Bill Murray may be one of the funniest men on the planet. Unfortunately, this tot didn't get the memo. Though their first meeting ended in tears, we have full confidence that Bill and Baby can work out their differences. Baby Steps.
This gem comes to us from the viral Tumblr, Reasons My Son Is Crying, started by Greg Pembroke to document his son's meltdowns with deadpan captions about why they occurred. Now that other parents are submitting their own photos and captions to Pembroke, Laura R. submitted the above with the simple/incredible explanation: "He met Bill Murray."
Click through the slideshow below to see more of the best submissions and check out some of Greg's original photos here.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House acknowledged on Monday that its counsel was told on April 24 about the preliminary findings of an IRS audit that eventually showed Internal Revenue Service employees had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, later informed the White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior staff members about the politically damaging preliminary findings of inappropriate activity by some IRS employees.
President Barack Obama was not told and no one at the White House intervened in what was an ongoing probe at the time into the IRS targeting of conservative groups, Carney told reporters.
?Meeee! Do iiiiit! OWWWNNN!? This was the voice of my one-year-old son as he adamantly refused help from my husband in unloading silverware from the dishwasher. It had become pretty clear that our little man had entered the age of autonomy. He ?knew what he could do himself and was absolutely going to do it himself!
Around age 1-2, children begin to develop a sense of capability and competence. They are aware of things they are able to do and decisions they can make for themselves, and they aim to ?take charge? of their lives every day. The development of automoy is internally driven; it arises naturally and never goes away. A sense of autonomy is a basic human need at any age. We need to know that we are capable and that we have power in our own lives.
This can become tricky for young children. They, too, have a need for autonomy and to be able to exert power over their lives, but ?this often becomes overshadowed by our well-meaning and necessary efforts to navigate each day. Most tasks, most days, it?s just easier if we ?do it own.? But this is what gives rise to defiance, power struggles, and the ever-popular, ?NO!? from our children. This kind of belligerent behavior is an indication that kids are feeling powerless or helpless and have a need for more autonomy.?When kids can have an ongoing sense of ?I am capable; I can take charge of me,? they are much less likely to try to prove this by challenging a parent at every opportunity.
To help with this with our own kids, when they were about 1 and 2 years old, my husband and I designated a cabinet in the kitchen to be just for them. We filled it with some things they would need to help themselves on a regular basis and gain that much-needed sense of autonomy in the kitchen. The contents haven?t changed much over the last few years:
Here?s a closer look at what?s in there:
Bowls. Necessary for getting their own cereal or a snack from the pantry. We keep a variety of styles and sizes of bowls that can be used for other things, too, like painting or for using outside. I love bamboo ones because they are unbreakable and technically ?disposable? (biodegradable/ recyclable) but sturdy enough to last through several washings. I bought the ones here for less than a dollar a few years ago, and they still work just fine!
Sports/ sippy/ travel cups. Always helpful when you?re out and about with kids, but it?s nice for ?traveling? around the house, too. When kids are playing in another room and want to bring a drink in there, they can choose and fill one of their cups-with-lids. Just find a top that is easiest for your kids to attach and stock up on a few of those.
Glasses. Probably the most used part of the kids? cabinet. It is so nice for kids to be able to get their own drink whenever they want! We also have a stool in the kitchen that is easy to slide to the sink or to the fridge door to get water. We use short, wide glasses because they?re heavy and sturdy enough not to tip easily, and our kids like the feel of using a ?real? glass. We mix and match some fun colors and styles from IKEA (also very inexpensive).
Straws. Bendy, silly, crazy, or straight?straws are a fun addition to the self-serve process!
Rags and towels. Probably the most important part of the kids? cabinet! With kids and DIY kitchen tasks comes spills. It?ll happen and it?s OK. Spills are great opportunities for learning that mistakes are OK. Just teach them where the rags are and how to clean up a spill. It?s funny?no matter where we may be in the house, my kids will run to their kitchen cabinet to get a rag for a spill because they KNOW they?re there. We may have towels in the same room we?re in, but this has become their go-to spot! So, have a thick supply of easy-to-reach cloths available for ?kids to clean up after themselves?wherever they may be.
Plates. A few plates are helpful for getting snacks or making painting palates. We like fun, colorful ones for the kids? cabinet.
Also keep in mind that this cabinet is useless if kids aren?t able to access the food and drink they?re looking for. S0 along with creating this kind of self-serve space, consider these other essentials for a kid-friendly kitchen:
Fridge
Find a height-appropriate place to store snacks to which you?re OK with your kids helping themselves. For us, it?s fruit, vegetables, cheese sticks, jam for their toast, dip, dressing, and condiments (for?well, everything it seems!), and milk. I used to keep our milk on the very top shelf of the fridge only because that?s where I had always been accustomed to reaching for it. But I?ve since moved it to the lower shelf so my children can pour their own milk at mealtimes. I keep the juice up high because I prefer to decide when they get juice to drink.
Pantry
Designate one child-high shelf for kids? pantry snacks. Ours is at their eye level so they can easily see what is available.
We also have an air popper on this shelf because they love to make their own popcorn for a snack!
You can see the jars have labels?this was their idea and a great way to add even more ownership to their shelf. They enjoyed using our label maker to identify their snacks?things like?
?and?
??dried mangoes.?
Having your children?s snacks and supplies doesn?t necessarily mean they will be snacking 24/7. It just means that when it is time for a snack or when they want something to drink, they are able to help themselves.
What if you don?t have a lot of space in your kitchen and pretty much need all of your cabinet space for storage? See what you can consolidate and possibly make room on just one shelf in one cabinet for their essential supplies. Any small space that?s ?Their Own? will help give kids a sense of confidence and personal power in the kitchen, which will carry over into other areas of their lives. For limited space, narrow it down to the bare necessities: cups and rags. Kids at least need to be able to get themselves a drink without asking, and they need to be able to clean that drink up if it ends up on the floor. Any more than items that is beneficial, but that?s a great place to start.
Autonomy begins early in life, and strengthens only with opportunity. Adapting your kitchen to be kid-friendly is one way to give children that opportunity to feel confident and capable?to demonstrate that they can, indeed, ?do it own!?
