A China-based supercomputer has leapfrogged rivals to be named the world's most powerful system.
Tianhe-2, developed by the government-run National University of Defence Technology, topped the latest list of the fastest 500 supercomputers, by a team of international researchers.
They said the news was a "surprise" since the system had not been expected to be ready until 2015.
China last held the top rank between November 2010 and June 2011.
According to the list, the US has the world's second and third fastest supercomputers, Titan and Sequoia, while Japan's K computer drops to fourth spot.
Continue reading the main story
Fastest supercomputers
1. Tianhe-2 (China)
2. Titan (US)
3. Sequoia (US)
4. K computer (Japan)
5. Mira (US)
6. Stampede (US)
7. Juqueen (Germany)
8. Vulcan (US)
9. SuperMuc (Germany)
10. Tianhe-1A (China)
The latest version of the twice-yearly list - which is overseen by Hans Meuer, professor of computer science at the University of Mannheim - was published to coincide with the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig, Germany.
Unique features
According to the Linpack benchmark, Tianhe-2 - meaning Milky Way-2 - operates at 33.86 petaflop/sec, the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second.
The benchmark measures real-world performance - but in theory the machine can boost that to a "peak performance" of 54.9 petaflop/sec.
The project was sponsored by the Chinese government's 863 High Technology Programme - an effort to make the country's hi-tech industries more competitive and less dependent on overseas rivals.
It has said it intends to install the equipment at the National Supercomputer Centre in Guangzhou, based in the country's south-eastern Guandong province, where it will be offered as a "research and education" resource to southern China.
The machine uses a total of 3.12 million processor cores, using Intel's Ivy Bridge and Xeon Phi chips to carry out its calculations.
However, the University of Tennessee's Jack Dongarra - a member of the Top 500 list team who visited the project in May - noted that many of its features were developed in China and are unique. These include:
A custom-built interconnection network, which routes data across the system
The inclusion of 4,096 Galaxy FT-1500 CPUs (central processing units) designed by the university - these have been installed to handle specific weather-forecasting and national-defence applications and are not included in the headline performance figures
The use of the Kylin operating system - this Linux-based OS is named after a mythical beast known as the "Chinese unicorn", and was designed by the university to be a high-security option for users in government, defence, energy, aerospace and other critical industries
On paper the Tianhe-2's performance is nearly double that of the next computer on the list.
Titan, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, clocks 17.59 petaflop/sec of performance, according to the Linpack benchmark, and a theoretical peak of 27.11 petaflop/sec.
Mr Dongarra noted that the US government is not expected to acquire another supercomputer until 2015.
Japan's Fujitsu-built K computer - which displaced China's Tianhe-1 as the world's fastest supercomputer - now comes in fourth on the Top 500 list with a Linpack benchmark performance of 10.51 petaflop/sec.
According to the survey's editors, China now accounts for 66 of the list's fastest computers, which is actually a fall from six months ago when it had 72 in the list.
The US dominates the survey with 252 systems, Japan has 30, the UK has 29, France has 23 and Germany has 19.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A solar-powered plane nearing the finale of a cross-continental journey landed at Dulles International Airport outside the nation's capital early Sunday, with only a last leg to New York remaining.
Solar Impulse's website said the aircraft with its massive wings and thousands of photovoltaic cells "gracefully touched down" at 12:15 a.m. EDT after 14 hours and four minutes of flight from Cincinnati to Dulles in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs.
Pilot Bertrand Piccard was at the controls for the last time on the multi-leg journey that began in California in May. His colleague, Andre Borschberg, is expected to fly the last leg from Washington to New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport in early July, the web site added.
It's the first bid by a solar plane capable of being airborne day and night without fuel to fly across the U.S, at speeds reaching about 40 mph. The plane began May 3 in San Francisco, flying via Arizona, Texas, Missouri and Ohio on to Dulles.
Organizers said in a blog post early Sunday that Piccard hopscotched over the Appalachian mountain chain on a 435-mile (700-kilometer) course from Cincinnati to the Washington area, averaging 31 mph (50 kph). It was the second stint of a final leg that began in St. Louis.
The plane, considered the world's most advanced sun-powered aircraft, is powered by about 12,000 photovoltaic cells that cover its enormous wings and charge its batteries during the day.
The single-seat Solar Impulse flies around 40 mph and can't go through clouds; weighing about as much as a car, the aircraft also took longer than a car to complete the journey from Ohio to the East Coast.
The plane also is vulnerable to bad weather.
Organizers said fog at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport was a concern that required the ground crew's attention before takeoff just after 10 a.m. Saturday. The crew gave the plane a gentle wipe-down with cloths because of condensation that had formed on the wings.
"The solar airplane was in great shape despite the quasi-shower it experienced" before takeoff from Cincinnati, the web site said.
Washington was the first East Coast stop before the final leg to New York expected in early July.
Organizers said the leg to the nation's capital was an emotional one for Piccard as it was his last on the cross-country flying mission he shared with Borschberg.
At each stop along the way, the plane has stayed several days, wowing visitors. Organizers said a public viewing of the aircraft would be held for several hours Sunday afternoon at Dulles.
As the plane's creators, Piccard and Borschberg, have said their trip is the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across America. They also called it another aviation milestone in hopes that the journey would whet greater interest in clean technologies and renewable energy.
Piccard and Borschberg have said the project's ultimate goal is to fly a sun-powered aircraft around the world with a second-generation plane now in development. They say they are aiming for such a mission in 2015.
MILAN (AP) ? Daniel Barenboim is conducting the first week-long presentation of Wagner's Ring cycle at La Scala since 1938.
"Der Ring des Nibelungen," which begins with "Das Rheingold" on Monday, is part of the opera house's yearlong celebration of the bicentennial of the births of composers Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.
The operas feature Rene Pape, Michael Volle, Simon O'Neill, Waltraud Meier, Ian Storey, Marina Poplavskaya and Ekaterina Gubanova .
The cycle is a co-production of La Scala and the Berlin Staatsoper production with staging by Guy Cassiers. It was performed in its entirety in Berlin this spring, and will be reprised next week in Milan.
