $15.29 in New York early on Tuesday afternoon.
(Writing by Janet Guttsman, additional reporting and writing by Alastair Sharp in Toronto; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Peter Galloway)
May 13, 2013 ? The tiniest bones in the human body -- the bones of the middle ear -- could provide huge clues about our evolution and the development of modern-day humans, according to a study by a team of researchers that include a Texas A&M University anthropologist.
Darryl de Ruiter, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and colleagues from Binghamton University (the State University of New York) and researchers from Spain and Italy have published their work in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science).
The team examined the skull of a hominin believed to be about 1.9 million years old and found in a cave called Swartkrans, in South Africa. Of particular interest to the team were bones found in the middle ear, especially one called the malleus. It and the other ear bones -- the incus and the stapes -- together show a mixture of ape-like and human-like features, and represent the first time all three bones have been found together in one skull.
The malleus appears to be very human-like, the findings show, while the incus and stapes resemble those of a more chimpanzee-like, or ape-like creature. Since both modern humans and our early ancestors share this human-like malleus, the changes in this bone must have occurred very early in our evolutionary history.
"The discovery is important for two reasons," de Ruiter explains.
"First, ear ossicles are fully formed and adult-sized at birth, and they do not undergo any type of anatomical change in an individual lifetime. Thus, they are a very close representation of genetic expression. Second, these bones show that their hearing ability was different from that of humans -- not necessarily better or worse, but certainly different.
"They are among the rarest of fossils that can be recovered," de Ruiter adds.
"Bipedalism (walking on two feet) and a reduction in the size of the canine teeth have long been held to be 'hallmarks of humanity' since they seem to be present in the earliest human fossils recovered to date. Our study suggests that the list may need to be updated to include changes in the malleus as well."
de Ruiter recently authored a series of papers in Science magazine that demonstrate the intermediate nature of the closely related species, Australopithecus sediba, and provide strong support that this species lies rather close to the ancestry of Homo sapiens. The current study could yield additional new clues to human development and answer key questions of the evolution of the human lineage.
The team's research was funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, and by the Ray A. Rothrock Fellowship at Texas A&M.
VIENNA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iran faces international pressure in two separate meetings over its nuclear program on Wednesday, but with the Islamic state focused more on a June presidential election no breakthrough is expected in the dispute.
In Vienna, the U.N. nuclear agency will once again urge Iran to stop stonewalling its investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Tehran, which denies any intent to make such weapons. The talks are due to start around 10 a.m. (0400 ET).
Later over dinner in Istanbul, the European Union's top diplomat will meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator - also now a presidential candidate - to discuss a broader diplomatic bid to resolve a row that could trigger a new war in the Middle East.
The two sets of talks represent distinct diplomatic tracks but are linked because both center on suspicions that Iran may be seeking to develop the capability to assemble nuclear weapons behind the facade of a declared civilian atomic energy program.
Any movement in the decade-old standoff will probably have to wait until after Iran's unpredictable June 14 election to choose a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, analysts and diplomats say.
Even though it is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who decides Iran's nuclear policy, the conservative leadership may want to tread cautiously ahead of a vote in which loyalists will be challenged by two major independents.
With the election coming up, "the Iranians will do everything to keep everything stable," one Western envoy said.
Baqer Moin, an Iran expert based in London, said: "The supreme leader is not the only decision-maker ... Iran cannot make any final decision now."
SPECTRE OF MILITARY ACTION
Israel and the United States have warned of possible military action against Iran if diplomacy and increasingly tough trade and energy sanctions fail to make it curb its nuclear programme.
Tehran says it is a purely peaceful project to generate electricity and that it is Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, that threatens peace and stability in the region.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has been trying for more than a year to coax Iran into allowing it to resume an inquiry into what the U.N. watchdog describes as the "possible military dimensions" to Tehran's nuclear programme.
Wednesday's talks in Vienna will be the 10th round of negotiations between the two sides since early 2012, so far without an agreement that would give the IAEA the access to sites, officials and documents it says it needs.
Iran's IAEA envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said this week he expected progress to be made in the discussions. But Western diplomats voiced pessimism.
The Istanbul meeting between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents six world powers, and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili follows a failed round of big power diplomacy in Kazakhstan in early April.
The gap is wide: the powers want Iran to suspend its most sensitive nuclear activity. Iran wants them to recognize its "right" to refine uranium - which can have both civilian and military purposes - and an end to tough economic sanctions.
(Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