NEW YORK (AP) ? Steven Soderbergh is working on a new currency.
In his Chelsea studio, among various film posters and piles of moviemaking mementos, he has a few paintings in progress, including a new, livelier, "more Hendrix" version of a U.S. dollar bill. It's only one of the many artistic endeavors he bounces between now that he's begun his long-predicted hiatus from filmmaking.
On Tuesday, he will bring his Liberace film, "Behind the Candelabra," to the Cannes Film Festival, where it will compete for the same Palme d'Or he won 24 years ago for his first film, "Sex, Lies and Videotape."
Soderbergh has said this ? a $23 million HBO movie starring Michael Douglas as the flamboyant pianist and Matt Damon as his lover, Scott Thorson, airing Sunday in the U.S. ? will be his last film, at least for now. The 50 year-old's career in film ? 26 protean features including "Out of Sight," ''Traffic" and the "Ocean's" franchise ? will effectively conclude in Cannes, the same place it was internationally launched.
"It's not often you get the opportunity to arrange that kind of symmetry," Soderbergh says. "It's funny to think about how long ago that was."
Shortly after Soderbergh began tweeting a sparse novella and gave a remarkable speech at the San Francisco Film Festival in which he vented his frustration at Hollywood studios, he sat for a lengthy interview as he steps away from movies. "In theory," he says, "I'm finished."
AP: When you look back on your filmography, what do you think of it?
Soderbergh: It feels like one big movie to me, like chapters of a novel. There's continuity. There's evolution. I shot "Sex, Lies" in 35 days and "Candelabra" in 30 days. I'm more economical. I'd probably make them all a few minutes shorter. Shorter is always better.
AP: The break from movies you've long talked about is now effectively underway. How's it going?
Soderbergh: It's been a little quieter for me. My wanting to consider what my relationship to movies is can sort of happen while I'm doing this other stuff. . It's hard for me to do nothing.
AP: You've recently tweeted a novella, "Glue," and given a wide-ranging speech about how Hollywood could function better.
Soderbergh: It was kind of an opportunity to organize in one place a lot of thing I've either said in interviews or bars. It was just a way for me to structure it all, get it out and close the door on it. . As I walked out the door, I felt there were some things I wanted to memorialize about what I've seen.
AP: It felt like a goodbye.
Soderbergh: I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how I can optimize my process as a filmmaker, and I haven't seen a lot of effort expended on the part of the studios to optimize their process. And I don't understand it. . The biggest stumbling block to this paradigm being revised is the cost of putting a mainstream movie out. It's truly the tail that's wagging the dog. It's influencing every decision at every level. I can't believe ? unless there's some aspect of the relationship between the studios and the theater owners that I'm not aware of ? that this is the only way it can be done.
AP: Is your stepping back motivated equally by industry frustration and by your desire to grow in some new way as a filmmaker?
Soderbergh: Yeah, absolutely, it's a combination of a lot of different things. Some of them have to do with the way the business is working now, some of them have to do with me just wanting a break from the social aspect of it. The fact that you're the target for tens of thousands of questions. It's a very intense process and you can feel worn down after a while. And then my own feelings just about the grammar of it, the language of it: Is there some other way to transmit and release information that isn't so prescribed? It's quite possible that I could end up making something that is designed more to be seen in a museum than a movie theater.
AP: Was there something you were bumping up against that made you feel like you weren't evolving?
Soderbergh: It felt like: I need to tear everything down and start over. I've been thinking about that and thinking about what it might be. I want to take advantage of what people bring to a movie when they watch a movie. The fact that we're so image driven and that we've been watching images since we were infants, and we have associations that are carried with them. I want to figure out a way to take advantage of that, so that I'm sort of using those associations as fuel for what I want to do. I think that's going to require me taking some time to think about what those associations are, how I can use them, how I can build off of them, how I can subvert them. And see if there's some way that I can reverse engineer a narrative in which you, by the end of it, understand everything that happened but you're not quite sure how or why you did.
AP: It seems your search for a new kind of narrative is connected to what you've said about the confusing, fractured nature of life today.
Soderbergh: Especially in this country now, it's really hard not to look around and go: What the hell is going on? Is it possible to get anything done? Is the center of this country going to hold or is it just going to be completely marginalized by extremists on every side of every issue? I don't know. I'm alarmed.
AP: The private sexuality of "Behind the Candelabra" bears some similarities to "Sex, Lies."
Soderbergh: It was a great way to express my appreciation for a kind of movie I've watched my whole life but never got to make, which is kind of a melodrama. I looked at as being in line with all the Douglas Sirk movies and "Sunset Blvd." and "All About Eve" and "Valley of the Dolls." . It was interesting to look around and wonder when I'll be doing this again.
AP: What will you miss the most?
Soderbergh: Editing.
AP: What's surprising about you stepping away from filmmaking is that you seem to relish the process so much, shooting and editing your own films.
Soderbergh: I have a plan. I have an idea of how it can go, and I'm willing to throw it all out at a moment's notice to go somewhere else with it. I expect to discover things. I expect accidents. I expect something that somebody suggests or says will move me in another direction. I'm creating an environment in order to conjure that kind of things. I want my experience of making something to be fluid and to be surprising. I want it to come alive in front of me.
AP: Some filmmakers spend years carefully constructing the films they hope will be masterpieces. That kind of approach has never been appealing to you?
Soderbergh: No, mostly because it makes my work worse. I discovered early on, the more time I had to mull something over, the worse it got ? or the more insular it got, the more introspective, the more self-conscious. I needed to treat it like a sport.
AP: HBO picked up "Candelabra" after no studio would take it, and you're currently contemplating several TV projects. Are you excited about television?
Soderbergh: Very. Very. There's a lot of great stuff being made. You can go narrow and deep, and I like that. And this is all David Chase. He single-handedly rebuilt the landscape. Anything that's on now that's any good is standing on his shoulders. I don't hear anybody talking about movies the way they talk about TV right now. . Knowing that I can't swim upstream forever, it seems to me that if I want to work, that I need to move to a medium in which the way I like to do things is viewed as a positive and not a negative.