The last time the Ring was performed in a single week at La Scala was 1938 with conductor Clemens Krauss with the Munich State Opera.
ISTANBUL (AP) ? Bulldozers cleared all that was left of a two-week sit-in in an Istanbul park and police sealed off the area early Sunday, keeping angry demonstrators from returning to a spot that has become the focus of the strongest challenge to the prime minister in his 10 years in office.
Protesters set up barricades and plumes of tear gas rose in Istanbul's streets into the early hours after Turkish riot police rousted a group who had vowed to stay in Gezi Park despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's warnings to leave.
As dusk fell Saturday, hundreds of white-helmeted riot police swept through the park and adjacent Taksim Square, firing canisters of the acrid, stinging gas. Thousands of peaceful protesters, choking on the fumes and stumbling among the tents, put up little physical resistance.
The protests began as an environmental sit-in to prevent a development project at Gezi Park, but have quickly spread to dozens of cities and spiraled into a broader expression of discontent about what many say is Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian decision-making. He vehemently denies the charge, pointing to the strong support base that helped him win third consecutive term with 50 percent of the vote in 2011.
As police cleared the square, many ran into nearby hotels for shelter. A stand-off developed at a luxury hotel on the edge of the park, where police opened up with water cannons against protesters and journalists outside before throwing tear gas at the entrance, filling the lobby with white smoke. At other hotels, plain-clothes policemen turned up outside, demanding the protesters come out.
Some protesters ran off into nearby streets, setting up makeshift barricades and running from water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.
As news of the raid broke, thousands of people from other parts of Istanbul gathered and were attempting to reach Taksim. Television showed footage of riot police firing tear gas on a highway and bridge across the Bosphorus to prevent protesters from heading to the area.
As the tear gas settled, bulldozers moved into the park, scooping up debris and loading it into trucks. Crews of workmen in fluorescent yellow vests and plain-clothes police went through the abandoned belongings, opening bags and searching their contents before tearing down the tents, food centers and library the protesters had set up in what had become a bustling tent city.
Demonstrations also erupted in other cities. In Ankara, at least 3,000 people swarmed into John F. Kennedy street, where opposition party legislators sat down at the front of the crowd facing the riot police ? not far from Parliament. In Izmir, thousands converged at a seafront square.
Near Gezi, ambulances ferried the injured to hospitals as police set up cordons and roadblocks around the park, preventing anyone from getting close.
Tayfun Kahraman, a member of Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella group of protest movements, said an untold number of people in the park had been injured ? some from rubber bullets.
"Let them keep the park, we don't care anymore. Let it all be theirs. This crackdown has to stop. The people are in a terrible state," he told The Associated Press by phone.
Taksim Solidarity, on its Web site, called the incursion "atrocious" and counted hundreds of injured ? which it called a provisional estimate ? as well as an undetermined number of arrests. Istanbul governor's office said at least 44 people were taken to hospitals for treatment. None of them were in serious condition, it said in a statement.
Huseyin Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, told NTV that the sit-in had to end.
"They had made their voice heard ... Our government could not have allowed such an occupation to go on until the end," he said.
It was a violent police raid on May 31 against a small sit-in in Gezi Park that sparked the initial outrage and spiraled into a much broader protest. While those in the park have now fled, it was unclear whether they would take their movement to other places, or try to return to the park at a later time.
The protests, which left at least four people dead and more than 5,000 injured, have dented Erdogan's international reputation and infuriated him with a previously unseen defiance to his rule.
Saturday's raid came less than two hours after Erdogan threatened protesters in a boisterous speech in Sincan, an Ankara suburb that is a stronghold of his party.
"I say this very clearly: either Taksim Square is cleared, or if it isn't cleared then the security forces of this country will know how to clear it," he told tens of thousands of supporters at a political rally.
A second pro-government rally is planned in Istanbul on Sunday.
According to the government's redevelopment plan for Taksim Square that caused the sit-in, the park would be replaced with a replica Ottoman-era barracks. Under initial plans, the construction would have housed a shopping mall, though that has since been amended to the possibility of an opera house, a theater and a museum with cafes.
On Friday, Erdogan offered to defer to a court ruling on the legality of the government's contested park redevelopment plan, and floated the possibility of a referendum on it.
___
Fraser reported from Ankara. Jamey Keaten in Ankara contributed to this report.
You could hardly be blamed for thinking that with the popularity of Instagram, competing camera apps would have shriveled and died. It's true that the filter-and-share app dominates, but an army of others soldier on. Koloid (99 cents, iOS), is unique in that you have to spread "developer" fluid across your image by moving your phone. The results are unique, and unlike anything you can get with other camera apps.
Just about every app has the same photo-taking experience: point, shoot, add filters, share. Sometimes, you might import an older photo from your camera roll. Koloid is different, demanding as the aptly named developer (pun?) "19TH CENTURY APPS SP Z O O" suggests, a more 19th century approach.
A Developing Story The first screen you arrive on is the viewfinder, which resembles a plate-glass negative from back in the day. The view is locked in portrait orientation, so don't try flipping your iPhone on its side for a wider photo. However, you can switch to a more Instagram-compliant square format from the settings menu.
Take a photo by tapping the camera button at the bottom of the screen. Fans of using the volume button to take a photo are out of luck. Next, select how much virtual collodion developer fluid you want to use. Less fluid covers less space and can leave a ghostly effect on photos. More fluid develops faster, but can overdevelop some areas and even burn the image black.
Shake your phone to deploy the fluid, and then move the collodion around the screen by tilting the phone. This may seem dumb and gimmicky (it?s at the very least gimmicky), but you can get some neat effects that aren't really possible in apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram that are based solely on filters. You can burn out some areas or leave sections undeveloped. It's tricky, made all the trickier by the lugubrious movement of the collodion.