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle
LYON, France (Reuters) - A British father living in France has admitted to killing his two children by slitting their throats, blaming a rocky divorce from his wife, prosecutors said on Sunday. Police arrested the 48-year-old unemployed man on Saturday after the bodies of his 5-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were found at his apartment in a suburb of the eastern city of Lyon. "He offered explanations linked to the children's custody," an official from the Lyon prosecutor's office told Reuters. ...
The FCC may have spoiled the surprise, but Sony's now gone official with yet another smartphone and this one's for its native Japan. The Xperia UL appears to be a slightly thicker riff on the Xperia Z, matching the display of the company's early-2013 flagship, with a quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) ticking behind the 5-inch 1080p screen. It's worth noting that it's a substantial resolution bump from the similar-looking 720p NTT DoCoMo Xperia A. Although it's not the Snapdragon 600 rumored, Qualcomm's S4 Pro flexes its muscle through Exmor RS 13-megapixel camera sensor, offering up the ability to capture 15 frames in a second. NFC, naturally, is already in attendance as well as the Felica wireless payment system. You'll also get the benefits of both a physical camera button and water (IPX5/8) and dust resistance (IP5X) -- two features in tandem that should help separate it from Sony's pair ofexisting 5-inch 1080p smartphones. The Xperia UL will launch on KDDI's au network in white, black and hot pink colors on May 25th. Check out the obligatory close-up ad after the break.
Update: The Xperia UL runs on an S4 Pro processor, not the Snapdragon 600 initially stated.
John Cena WWE Championship at WrestleMania & it is a question now is it will come to a quick and unceremonious end at Extreme Rules ?
Schedule: Date: Sunday May 19, 2013 Time: 8PMET or 5PMPT Venue Scottrade Center City St. Louis, Missouri John Cena (c) vs Ryback Live on PPV
If Ryback has his way may defit Cena & become the WWE Champion. The fight is going to be held on Sunday May 19, 2013 at Scottrade Center City St. Louis, Missouri.This last man standing match as exciting as this first-time singles contest would be under ordinary conditions, the title bout is made all the more intriguing by its personal overtones and Ryback?s claim that he is looking to break out of The Champ?s sizable shadow, not to mention the dangerous addition of Last Man Standing rules. In such matches, there are no disqualifications, count-outs, pinfalls or submissions. The only way to win the match is by incapacitating your opponent to the point he is unable to answer the referee?s count of 10.
So Watch & enjoy John Cena vs Ryback Live Last Man Standing Match at Extreme Rules 2013.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India and China will study new ways to ease tensions on their ill-defined border after an army standoff in the Himalayas, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday on his first official foreign trip.
The number two in the Chinese leadership offered New Delhi a "handshake across the Himalayas" and said the world's most populous nations could become a new engine for the global economy if they could avoid friction on the militarized border.
"Both sides believe that we need to improve the various border-related mechanisms that we have put into place and make them more efficient. We need to appropriately manage and resolve our differences," Li said at a joint news conference with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The two men appeared smiling and relaxed. India's Foreign Ministry said they got on well. There were small breakthroughs on trade, but no major agreements were signed.
China and India disagree about large areas of their 4,000 km (2,500 mile) border and fought a brief war 50 years ago.
Among the measures being looked at to reduce the risk of confrontation is allowing higher level meetings between regional military commanders, an Indian official said.
While there has not been a shooting incident in decades, the long-running dispute gets in the way of improving economic relations between the neighbors, who account for 40 percent of the world's population and whose fast growing markets stand in contrast to the stagnant economies of the West.
TRADE GAP
Bilateral trade reached $66 billion last year but both sides believe the potential is much greater. India runs a $29 billion deficit with China, a sore point that they sought to address in a joint statement, with specific reference to pharmaceuticals, IT services and agriculture.
However, similar promises made in previous joint statements failed to slow the ballooning trade gap.
India's Essar Group conglomerate is nonetheless set to sign a $1 billion loan deal with China's China Development Bank and China's largest oil and gas producer PetroChina during the trip, sources said. They said the loan would be backed by the supply of refined products to PetroChina.
After a welcome ceremony at India's presidential palace, Li said he wanted to build trust and cooperation.
"World peace and regional stability cannot be a reality without strategic mutual trust between India and China. And likewise, the development and prosperity of the world cannot be a reality without the cooperation and simultaneous development of China and India," he said.
Li said he chose New Delhi as his first destination on his four-nation tour to show how important India is for China and also because he had fond memories of visiting as a Communist youth leader 27 years ago.
Srikanth Kondapalli, an academic and expert on China said progress was at best incremental, despite the warm words from Li and a media campaign around his trip apparently aimed at cooling Indian public anger following the three-week standoff on the Himalayan plateau that ended on May 3.
"There was a lot of hype created before this visit, but the new leadership didn't show many new ideas," Kondapalli said.
EARLY SOLUTION?
While most observers think it will take years to resolve the border dispute, recent statements suggest China's new leaders would like to speed things up, perhaps to shift its attention to disputes elsewhere in Asia, including the South China Sea.
Singh said negotiators would meet soon to seek an early agreement on a framework to settle the border, a goal that has eluded representatives in 15 rounds of high level talks.
The stand-off on the border was the latest reminder that sensitivity runs high. It distracted diplomats' attention from talks on investment and trade ahead of Li's trip and soured public opinion toward China in India.
The disagreement over who owns barren patches of the Ladakh plateau and the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh means there is almost no road or rail connectivity between the giants.
At a meeting with Singh in Durban this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the two countries should seek a solution "as soon as possible" - a departure from previous language. His urgency was echoed in Delhi last week by foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang, who said the two sides needed to "redouble efforts" to reach a solution at an "early date".
It would be politically difficult for an Indian politician to concede territory to China. Protests by nationalist groups in Delhi and the northern state of Kashmir on Monday against Li's visit highlighted anti-China feeling among some Indians.
Prior to Monday's meetings, a senior official at the Foreign Ministry said India was skeptical of recent overtures and would wait to see if China would bring anything new to the table.
After India, Li is due to visit Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany and is likely to carry a message that China wants more open foreign relations and should not be seen as a threat.