When you?re done, press the Ready button and you'll be presented with the final version of your photo. All the streaks and burns are present in the black-and-white image, but I was disappointed that the image seemed clearer and had more contrast than the one I had been developing. Perhaps that's the result of a digital dip in water to get the collodion off, but it still seems odd. The app sticks very true to its gimmick, sorry, concept, in most other ways?like not allowing you to re-edit pictures?that I wish the final image was exactly the one I developed.
Sharing and Storing Koloid has its own little gallery built right into the app, though it will save to your camera roll, too. Note that unlike Instagram, it doesn't save a copy of the raw, un-developed image.
You can share directly to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Instagram from within Koloid. You can also export images directly from Koloid via email and text message. Unlike Flickr and Instagram, Koloid is just a camera toy; there's no website or larger social service backing it up.
Ready to Develop? Koloid is fun, and I'm already looking forward to my Instagram friends asking me how I got the effects on my images. It doesn't have a lot of depth, but it delivers on what it promises and the price is reasonable.
I would like to see Koloid loosen up a bit and allow me to import photos from my camera roll, and allow landscape-oriented photos. Just because we're playing at the 1890s, doesn't mean we can't do better.
Koloid needs a little more time to develop (definitely a pun), but it's a fun, cheap addition to your digital camera bag.
Advanced system of high-altitude balloons delivering 3G-like speeds to rural areas
The latest project to come out of Google may seem like an April Fool's joke at first, but Google is serious when it says it intends to launch an internet delivery service based on high-altitude balloons. Known now as "Project Loon" and coming out of the research arm of the company, Google[x], the initiative is taking off (so to speak) out of the need for better internet access in many parts of the world. As it explains in its official blog post about the project, 2 out of every 3 people in the world still don't have reliable access to the internet, leaving many large swaths of the world in the past.
Rather than try to bring traditional wireline or satellite internet into these areas, which can be quite costly, with Project Loon Google plans to set up a system of free-floating high-altitude balloons to create a network with a wider reach. In its preliminary testing Google says it can create networks that have speeds comparable to today's 3G networks -- an impressive feat considering these balloons are flying twice as high as commercial airplanes.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? Christmas may be six-plus months away, but it's already on the minds of Gov. Rick Perry and many in the Texas Legislature.
Perry signed a bipartisan bill into law Thursday that removing any legal risks for anyone who says "Merry Christmas" in a Texas public school. He said "religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion."
Traditional holiday symbols such as a menorah or nativity scene also are protected, as long as more than one religion and a secular symbol are also reflected.
The measure's sponsor, Houston Republican Rep. Dwayne Bohac, says it will provide schools cover from "ridiculous" lawsuits sparked by excessive political correctness.
Bohac's bill sailed through both chambers to Perry's desk.
About 10 Santa Claus impersonators rang sleigh bells as he signed it.
The Daily Dot - 9 Things (other Than Waffles) Redditors Want From The Mayor Of L.A.
www.dailydot.com:
With such a sprawling mass of neighborhoods, communities and, of course, traffic, Los Angeles has many disparate problems to address and only one mayor to oversee them,
To hear from citizens and find out what they want to change about the city, mayor-elect Eric Garcetti took to Reddit to get the community's ideas for a better city.?
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Pope Francis waded diplomatically into the gay marriage debate Friday, telling the Archbishop of Canterbury he wants to work together to promote family values "based on marriage."
Francis, who vigorously opposed gay marriage in his native Argentina, and Archbishop Justin Welby chatted, prayed and had lunch together at the Vatican in their first encounter since both were installed in March.
Welby, the spiritual leader of the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion, has opposed legislation in Britain that would legalize gay marriage, saying it would undermine family life.
He appeared last week before the House of Lords before it moved the gay marriage bill a step closer to becoming law. The legislation would enable gay couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies in England and Wales.
In his remarks to Welby, Francis said he hoped they could collaborate in promoting the sacredness of life "and the stability of families founded on marriage." He noted that Welby had recently spoken out on the issue, a reference to his House of Lords testimony.
Significantly, though, Francis didn't say that marriage should be based on a union between a man and woman, which is how Benedict XVI and John Paul II routinely defined marriage.
Vatican officials said it was a diplomatic attempt to make his point without making a provocative pronouncement. Francis has steered clear of the gay marriage debate as it has recently roiled France and Britain, and in general has refrained from making headline-grabbing comments on hot-button current events.
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, however, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio didn't shy away from voicing strong opposition to gay marriage, though he was pragmatic in sensing Argentina was heading in that direction.
Realizing the church couldn't win the fight outright, Bergoglio urged his fellow Argentine bishops to lobby for gay civil unions instead, according to the then-cardinal's authorized biographer. The bishops shot down the proposal and the church lost the issue altogether when the South American nation legalized gay marriage in 2010 ? the first country in the region to do so.
Bergoglio once called gay marriage an "anthropological step backward."
"If there's a private union, then third parties and society aren't affected," he wrote. "But if they're granted marriage rights and can adopt, there could be children affected. Every person needs a masculine father and a feminine mother to help them settle their identity."
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Gamma Delphinids: A rare meteor shower not seen since 1930 is expected to burst onto our skies late Tuesday night. When and where to watch the gamma Delphinds
By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 11, 2013
A meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Geminid meteor shower Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012, near Lafayette, Ind. .
Michael Heinz/Journal & Courier/AP Photo
Enlarge
In 1930, when the era of jazz and jewels was ending, to be replaced with much harder times, two astronomers in Maryland looked up. That night, they saw something extraordinary: not just one "shooting star," but countless.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
The meteor shower they saw that June night became known as the gamma Delphinids, after the Delphinids (?Dolphin?) constellation from which the meteors came. It has not been seen since.
But scientists now say that the elusive gamma Delphinds may again leap across the skies early Wednesday morning.
?A scarcely known meteor shower, the gamma Delphinids, is expected to return to the skies over Earth in early June 2013,? NASA said. ?The shower was first observed as an outburst by American observers in Maryland on June 11 1930. Only a few meteors from this shower are thought to have been seen in the decades since, and those identifications are tenuous.?
Astronomers Peter Jenniskens and Esko Lyytinen have predicted that Earth will be in the same region of its orbit on Wednesday morning as it was that summer night some 83 years ago, putting the ready-made wishes again within our view.
The showers are expected to be visible on the East Coast at about 4:30 am EDT, though the shooting stars could arrive as early as 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night, when the constellation Dephinids rises in the eastern sky, according to NASA. From 11 p.m. - 3 a.m. EDT, Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office will host a live chat on NASA?s website with a live Ustream telescope view of the skies over Huntsville, Ala.
The gamma Delphinids are expected to be unusually fast-moving meteors, swishing across the skies at a speed of 127,500 miles per hour. But the American Meter Society suggests that you'll need a comfortable chair, as these meteors are expected to be flicking over the Earth at about two minutes apart. The Society also notes that the shooting stars could be visible for only about fifteen minutes to an hour ? if they come at all.
Yes, there's a catch. It?s not certain that what the astronomers in Maryland saw that night in 1930 was, in fact, a meteor shower. The light from a full moon that night should have obscured any view of the shower, and no other sightings were reported to confirm the astronomers? report. Some astronomers have since disputed the very existence of the gamma Delphinids.
We won't know for sure until tonight. Either way, who can blame those Great Depression astronomers for wanting something cosmic to wish upon?
Lenovo may be better known in India for its PCs, but the company has also had a presence in select markets when it comes to smartphones. All that could soon change as two more distribution partners have been snapped up by Lenovo to bolster the company's chances in the smartphone market. At the same time, it has also launched six smartphones in all segments, with the K900 positioned at the top of the tree. Let?s take a look at the key specifications of the phone.
OS ? Android 4.2 Jelly Bean It?s hard to tell that it?s Android running underneath Lenovo?s custom UI, so different is the look. Although navigation is just the same as on any Android phone, there are very stark differences in icons, fonts, menus and pretty much everything on the phone. One could say Lenovo was inspired by the look of MIUI, a popular aftermarket custom ROM. The rounded icons, the notification toggles and the settings pages all mirror MIUI. The end result is slightly disappointing. The icons look cartoonish and the animations in the app drawer as well as on the homescreen are a bit too dramatic for our tastes. It is quite the opposite of the steely exterior. We were pleased to note, however, that performance was not affected in any manner and things ran just as smoothly as they would if stock Android were on show.
Cellular connectivity ? 3G (HSPA+) Unlike the other five phones announced by Lenovo, the K900 does not have two SIM slots. It brings support for 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz bands for WCDMA (3G/HSPA+) and 850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands for 2G. Downlink speed is capped off at 42Mbps and uplink speed at 11Mbps. Considering 4G connectivity is very nascent in India, K900 is on par with the competition in terms of cellular connectivity.
Display ? 5.5-inch full HD IPS display The massive display panel on the K900 is quite stunning. The display has a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which means a pixel density of about 400 ppi. As we said in our first impressions of the smartphone, colours are reproduced very well and the viewing angles are great. Video content looks stunning on the large display, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 2, so it shouldn?t ideally be scratched in your pocket.
Display has very good viewing angles
?
Form factor ? Stainless steel unibody construction The K900 is one mean looking phone and we were quite impressed with the build quality of the phone. The phone is just 6.9 mm thin and has a stainless steel and polycarbonate unibody construction that feels good in the hand, if a little cold. Despite the tank-like build quality, the phone isn?t all that heavy at 162 g. If anything could have been changed, we would have liked to see the height of the phone reduced. There?s too much bezel above and below the display, which could have been reduced marginally for a better fit.
Wi-Fi ? The usual suspects The K900 brings support for Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n standards and as is the norm for Android phones, it comes with support for Wi-Fi hotspot as well. Thanks to the Intel processor, users can make use of the Wireless Display (WiDi) to share content on a second screen on the same Wi-Fi network.
SoC ? Intel Atom Z2580 dual-core Lenovo has chosen to go with Intel?s Atom Z2580 dual-core processor instead of any other competing quad-core chipset. The reason, the company told us, was to maintain a healthy price to performance ratio. Along with the 2GHz processor, the K900 has Intel?s GMA graphics processor clocked at 533Mhz. This combination performed admirably in our brief time with the device. The 2GB of RAM also helps in keeping the phone running lagfree.
Great for watching videos
?
Primary camera ? 13 megapixel with BSI sensor The K900 has a Sony-supplied 13 megapixel camera with the Japanese company?s Exmor BSI Sensor. In addition, the lens on the camera has an f/1.8 aperture, which helps in capturing a lot more light and detail. In addition, low-light shots are helped by the presence of a dual-LED flash.
Front-facing camera ? 2 mgeapixel with wide-angle lens The 2 megapixel front-facing camera on the K900 does a decent job with self-shots, but the 88-degree wide-angle lens allows for a wider view, which means you can attend video calls with your friends or family in the background and won't have to keep shuffling the phone to get them in the frame.
13 megapixel camera
?
GPS In this day and age, a leading smartphone without GLONASS support sticks out like a sore thumb, and surprisingly, Lenovo has skipped this feature under the GPS column. While it?s not going to affect location lock times that much significantly, it?s still a must-have feature according to us.
Battery Lenovo has included a 2500 mAh battery pack in the K900. Given the massive full HD display and the infamous power management of the Intel chipset, we are a bit sceptical about long usage away from a power socket. The company has quoted a talk time of 15 hours on 2G networks and 12 hours on 3G, along with 300 hours of standby time. While we have our reasons to doubt this figure, we think the phone should last anywhere between 10-12 hours on moderate usage. That?s good enough for a day at work.
Stainless steel construction
?
The bottom line Given the K900?s price of Rs 32,999, we think Lenovo has a winner on its hand if the phone is marketed well. We have seen large screen phones doing well in India and the 5.5-inch full HD display is certainly an attractive proposition. We expect the price of the device to fall in the months following its launch. Currently, smartphones with full HD displays are selling well north of the Lenovo K900?s price, but can the company manage to score over Samsung and HTC just based on price? We don?t think so, but only once the phones are launched in the market will we find out.