(Additional reporting by Satarupa Bhattacharjya, Annie Banerji and Anindito Mukherjee in NEW DELHI; Michael Martina and Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alison Williams)
You've possibly heard the saying that without web traffic you're nobody online! Unfortunately that saying is true, because online traffic is a euphemism (translates) for visitors. Without visitors to your site you're never going to make the sale. It is clearly illustrated by this scenario; you may have the world's best invention or product that could literally turn the world upside down overnight but if nobody knows about it, nobody cares about it! Business folklore is peppered with tales of geniuses who died penniless and in squalor (all the while sitting on a goldmine of an invention) just because they couldn't get the public interested in their product.
As an online entrepreneur you are somewhat in the same dilemma, getting people to that great site of yours:
In a nutshell you need web traffic or your online business is as good as dead! Here's why:
Traffic = Visitors to your site or blog
Visitors = Potential Buyers
Active Buyers = Profit
Profit = Successful Business
The Various Types of Traffic
There's web traffic and then there's web traffic!
Social Media Web Traffic
Fortunately recent changes in internet trends have made it a lot easier to get internet traffic. These changes are due to the widely adopted transition to Web 2.0 and the explosion of social media sites.
Web traffic from social media sites is far easier to get than internet traffic from the search engines but the downside is that this type of traffic is not as targeted as online traffic that originates from a typed query into a search engine.
So what exactly do I mean when I say that it is not as targeted?
Well if you're are to consider a prospect who arrives to your website via a particular keyword query typed into one of the search engines such as Google, that particular action means that such a person is actively seeking more information concerning that topic. Such a visitor to your site is in what I consider a proactive mindset related to that keyword! In other words they are prepared to act upon information associated with that keyword.
Curiosity Prospects
In comparison a visitor arriving from your site from a social media website was most likely drawn there by incidental curiosity. What that means is that that particular visitor probably noticed an intriguing article or post title of yours, with an equally intriguing summary which linked to your site. It was curiosity that led them to your site. Such visitors are what I term Curiosity Prospects!
Curiosity Prospects land on your website by accident rather than through active query-word engagement on their part. Such a visitor is less likely to purchase whatever you're selling because they didn't arrive with that mindset. This explains the strange phenomenon of link bait pieces that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors with very little conversion rates (i.e., few become buyers).
The Numbers Game
The driving force powering social media websites is captivating information! Riveting articles that literally grab people's attention by the scruff of the neck! Thus getting any meaningful conversion rate from such Curiosity Prospects depends on a massive flow of traffic! The bottom line is that social media web traffic is a numbers game revolving around link bait; an art that some internet marketers have perfected to precision.
There's a definite science to writing great link bait pieces, however just like any other article, success of that aspiring link bait piece hinges on the title or headline! When one thinks of social media websites the word that immediately springs to mind (or at least it should) is BUZZ!
BUZZ
A great link bait article has to generate a lot of buzz. In order to do that, the article should:
Stir controversy;
Be Breaking News of significance in whatever field;
Be well written;
Be polarizing;
Captivate or educate the reader;
Be witty or funny;
Be shocking (not disgusting mind you, there is a difference):
Be well formatted;
And lastly, the body text of the article should follow through on the premise of its title in a logical easily graspable step-by-step fashion.
Buzz Transferring Positive SEO Influence
So what, if anything are you getting from that Web 2.0 traffic, if those vast numbers of social media Curiosity Prospects don't convert into purchasers? Well the plain fact is, the sheer volume of traffic flowing to your website is soon going to get noticed by the search engines which in turn will increase your ranking and positioning on those very same search engines. By its very nature that increased positive attention from the search engines is going to get your website much closer to the holy grail of any online business⬦tons of web traffic from the search engines!
Organic Search Traffic!
From experience and to my manner of thinking, this is hands down the best kind of web traffic but it is also by far the hardest to attain or get. When I say the best I mean as far as conversion rates go!
So what exactly is organic internet traffic? This is that online traffic that originates from a search query conducted on the search engines.
Say for example you're a prospect who is looking to start an online home business what online actions could you take to find out such info? Well it is highly likely that the first thing you would do is query the search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask.com) with a keyword term that might be any of the following: internet business; internet marketing, home business or online marketing, etc.
The returned results for that query are what we refer to as organic listings;which are the websites listed in the Google Index (and the various other search engines). Obviously the higher the website is listed on the Google Index or SERPs (search engine rank pages) the greater the chances of that website being picked by a searcher for the queried keyword they typed into the search engine.
In reality you'd want your website to be listed on Page 1 or Page 2 of Google (as the largest search engine Google shall be used as the default term for all the search engines). And why would you wish to be on Page 1 or 2 of Google? Well pause a moment and consider how often do you search deeper than the first two pages for any online query.
I'm guessing rarely if ever do you go beyond Page 2,that's why you should aim to get your website listed no deeper than Page 2. Ideally however the best position to have your site listed for any particular keyword is the 1st listing on Google Page 1. However that is in a perfect world; but truth be told, once you are on Page 1 of Google you are made or at least your site/blog is!
Getting organic traffic is priceless because the person who typed in that keyword which ultimately led them to your site (via your listing on Google) is a deadly serious prospect. They are actively searching for whatever subject your website is about. Such a person is the most likely candidate to purchase.
An added bonus is that such an individual is quite likely new to that subject matter which led them to your site and they obviously wish to increase their knowledge on that particular topic. This type of prospect is the best kind of visitor to get to your site because there is a very high probability they have not yet been tainted by the profusion of other sites out there covering the same subject matter as yours!
Traffic From Article Directories
Submitting well written articles to article directories is another fantastic way to get web traffic. The upshot to this method, as compared to social media (Web 2.0) website submissions, is that you can avoid the time-consuming hassle of aggregating votes in order to get your articles sufficient exposure on those Web 2.0 sites to draw significant amounts of internet traffic.
Not only do consistent article directory submissions build your reputation (assuming your articles are indeed worthy) you can build up quite a following. In fact some online marketing businesses have found remarkable success based solely upon article submissions to article directories!
And finally another way of getting online traffic is participating in online forums targeting your intended market.
Vladislav Surkov was once one of the president's most influential and deft advisers. His forced resignation suggests the Kremlin may be pursuing blunter ways of manipulating the political landscape.
By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / May 8, 2013
Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov speaks before the state of the nation address at the Kremlin in Moscow in this 2011 photo. Surkov, who was once Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief political strategist and dubbed the Kremlin's puppet master, resigned on May 8.
Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Enlarge
Vladislav Surkov, the former theater arts major who took on the job of stage-managing Russian democracy on behalf of Vladimir Putin, was abruptly shown the Kremlin door Wednesday.?Most analysts see the move as a sign that an increasingly heavy-handed Mr. Putin has no further use for Mr. Surkov's elaborate and relatively gentle methods of manipulating the political landscape.
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.?
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Surkov, an influential Putin advisor who helped sculpt Russia's so-called "sovereign democracy" system, told the Moscow daily Kommersant that he had tendered his resignation on April 26, but will only discuss the reasons for his departure "when it is appropriate."
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, suggested to the Kommersant FM radio station that he had been pushed out the door due to poor job performance.?
"[His resignation] is related to the high-priority task of implementing presidential decrees," Mr. Peskov said.
Often referred to as the "grey cardinal" of the Kremlin, Surkov's star had been falling since a massive protest movement hit Moscow streets in December 2011. It had been triggered by the near-universal allegations of electoral fraud committed by Surkov's own brainchild ? the pro-Kremlin United Russia party ? in parliamentary polls.
He was subsequently eased out of his role as Putin's deputy chief of staff and given the thankless-by-definition job of deputy prime minister in charge of modernizing Russia's economy.
"His resignation testifies to the fact that there is a real political crisis in the country. Different bureaucratic structures are at war with each other, and Russia is becoming increasingly ungovernable," says Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the independent Institute of Globalization and Social Movement Studies in Moscow. ?
"Surkov had his own vision. He tried to control the process, to reconcile different structures, and he lost," he adds.
Surkov had been a Kremlin fixture since Putin's first presidential term and is widely regarded as the chief architect of the Putin-era system of "sovereign democracy," whose basic idea is that the political system headed by Putin is the direct outgrowth of Russia's own history and public dynamics ? not an import from anywhere else ? and is therefore democracy.
Critics, and even many independent analysts, quickly substituted the more descriptive term "managed democracy."?The phrase evoked the Kremlin's aggressive role in landscaping Russia's political garden ??weeding out pesky opposition parties and independent politicians, concentrating official resources and state media attention behind the ruling United Russia party, and generally altering rules of the game to favor pro-Kremlin outcomes.?
In addition to fathering United Russia, Surkov created a bouquet of pro-Kremlin public organizations, such as the youth movement Nashi and a state-supported assembly of tame civil society groups called the Public Chamber.
The battle between BlackBerry and Microsoft for the No.3 spot in the smartphone platform war is showing no signs of slowing, but a new contender will soon come to market to challenge these struggling giants. Jolla, whose CEO spoke with us nearly a year ago about the company?s efforts, has unveiled its first smartphone. Named simply ?Jolla,? the handset will feature a 4.5-inch HD display, a dual-core processor, 4G LTE, 16GB of internal storage, microSD support, an 8-megapixel camera, Android app support and the Sailfish mobile operating system. Most impressively of all, perhaps, is the price tag: just??399 before taxes and subsidies. Jolla says it hopes to begin shipping the phone by the end of 2013, and a video of
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) ? Tens of thousands of commuters are bracing for a difficult trip around southwest Connecticut and to New York City beginning Monday as workers repair the Metro-North commuter rail line crippled by a derailment and crash.
Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. Nine remained hospitalized.
"This amounts to the wholesale reconstruction of a two-track electrified railroad," he said.
Several days of around-the-clock work will be required, including inspections and testing of the newly rebuilt system, Permut said. The damaged rail cars were removed from the tracks on Sunday, the first step toward making the repairs.
Service disruptions on the New Haven line between South Norwalk and New Haven are expected to continue "well into the coming week," Permut said.
Each day, approximately 30,000 Metro-North customers use the stations where service has been shut down, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North.
Amtrak service between New York and New Haven also was suspended, and there was no estimate on service restoration. Limited service was available between New Haven and Boston.
Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he's asked officials in numerous towns to suspend parking rules to accommodate what could be tens of thousands of motorists driving to unaffected train stations. Twelve stations are affected by the shutdown.
Starting with the Monday morning rush-hour, a shuttle train will operate about every 20 minutes between New Haven and Bridgeport and two shuttle buses will run between Bridgeport and Stamford stations, state transportation officials said.
For morning and evening peak commutes, limited train service will operate between Grand Central Terminal and Westport.
State officials say travel times will be significantly longer than normal and trains will be crowded. Commuters are advised to use the Harlem line in New York.
Cameron said he doubts many commuters will use three modes of transportation to get to work: driving their cars to catch a bus to get to a train station for the final leg.
Commuters will more likely rely on their cars, leading to massive traffic problems on highways that are already clogged on normal days, Cameron said. He suggested that local and regional officials post highway signs directing motorists to available parking so motorists "don't get off the highway and drive in circles looking for where to dump their cars."
About 700 people were on board the trains Friday evening when one heading east from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to New Haven derailed just outside Bridgeport. It was hit by a train heading west from New Haven.
Dan Solomon, a trauma surgeon who lives in Westport and was headed to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, was on the train that derailed. He said he treated several injured passengers, including a woman with severely broken ankles.
He said he was in a front car that was not as badly affected as cars in the rear of the train.
"I hardly lost my iced tea," Solomon said in an interview.
He said walls were torn off both trains and he quickly checked injured passengers to separate the most badly injured from others.
"When the EMS arrived, I was covered in everyone's blood," he said.
Investigators are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision.
NTSB investigators arrived Saturday and are expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They will look at the brakes and performance of the trains, the condition of the tracks, crew performance and train signal information, among other things.
The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines ? the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven ? run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.
The last significant train collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.
May 15, 2013 ? In ancient Greece, the city-states that waited until their own harvest was in before attacking and destroying a rival community's crops often experienced better long-term success.
It turns out that ant colonies that show similar selectivity when gathering food yield a similar result. The latest findings from Stanford biology Professor Deborah M. Gordon's long-term study of harvester ants reveal that the colonies that restrain their foraging except in prime conditions also experience improved rates of reproductive success.