Another worrying aspect for Lenovo could be the new 1080p display-clad Indian smartphones (WickedLeak Wammy Passion Z, being one example) that have already hit the market. There will definitely be more such phones launched, which will undercut the K900?s price. This is where the combination of high-quality stainless steel unibody construction, the 13 megapixel BSI sensor-equipped camera and the snappy Intel processor has to shine through, or else Lenovo could have a failure on its hands.
2009 was such an innocent time. Barack Obama was in the White House, we were all enjoying the latest Star Trek movie and the world's browser usage left a bit to be desired. So much has changed in those intervening years -- enough to cause Google's engineering team to put Chrome Frame out to pasture. Introduced way back in those heady days of the late aughts, the plug-in was intended to help devs bring the latest web-based technologies to users still rocking ancient versions of Internet Explorer. Thanks to a decline in the usage of old browsers, as well as browser auto-updating, Google's retiring Frame in January of next year, ending support and updates for the service. Those still clinging to old browsers will see a prompt to upgrade to something newer in the place of the old Frame redirect.
The Kremlin reportedly gives Russia Today about $300 million annually. The satellite channel?finds the decline of the West lurking in almost every daily headline.
By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / June 12, 2013
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his visit to the new studio complex of television channel 'Russia Today' in Moscow, Tuesday.
Yuri Kochetkov/Reuters
Enlarge
President Vladimir Putin has given his second exclusive interview in less than a year to the state funded English-language satellite network Russia Today, which prefers to be called RT, in a clear sign that the Kremlin views the broadcaster as a key medium for getting its opinions across to the world.?
Skip to next paragraph Fred Weir
Correspondent
Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.?
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
In his opening remarks, Mr. Putin praised RT, which he said had been created to "end the monopoly of Anglo-Saxon media" in the world. There appears little doubt that Putin believes the network really does reach over 630-million people in over 100 countries ??as it claims to do?? and that such exclusive chats with the Russian president will help further boost its reach.?
Over an almost two hour chat, with most of RT's top staff seated around a long table, he went on to paint the Kremlin's alternative view of global affairs, in which a beleaguered Russia wages a lonely battle for principle and common sense against a cynical and hypocritical West.
Among other things, he chided the US over the current National Security Agency scandal, apparently under the impression that the key controversy is about the letter of the law rather than the extent and scope of state secrecy. "If this [surveillance] is made within the framework of the law, by which the special services? rules of conduct are guided, this is normal. If this is made illegally, it's bad," he said.
He reiterated a suggestion made by his press secretary that Russia might be open to granting asylum?to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Putin spent a good deal of time on the US, which he reminded RT viewers was founded on the "ethnic cleansing" of its native population, and used the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians at the end of WWII ??something he averred Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin would never do. "[Stalin] was a dictator and a tyrant, but I very much doubt that in the spring of 1945, if he had been in possession of an atomic bomb, he would have used it against Germany," Putin said.
He was asked one single question about domestic Russian politics, by RT's American talk show host Peter Lavelle. "Opinion polls show that the opposition in Russia is very small. What kind of opposition would you like to see?" was Mr. Lavelle's query.
Putin replied that opposition is fine, as long as it acts within the law. When protesters break the law, they should be answerable under the legal system. "This is what's happening both in the United States and Russia. But when we do that [put protesters on trial] we are criticized, but when the United States does this, it is considered as a norm. These are the so-called double standards," he said.
Moreover, "[Russia?s] diplomatic service doesn?t cooperate actively with the Occupy Wall Street activists, yet your diplomatic service actively cooperates [with Russia?s opposition] and supports them," Putin added.
Putin might have been defining the current mission of RT, which was started ??along with quite a few other media and PR platforms???8 years ago and tasked with improving Russia's image in the world through journalism that showed the country through the eyes of its own people. According to Russian media, the Kremlin funds RT to the tune of about $300-million annually, and Putin last year personally forbade the government to slash its funding.
The network's focus has migrated, especially since Putin returned to power last year amid widespread disapproval around the world. Now RT runs wall-to-wall coverage of protest rallies everywhere except in Russia, invites commentary from critics of almost every government except Russia's, and produces talk shows that slam Wall Street, attack US imperialism, and find the decline of the West lurking in almost every daily headline.
RT now maintains a full time cable station in the US, RT-America, which broadcasts mostly US-generated content around the clock. Last year, RT signed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to do a series of in-depth interview programs?that explored the corruptions of power and the rise of authoritarianism (in the West). Last month it did a deal with retired TV legend Larry King, that apparently involves RT picking up Mr. King's existing online talk show and also produce an all-new political talk show specially for RT. King subsequently appeared to deny that?but RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan insists that King is contracted to do the show.
The network's programming, along with its relentless Kremlin-inspired focus, is all perfectly fair commentary, of course. Indeed, RT seems deliberately designed to survey the West in the same arbitrary and hectoring tone that the Kremlin feels Western ??particularly US ??journalists cover Russia.?
A recent satirical article?in the Global Post, which garnered massive attention, aimed to show how US journalists would cover the NSA revelations if it were a foreign country: "Inside the United States," is the headline. "GlobalPost goes inside the United States to uncover the regime?s dramatic descent into authoritarian rule and how the opposition plans to fight back."
Anyone who finds that thought provoking ??and they should ??is welcome to tune in to RT. It's the real deal.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China refused to be drawn on Thursday on revelations of U.S. electronic surveillance and on the American in Hong Kong who leaked the information, and a senior source said Beijing does not want to jeopardize recently improved ties with Washington.
China has been on a long holiday since National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden told Britain's Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post last week of the agency's programs to monitor data at big companies such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc.
He told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper on Wednesday that the U.S. government had been hacking into Hong Kong and mainland Chinese computers for years.
"We have seen the relevant reports, but I regret that I have no information to give you on this," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing, in China's first official response to questions about the case.
"China will not take a clear-cut stand now," said a source with ties to China's leadership, noting that the presidents of the two nations held a successful summit less than a week ago.
"China will not become involved at this stage and will wait for things to develop," the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity to avoid political repercussions for speaking to a foreign reporter.
"China is likely to refrain from using harsh words against the United States now. Americans and the rest of the world are already criticizing the United States."
Hua, the spokeswoman, also refused comment on any possible extradition request from the United States or any move by Snowden to seek asylum in Hong Kong, which has a large degree of autonomy but answers to Beijing on diplomatic matters.
Cyber security is a major irritant between China and the United States and was one of the main topics on the agenda at the first summit between President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama, held last week.
Hua did not directly comment on the allegations, repeating China's long-held position that it is one of the world's biggest victims of hacking and noted that Washington and Beijing had agreed to discuss the issue.
However, she added: "On the issue of internet security we believe that having double standards does not help find an appropriate resolution."
Jia Qingguo, a China-U.S. expert at Peking University's School of International Studies, who has advised the government on diplomatic issues, said Beijing did not want to rock the boat so soon after what it viewed as a successful summit.
"Beijing hopes to keep the momentum going rather than let this issue undermine the cooperation or forthcoming cooperation," said Jia.
"I don't think Beijing would want to use this issue to demonize the United States or jeopardize the relationship. Chinese diplomats will probably work with U.S. diplomats on how to handle this in a pragmatic way."
EXTRADITION OR ASYLUM?
Snowden left Hawaii, where he had been working at an NSA facility, on May 20 and flew to Hong Kong, a former British colony with an extradition agreement with the United States that has been exercised on numerous occasions.
So far Snowden has not been charged and the United States has not filed for his extradition, although the U.S. Justice Department is in the initial stages of a criminal investigation, officials in Washington have said.
If Washington asks for his extradition, it will be decided in Hong Kong courts, although Beijing, which has ultimate authority over the territory, may decide to get involved due to its sensitive nature.
"My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate," Snowden said in the interview with the South China Morning Post.
"I have had many opportunities to flee Hong Kong, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law."
Xu Chongde, an influential though now retired law professor who was on the committee which helped draft Hong Kong's "Basic Law" that governs the territory's relations with Beijing, said Snowden's case would ultimately be decided by mainland China.
"This is not about 'two systems'. Diplomacy is run by the centre," he told Reuters, referring to Hong Kong's "one country, two systems" model which frames its autonomy from Beijing.
NSA head General Keith Alexander has defended the secret programs, saying that extensive U.S. surveillance efforts had helped stop "dozens" of possible attacks.
The controversy over the programs has renewed the debate about the balance between privacy rights and security concerns in the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Snowden told the South China Morning Post that the NSA had been hacking computers in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009. Among those institutions hacked, he said, was the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which houses the Hong Kong Internet Exchange, a facility that handles nearly all the territory's domestic web traffic.
Snowden did not mention the exchange, but his comments have raised concerns that it may have been one of the NSA's targets.
The NSA declined to comment on Snowden's assertions.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) ? The Turkish government is open to holding a referendum over an Istanbul development plan that has had a central role in nearly two weeks of mass protests, a spokesman for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party said Wednesday.
The announcement following talks between Erdogan and a group of activists amounts to the first big gesture by his government to end a standoff with protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square and around the country.
But on a more defiant note, Justice and Development Party spokesman Huseyin Celik also said the government would not allow the ongoing sit-in in Gezi Park, next to the square, to continue "until doomsday" ? a sign that authorities' patience is running out.
The prospect of a referendum amounts to a political gamble by Erdogan, who has drawn the ire of protesters over his alleged authoritarian streak. He appeared to be betting that his strong base of support would vote for the plans.
The protests erupted May 31 after a violent police crackdown on a peaceful sit-in by activists objecting to the project to replace Gezi Park with a replica Ottoman-era barracks. They then spread to 78 cities across the country and have attracted tens of thousands of people nearly every night.
Celik said the referendum would be on the Ottoman-era barracks. But he said it would exclude the planned demolition of a cultural center that the protesters also oppose; Celik said the center was in an earthquake-prone area, and needed to come down.
Erdogan hosted the 11 activists ? including academics, students and artists ? in his offices in Ankara. Some leaders of civil society groups, including Greenpeace, had said they would not participate because of an "environment of violence" in the country.
Meanwhile, police and protesters retrenched after fierce overnight clashes in Taksim Square. In Ankara and Istanbul, thousands of lawyers railed against the alleged rough treatment of dozens of their colleagues, who police briefly detained in Istanbul on the sidelines of Tuesday's unrest.
Sema Aksoy, the deputy head of the Ankara lawyer's association, said the lawyers were handcuffed and pulled over the ground. She called the police action an affront to Turkey's judicial system.
"Lawyers can't be dragged on the ground!" the demonstrating lawyers shouted in rhythm as they marched out of an Istanbul courthouse. Riot police stood off to the side, shields at the ready.
Turkey's Human Rights Foundation said Istanbul prosecutors had launched an investigation into allegations of excessive use of police force during the protests.
The foundation said 620 people, including a 1-year-old baby, were injured during the police crackdown early Wednesday. Police detained around 70 people during the incidents. Prior to this, activists reported that 5,000 people had been injured or seriously affected by the tear gas and four people have died in the protests.
After Tuesday's violence, traffic returned to Taksim Square with taxis, trucks and pedestrians back on the streets. At one point, some police were seen kicking a soccer ball on the square. Riot police stood to the side, near a new barricade of wrecked cars and construction material that activists put up to impede their ability to fire tear gas on the park.
Hundreds of protesters remained camped out in Gezi Park, clearing up after a night of trying to fend off tear gas. An early morning storm blew down tents and soaked bedding. Donations of food and supplies including tents, sleeping bags and toilet paper continued to arrive.
On Tuesday, riot police firing water cannons and tear gas clashed all day and night with pockets of protesters throwing stones and setting off fireworks. The pitched battles didn't simmer down until just before dawn.
The protests are drawing expressions of concern from abroad.
Germany's government was "following the news from Turkey with great preoccupation, especially the images of yesterday's police action," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday. "Now de-escalation is needed. Only an open dialogue can contribute to easing the situation."