Importantly, the study provides the first evidence of natural selection shaping collective behavior, said Gordon, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
A long-held belief in biology has posited that the amount of food an animal acquires can serve as a proxy for its reproductive success. The hummingbirds that drink the most nectar, for example, stand the best chance of surviving to reproduce.
But the math isn't always so straightforward. The harvester ants that Gordon studies in the desert in southeast Arizona, for instance, have to spend water to obtain water: an ant loses water while foraging, and obtains water from the fats in the seeds it eats.
The ants use simple positive feedback interactions to regulate foraging activity. Foragers wait near the opening of the nest, and bump antennae with ants returning with food. The faster outgoing foragers meet ants returning with seeds, the more ants go out to forage. (Last year, Gordon, Katie Dektar, an undergraduate, and Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford, showed that the ants' "Anternet" algorithm follows the same rules as the protocols that regulate data traffic congestion in the Internet).
Colonies differ, however, in how they use these interactions to regulate foraging. Some colonies are likely to forage less when conditions are dry. These same, more successful colonies are also more likely to forage more steadily when conditions are good.
Gordon found that it's more important for the ants to not waste water than to forage for every last piece of food. There's no survival cost to this strategy, even though the colonies sometimes forgo foraging for an entire day. Instead, not only do the colonies that hunker down on the bad days live just as long as those that go all out, they also have more offspring colonies.
"Natural selection is not favoring the behavior that sends out the most ants to get the most food, but instead regulating foraging to hold back when conditions are bad," Gordon said. "This is natural selection shaping a collective behavior exhibited by the entire colony."
Gordon's group is still investigating how the ants gauge humidity, but they have determined that the collective response of the colony to conditions is heritable from parent colony to offspring colony. Even though a daughter queen will establish her new colony so far from the parent colony that the two colonies will never interact, the offspring colonies resemble parent colonies in their sensitivity to conditions.
Although the foraging activity of the offspring colonies and the parent colony didn't entirely match up on all days, they were similar on extreme days: parent and offspring colonies made similar judgments about when to lie low or take advantage of ideal conditions.
While the region has experienced 10 to 15 years of protracted drought, and the more restrained colonies will most likely fare better reproductively as that trend continues, Gordon can't yet say whether the emphasis on sustainability evolved in response to climate change pressures.
"What's evolving here are simple rules for how ants participate in a network that regulates the collective behavior of the colony," she said.
The work is published in the May 16 issue of the journal Nature.
No idle chatter: Study finds malaria parasites 'talk' to each otherPublic release date: 15-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Liz Williams williams@wehi.edu.au 61-405-279-095 Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Melbourne scientists have made the surprise discovery that malaria parasites can 'talk' to each other a social behaviour to ensure the parasite's survival and improve its chances of being transmitted to other humans.
The finding could provide a niche for developing antimalarial drugs and vaccines that prevent or treat the disease by cutting these communication networks.
Professor Alan Cowman, Dr Neta Regev-Rudzki, Dr Danny Wilson and colleagues from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in collaboration with Professor Andrew Hill from the University of Melbourne's Bio21 Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology showed that malaria parasites are able to send out messages to communicate with other malaria parasites in the body. The study was published today in the journal Cell.
Professor Cowman said the researchers were shocked to discover that malaria parasites work in unison to enhance 'activation' into sexually mature forms that can be picked up by mosquitoes, which are the carriers of this deadly disease.
"When Neta showed me the data, I was absolutely amazed, I couldn't believe it," Professor Cowman said. "We repeated the experiments many times in many different ways before I really started to believe that these parasites were signalling to each other and communicating. But we came to appreciate why the malaria parasite really needs this mechanism it needs to know how many other parasites are in the human to sense when is the right time to activate into sexual forms that give it the best chance of being transmitted back to the mosquito."
Malaria kills about 700,000 people a year, mostly children aged under five and pregnant women. Every year, hundreds of millions of people are infected with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, which is transmitted through mosquito bites. It is estimated that half the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria, with the disease being concentrated in tropical and subtropical regions including many of Australia's near neighbours.
Dr Regev-Rudzki said the malaria parasites inside red blood cells communicate by sending packages of DNA to each other during the blood stage of infection. "We showed that the parasites inside infected red blood cells can send little packets of information from one parasite to another, particularly in response to stress," she said.
The communication network is a social behaviour that has evolved to signal when the parasites should complete their lifecycle and be transmitted back to a mosquito, Dr Regev-Rudzki said. "Once they receive this information, they change their fate the signals tell the parasites to become sexual forms, which are the forms of the malaria parasite that can live and replicate in the mosquito, ensuring the parasites survives and is transmitted to another human."
Professor Cowman said he hopes to see the discovery pave the way to new antimalarial drugs or vaccines for preventing malaria. "This discovery has fundamentally changed our view of the malaria parasite and is a big step in understanding how the malaria parasite survives and is transmitted," he said. "The next step is to identify the molecules involved in this signalling process, and ways that we could block these communication networks to block the transmission of malaria from the human to the mosquito. That would be the ultimate goal."
###
This project was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute and the Victorian Government.
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No idle chatter: Study finds malaria parasites 'talk' to each otherPublic release date: 15-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Liz Williams williams@wehi.edu.au 61-405-279-095 Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Melbourne scientists have made the surprise discovery that malaria parasites can 'talk' to each other a social behaviour to ensure the parasite's survival and improve its chances of being transmitted to other humans.
The finding could provide a niche for developing antimalarial drugs and vaccines that prevent or treat the disease by cutting these communication networks.
Professor Alan Cowman, Dr Neta Regev-Rudzki, Dr Danny Wilson and colleagues from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in collaboration with Professor Andrew Hill from the University of Melbourne's Bio21 Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology showed that malaria parasites are able to send out messages to communicate with other malaria parasites in the body. The study was published today in the journal Cell.
Professor Cowman said the researchers were shocked to discover that malaria parasites work in unison to enhance 'activation' into sexually mature forms that can be picked up by mosquitoes, which are the carriers of this deadly disease.