June 11, 2013 ? A team of NIH-supported researchers is the first to show, in mice, an unexpected two-step process that happens during the growth and regeneration of inner ear tip links. Tip links are extracellular tethers that link stereocilia, the tiny sensory projections on inner ear hair cells that convert sound into electrical signals, and play a key role in hearing. The discovery offers a possible mechanism for potential interventions that could preserve hearing in people whose hearing loss is caused by genetic disorders related to tip link dysfunction.
The work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), a component of the National Institutes of Health.
The findings appear in the June 11, 2013 online edition of PLoS Biology. The senior author of this study is Gregory I. Frolenkov, an associate professor in the College of Medicine at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and his fellow, Artur A. Indzhykulian, Ph.D., is the lead author.
Stereocilia are bundles of bristly projections that extend from the tops of sensory cells, called hair cells, in the inner ear. Each stereocilia bundle is arranged in three neat rows that rise from lowest to highest like stair steps. Tip links are tiny thread-like strands that link the tip of a shorter stereocilium to the side of the taller one behind it. When sound vibrations enter the inner ear, the stereocilia, connected by the tip links, all lean to the same side and open special channels, called mechanotransduction channels. These pore-like openings allow potassium and calcium ions to enter the hair cell and kick off an electrical signal that eventually travels to the brain, where it is interpreted as sound.
The findings build on a number of recent discoveries in laboratories at the NIDCD and elsewhere that have carefully plotted the structure and function of tip links and the proteins that comprise them. Earlier studies had shown that tip links are made up of two proteins -- cadherin-23 (CDH23) and protocadherin-15 (PCDH15) -- that join to make the link, with PCDH15 at the bottom of the tip link at the site of the mechanotransduction channel, and CDH23 on the upper end. Scientists assumed that the assembly was static and stable once the two proteins bonded.
Tip links break easily with exposure to noise. But unlike hair cells, which can't regenerate in humans, tip links repair themselves, mostly within a matter of hours. The breaking of tip links, and their regeneration, has been known for many years, and is seen as one of the causes of the temporary hearing loss you might experience after a loud blast of sound (or a loud concert). Once the tip links regenerate, hair cell function returns, usually to normal levels. What scientists didn't know was how the tip link reassembled.
To study tip link assembly, the researchers treated young, postnatal (5-7 days) mouse sensory hair cells with BAPTA -- a substance that, like loud noise, damages and disrupts tip links. To image the proteins, the group pioneered an improved scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique of immunogold labeling that uses antibodies bound to gold particles that attach to the proteins. Then, using SEM, they imaged the cells at high resolution to determine the positions of the proteins before, during, and after BAPTA treatment.
What the researchers found was that after a tip link is chemically disrupted, a new tip link forms, but instead of the normal combination of CDH23 and PCDH15, the link is made up of PCDH15 proteins at both ends. Over the next 24 hours, the PCDH15 protein at the upper end is replaced by CDH23 and the tip link is back to normal.
Why tip links regenerate using a two-step instead of a neat one-step process is not known. For reasons that are still unclear, CDH23 disappears from stereocilia after noise damage while PDCH15 stays around. Looking to regenerate quickly, the lower PDCH15 latches onto another PDCH15, forming a shorter and functionally slightly weaker tip link. Later, at some time during the 36 hours after the damage, when CDH23 returns, PDCH15 gives up its provisional partner and latches onto its much stronger mate in CDH23. In other words, PDCH15 prefers to be with CDH23, but in a pinch it will bond weakly with another bit of PDCH15 until CDH23 shows up.
The researchers coupled the SEM observations with electrophysiology studies to show how the functional properties of the tip links changed throughout this two-step process. The temporary PCDH15/PCDH15 tip link has a slightly different functional response than the permanent PDCH15/CDH23 combination. Researchers were able to correlate the differences in function with the protein combinations that make up the tip link.
Additional experiments revealed that when hair cells develop, the tip links use the same two-step process.
Previous research has shown that both CDH23 and PCDH15 are required for normal hearing and vision. In fact, NIDCD scientists in earlier studies have shown that mutations in either of these genes can cause the hearing loss or deaf-blindness found in Usher Syndrome types 1D and 1F.
"In the case of deaf individuals who are unable to make functional CDH23, knowledge of this new temporary alliance of PCDH15 proteins to form a weaker, but still functional, tip link could inform treatments that would encourage the double PCDH15 bond to become permanent and maintain at least limited hearing," said Tom Friedman, Ph.D., chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the NIDCD, where the research began.
The research was supported by NIDCD intramural funds DC000048-15 and NIDCD/NIH grants R01 DC008861, R01 DC002368, R01 DC012564, and P30 DC0058983.
Reduced brain volume in kids with low birth-weight tied to academic strugglesPublic release date: 10-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Barlow jebarlow@uoregon.edu 541-346-3481 University of Oregon
EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 10, 2013) -- An analysis of recent data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 97 adolescents who were part of study begun with very low birth weight babies born in 1982-1986 in a Cleveland neonatal intensive care unit has tied smaller brain volumes to poor academic achievement.
More than half of the babies that weighed less than 1.66 pounds and more than 30 percent of those less than 3.31 pounds at birth later had academic deficits. (Less than 1.66 pounds is considered extremely low birth weight; less than 3.31 pounds is labeled very low birth weight.) Lower birth weight was associated to smaller brain volumes in some of these children, and smaller brain volume, in turn, was tied to academic deficits.
Researchers also found that 65.6 percent of very low birth weight and 41.2 percent of extremely preterm children had experienced academic achievement similar to normal weight peers.
The research team -- led by Caron A.C. Clark, a scientist in the Department of Psychology and Child and Family Center at the University of Oregon -- detected an overall reduced volume of mid-brain structures, the caudate and corpus callosum, which are involved in connectivity, executive attention and motor control.