"When Neta showed me the data, I was absolutely amazed, I couldn't believe it," Professor Cowman said. "We repeated the experiments many times in many different ways before I really started to believe that these parasites were signalling to each other and communicating. But we came to appreciate why the malaria parasite really needs this mechanism it needs to know how many other parasites are in the human to sense when is the right time to activate into sexual forms that give it the best chance of being transmitted back to the mosquito."
Malaria kills about 700,000 people a year, mostly children aged under five and pregnant women. Every year, hundreds of millions of people are infected with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, which is transmitted through mosquito bites. It is estimated that half the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria, with the disease being concentrated in tropical and subtropical regions including many of Australia's near neighbours.
Dr Regev-Rudzki said the malaria parasites inside red blood cells communicate by sending packages of DNA to each other during the blood stage of infection. "We showed that the parasites inside infected red blood cells can send little packets of information from one parasite to another, particularly in response to stress," she said.
The communication network is a social behaviour that has evolved to signal when the parasites should complete their lifecycle and be transmitted back to a mosquito, Dr Regev-Rudzki said. "Once they receive this information, they change their fate the signals tell the parasites to become sexual forms, which are the forms of the malaria parasite that can live and replicate in the mosquito, ensuring the parasites survives and is transmitted to another human."
Professor Cowman said he hopes to see the discovery pave the way to new antimalarial drugs or vaccines for preventing malaria. "This discovery has fundamentally changed our view of the malaria parasite and is a big step in understanding how the malaria parasite survives and is transmitted," he said. "The next step is to identify the molecules involved in this signalling process, and ways that we could block these communication networks to block the transmission of malaria from the human to the mosquito. That would be the ultimate goal."
###
This project was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute and the Victorian Government.
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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.
May 15 (Reuters) - Post positions for the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes, to be run at Pimlico on Saturday (Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds) 1. Orb, Joel Rosario, Shug McGaughey, even 2. Goldencents, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill, 8-1 3. Titletown Five, Julien Leparoux, D. Wayne Lukas, 30-1 4. Departing, Brian Hernandez, Al Stall, 6-1 5. Mylute, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss, 5-1 6. Oxbow, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas, 15-1 7. Will Take Charge, Mike Smith, D. Wayne Lukas, 12-1 8. Govenor Charlie, Martin Garcia, Bob Baffert, 12-1 9. ...
At least 1.5 billion years after it last saw the surface, flowing liquid may host life
At least 1.5 billion years after it last saw the surface, flowing liquid may host life
By Erin Wayman
Web edition: May 15, 2013
Drilling more than two kilometers into the ground beneath Canada, geologists have struck scientific gold: pockets of flowing water isolated underground for at least 1.5 billion years and perhaps as long as 2.64 billion years.
The water is rich in hydrogen and methane, which nourish microbes living today near hydrothermal vents on the seafloor. That means the deposits may harbor ancient lineages of life cut off from the surface for eons, the researchers report in the May 16 Nature.
Although the water has not yielded any evidence of life to date, the researchers intend to start looking. And because ancient rocks on Mars share a similar mineral composition, the finding suggests that the Red Planet could also be home to deeply buried life, says coauthor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a geochemist at the University of Toronto.
The study ?makes a good case that if there was ever a biosphere on Mars, then tiny remnants of that biosphere are very likely preserved underground,? says planetary scientist Chris McKay of NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. But he doesn?t expect imminent confirmation of that proposition. ?Considering that after 40 years of Mars exploration we have managed to drill only a few centimeters, it may be a long time before we can follow up on this idea.?
The discovery comes from boreholes drilled in an Ontario zinc and copper mine. The water is in fractures in rocks that were part of the seafloor roughly 2.7 billion years ago. Over time, volcanic eruptions and other geologic activity buried the rocks and trapped the water.
Sherwood Lollar and colleagues embarked on their Ontario research after discovering water in a South African gold mine that had been separated from the surface for up to 25 million years and contained microbes that were living off hydrogen and methane produced by chemical reactions between the water and rock. Some of the microbes were related to bacteria found near hydrothermal vents; others didn?t resemble any known lineages, Sherwood Lollar says.
The team searched in Ontario because of the rocks? antiquity, but the researchers didn?t expect to find water billions of years old. ?I?m not sure I believed the results to begin with,? says coauthor Christopher Ballentine, a geochemist at the University of Manchester in England.
Before the discoveries in South Africa and Canada, geologists had routinely found traces of ancient water trapped in microscopic bubbles in minerals. But researchers had never found flowing water that old. Sherwood Lollar doesn?t know how much water is trapped deep in the crust at the Canadian site. But at one of the boreholes, water flowed up over several years at rates as high as 400 milliliters per minute.?
The researchers determined the water?s age through several analyses of noble gases dissolved in the fluid. For example, the composition of different xenon forms, or isotopes, matched the expected mix in Earth?s early atmosphere.
The water was probably preserved because this region of Canada has experienced little tectonic activity that would disturb rocks, Ballentine says. Similar pockets of water might exist in any rocks this ancient, which occur worldwide, adds Steven Shirey, a geochemist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. ?That?s what?s so exciting,? he says. ?If it could happen here, it could happen any place.?
Suggested Reading
J. Raloff. Life found deep below Antarctic ice. Science News. Vol. 183, March 9, 2013, p. 12. [Go to]
A. Witze. Deep life. Science News. Vol. 181, February 11, 2012, p. 18. [Go to]
A. Witze. Buried microbes coax energy from rock. Science News Online, February 8, 2011. [Go to]
S. Perkins. Seafloor chemistry: life?s building blocks made inorganically. Science News. Vol. 173, February 2, 2008, p. 67. [Go to]
4 genes indentified that influence levels of 'bad' cholesterolPublic release date: 15-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Joseph Carey jcarey@txbiomed.org 210-258-9437 Texas Biomedical Research Institute
Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio have identified four genes in baboons that influence levels of "bad" cholesterol. This discovery could lead to the development of new drugs to reduce the risk of heart disease.
"Our findings are important because they provide new targets for the development of novel drugs to reduce heart disease risk in humans," said Laura Cox, Ph.D., a Texas Biomed geneticist. "Since these genes have previously been associated with cancer, our findings suggest that genetic causes of heart disease may overlap with causes of some types of cancer."
The new study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is published online and will appear in the July print issue of the Journal of Lipid Research. It can be found at: http://www.jlr.org/content/early/2013/05/06/jlr.M032649.full.pdf+html.
Texas Biomed scientists screened their baboon colony of 1,500 animals to find three half-siblings with low levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad,"' cholesterol, and three half-siblings with high levels of LDL. In the study, these animals were fed a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet for seven weeks. Scientists then used gene array technology and high throughput sequencers to home in on the genes expressed in the two groups and differentiate those in the low LDL groups from those in the high LDL group. They discovered that four genes (named TENC1, ERBB3, ACVR1B, and DGKA) influence LDL levels. Interestingly, these four genes are part of a signaling pathway important for cell survival and disruption of this pathway promotes some types of cancer.
It is well-known that a high level of LDL is a major risk factor for heart disease. Despite concerted efforts for the past 25 years to manage cholesterol levels through changes in lifestyle and treatment with medications, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States and around the world. It will account for one out of four U.S. deaths in 2013, according to the American Heart Association.
Heart disease is a complex disorder thought to be a result of interactions between genetic and environmental factors, which occur primarily through diet. To understand why humans have different levels of LDL and thus variation in risk for heart disease, the genetic factors causing these differences need to be understood.
However, these studies are difficult to do in humans because it's practically impossible to control what people eat. Instead, Texas Biomed scientists are using baboons, which are similar to humans in their physiology and genetics, to identify genes that influence heart disease risk.
The new research also suggests that knowing many of the genes responsible for heart disease may be necessary to devise effective treatments. For example, several genes may need to be targeted at once to control risk.
The next step in this research is to find the mechanism by which these genes influence LDL cholesterol. "That starts to give us the specific targets for new therapies." Cox said. If all goes well, this information may be available within two years.
###
Other Texas Biomed scientists on the study included Genesio Karere, Ph.D.; Jeremy Glenn, B.S.; Shifra Birnbaum, B.S.; David Rainwater, Ph.D.; Michael Mahaney, Ph.D.; and John L. VandeBerg, Ph.D.
This research was supported by NIH grants P01 HL028972-27, P01 HL028972 Supplement, and P51 OD011133. It was conducted in part in facilities constructed with support grants C06 RR013556 and C06 RR015456.
Texas Biomed, formerly the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, is one of the world's leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to advancing global human health through innovative biomedical research.
Located on a 200-acre campus on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas, the Institute partners with hundreds of researchers and institutions around the world, targeting advances in the fight against emerging infectious diseases, AIDS, hepatitis, malaria, parasitic infections and a host of other diseases, as well as cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, obesity, cancer, psychiatric disorders, and problems of pregnancy. For more information on Texas Biomed, go to http://www.TxBiomed.org, or call Joe Carey, Texas Biomed's Vice President for Public Affairs, at 210-258-9437.
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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.
4 genes indentified that influence levels of 'bad' cholesterolPublic release date: 15-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Joseph Carey jcarey@txbiomed.org 210-258-9437 Texas Biomedical Research Institute
Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio have identified four genes in baboons that influence levels of "bad" cholesterol. This discovery could lead to the development of new drugs to reduce the risk of heart disease.
"Our findings are important because they provide new targets for the development of novel drugs to reduce heart disease risk in humans," said Laura Cox, Ph.D., a Texas Biomed geneticist. "Since these genes have previously been associated with cancer, our findings suggest that genetic causes of heart disease may overlap with causes of some types of cancer."
The new study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is published online and will appear in the July print issue of the Journal of Lipid Research. It can be found at: http://www.jlr.org/content/early/2013/05/06/jlr.M032649.full.pdf+html.
Texas Biomed scientists screened their baboon colony of 1,500 animals to find three half-siblings with low levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad,"' cholesterol, and three half-siblings with high levels of LDL. In the study, these animals were fed a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet for seven weeks. Scientists then used gene array technology and high throughput sequencers to home in on the genes expressed in the two groups and differentiate those in the low LDL groups from those in the high LDL group. They discovered that four genes (named TENC1, ERBB3, ACVR1B, and DGKA) influence LDL levels. Interestingly, these four genes are part of a signaling pathway important for cell survival and disruption of this pathway promotes some types of cancer.
It is well-known that a high level of LDL is a major risk factor for heart disease. Despite concerted efforts for the past 25 years to manage cholesterol levels through changes in lifestyle and treatment with medications, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States and around the world. It will account for one out of four U.S. deaths in 2013, according to the American Heart Association.
Heart disease is a complex disorder thought to be a result of interactions between genetic and environmental factors, which occur primarily through diet. To understand why humans have different levels of LDL and thus variation in risk for heart disease, the genetic factors causing these differences need to be understood.
However, these studies are difficult to do in humans because it's practically impossible to control what people eat. Instead, Texas Biomed scientists are using baboons, which are similar to humans in their physiology and genetics, to identify genes that influence heart disease risk.
The new research also suggests that knowing many of the genes responsible for heart disease may be necessary to devise effective treatments. For example, several genes may need to be targeted at once to control risk.
The next step in this research is to find the mechanism by which these genes influence LDL cholesterol. "That starts to give us the specific targets for new therapies." Cox said. If all goes well, this information may be available within two years.
###
Other Texas Biomed scientists on the study included Genesio Karere, Ph.D.; Jeremy Glenn, B.S.; Shifra Birnbaum, B.S.; David Rainwater, Ph.D.; Michael Mahaney, Ph.D.; and John L. VandeBerg, Ph.D.
This research was supported by NIH grants P01 HL028972-27, P01 HL028972 Supplement, and P51 OD011133. It was conducted in part in facilities constructed with support grants C06 RR013556 and C06 RR015456.
Texas Biomed, formerly the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, is one of the world's leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to advancing global human health through innovative biomedical research.
Located on a 200-acre campus on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas, the Institute partners with hundreds of researchers and institutions around the world, targeting advances in the fight against emerging infectious diseases, AIDS, hepatitis, malaria, parasitic infections and a host of other diseases, as well as cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, obesity, cancer, psychiatric disorders, and problems of pregnancy. For more information on Texas Biomed, go to http://www.TxBiomed.org, or call Joe Carey, Texas Biomed's Vice President for Public Affairs, at 210-258-9437.
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