The findings, based a logistic regression analyses of the MRIs done approximately five years ago, were published in the May issue of the journal Neuropsychology. The longitudinal study originally was launched in the 1980s with a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (National Institutes of Health, grant HD 26554) to H. Gerry Taylor of Case Western University, who was the senior author and principal investigator on the new paper.
"Our new study shows that pre-term births do not necessarily mean academic difficulties are ahead," Clark said. "We had this group of children that did have academic difficulties, but there were a lot of kids in this data set who didn't and, in fact, displayed the same trajectories as their normal birth-weight peers."
Academic progress of the 201 original participants had been assessed early in their school years, again four years later and then annually until they were almost 17 years old. "We had the opportunity to explore this very rich data set," Clark said. "There are very few studies that follow this population of children over time, where their trajectories of growth at school are tracked. We were interested in seeing how development unfolds over time."
The findings, Clark added, provide new insights but also raise questions such as why some low-birth-weight babies develop normally and others do not? "It is very difficult to pick up which kids will need the most intensive interventions really early, which we know can be really important."
The findings also provide a snapshot of children of very low birth weights who were born in NICU 30 years ago. Since then, technologies and care have improved, she said, meaning that underweight babies born prematurely today might have an advantage over those followed in the study. However, she added, improving NICUs also are allowing yet smaller babies to survive.
Clark now is exploring these findings for early warning clues that might help drive informed interventions. "Pre-term birth does mean that you are much more likely to experience brain abnormalities that seem to put you at risk for these outcomes," she said. "They seem to be a pretty strong predictor of poor cognitive development as children age. We really need to find ways to prevent these brain abnormalities and subsequent academic difficulties in these kids who are born so small."
###
Co-authors were Kimberly Andrews Espy, professor of psychology and vice president for research and innovation, and dean of the graduate school at the UO; Hua Fang of the University of Massachusetts Medical School; Pauline A. Filipek and Jenifer Juranek, both of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston; and Barbara Bangert, Maureen Hack and Taylor, all of Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, in Cleveland.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Source: Caron "Carrie" Clark, assistant research professor of psychology, 541-346-8079, carrie4@uoregon.edu
Links:
AUDIO: Clark on primary message of study (26 seconds): http://bit.ly/11ifpsD
Department of Psychology: http://psychweb.uoregon.edu/
Child and Family Center: http://cfc.uoregon.edu/index.htm
Follow UO Science on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfOregonScience
UO Science on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UO_Research
More UO Science/Research News: http://uoresearch.uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Reduced brain volume in kids with low birth-weight tied to academic strugglesPublic release date: 10-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Barlow jebarlow@uoregon.edu 541-346-3481 University of Oregon
EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 10, 2013) -- An analysis of recent data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 97 adolescents who were part of study begun with very low birth weight babies born in 1982-1986 in a Cleveland neonatal intensive care unit has tied smaller brain volumes to poor academic achievement.
More than half of the babies that weighed less than 1.66 pounds and more than 30 percent of those less than 3.31 pounds at birth later had academic deficits. (Less than 1.66 pounds is considered extremely low birth weight; less than 3.31 pounds is labeled very low birth weight.) Lower birth weight was associated to smaller brain volumes in some of these children, and smaller brain volume, in turn, was tied to academic deficits.
Researchers also found that 65.6 percent of very low birth weight and 41.2 percent of extremely preterm children had experienced academic achievement similar to normal weight peers.
The research team -- led by Caron A.C. Clark, a scientist in the Department of Psychology and Child and Family Center at the University of Oregon -- detected an overall reduced volume of mid-brain structures, the caudate and corpus callosum, which are involved in connectivity, executive attention and motor control.
The findings, based a logistic regression analyses of the MRIs done approximately five years ago, were published in the May issue of the journal Neuropsychology. The longitudinal study originally was launched in the 1980s with a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (National Institutes of Health, grant HD 26554) to H. Gerry Taylor of Case Western University, who was the senior author and principal investigator on the new paper.
"Our new study shows that pre-term births do not necessarily mean academic difficulties are ahead," Clark said. "We had this group of children that did have academic difficulties, but there were a lot of kids in this data set who didn't and, in fact, displayed the same trajectories as their normal birth-weight peers."
Academic progress of the 201 original participants had been assessed early in their school years, again four years later and then annually until they were almost 17 years old. "We had the opportunity to explore this very rich data set," Clark said. "There are very few studies that follow this population of children over time, where their trajectories of growth at school are tracked. We were interested in seeing how development unfolds over time."
The findings, Clark added, provide new insights but also raise questions such as why some low-birth-weight babies develop normally and others do not? "It is very difficult to pick up which kids will need the most intensive interventions really early, which we know can be really important."
The findings also provide a snapshot of children of very low birth weights who were born in NICU 30 years ago. Since then, technologies and care have improved, she said, meaning that underweight babies born prematurely today might have an advantage over those followed in the study. However, she added, improving NICUs also are allowing yet smaller babies to survive.
Clark now is exploring these findings for early warning clues that might help drive informed interventions. "Pre-term birth does mean that you are much more likely to experience brain abnormalities that seem to put you at risk for these outcomes," she said. "They seem to be a pretty strong predictor of poor cognitive development as children age. We really need to find ways to prevent these brain abnormalities and subsequent academic difficulties in these kids who are born so small."
###
Co-authors were Kimberly Andrews Espy, professor of psychology and vice president for research and innovation, and dean of the graduate school at the UO; Hua Fang of the University of Massachusetts Medical School; Pauline A. Filipek and Jenifer Juranek, both of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston; and Barbara Bangert, Maureen Hack and Taylor, all of Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, in Cleveland.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Source: Caron "Carrie" Clark, assistant research professor of psychology, 541-346-8079, carrie4@uoregon.edu
Links:
AUDIO: Clark on primary message of study (26 seconds): http://bit.ly/11ifpsD
Department of Psychology: http://psychweb.uoregon.edu/
Child and Family Center: http://cfc.uoregon.edu/index.htm
Follow UO Science on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfOregonScience
UO Science on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UO_Research
More UO Science/Research News: http://uoresearch.uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 10-Jun-2013
Share ]