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MALABO, Equatorial Guinea (AP) -Tournament favorite Ivory Coast was grouped with Sudan, Burkina Faso and Angola in Saturday's draw for next year's African Cup of Nations.
World Cup quarterfinalist Ghana was drawn alongside Cup of Nations newcomer Botswana, Mali and Guinea for the 16-team African championship in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, which kicks off on Jan. 21.
Ivory Coast and Ghana avoided the likes of Senegal, Morocco and Tunisia in a kind draw for the two main contenders.
In Group A, co-host Equatorial Guinea will open the tournament in Bata on its Cup of Nations debut against surprise qualifier Libya. Senegal and Zambia make up the group.
Gabon will face Niger - another first-time qualifier - and North African hopes Morocco and Tunisia in Group C. Morocco and Tunisia open their campaigns against each other on Jan. 23.
In the absence of three-time defending champion Egypt and former winners Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa - who all failed to qualify - top-ranked African team Ivory Coast and Ghana are tipped to meet in the Feb. 12 final in the Gabon capital Libreville.
Ivory Coast will start its quest for a second African title, and first since 1992, against Sudan in Group B. Ghana will play Botswana first up in Group D.
Equatorial Guinea plays Libya and Senegal faces Zambia in the opening two games of the tournament, which are set to be played back-to-back at the same stadium on Jan. 21.
The top two teams from each group will qualify for the quarterfinals, with the tournament played across four cities: Bata and Malabo in Equatorial Guinea and Libreville and Franceville in Gabon.
Ghana is the most successful team at the 2012 edition with four Cup of Nations crowns. Tunisia, Sudan, Ivory Coast and Morocco have all won the competition once.
Burkina Faso's place at the tournament was confirmed by the Confederation of African Football after the ruling body rejected an appeal by Namibia over an ineligible player in the Burkinabe squad. CAF said the protest from the Namibians - who lost out to Burkina Faso in qualifying - did not follow correct procedure and was therefore rejected.
President Ali Bongo of Gabon and President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea attended Saturday's draw, which was overseen by CAF President Issa Hayatou.
? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Man City stays clear of United
Manchester City beat Wolverhampton 3-1 and stayed five points ahead of Manchester United at the top of the Premier League on Saturday. Chelsea lost ground on the leaders with a 5-3 defeat against visiting Arsenal in which Robin van Persie had a hat trick.
'Monster'?
Ex-U.S. coach Bob Bradley has the daunting challenge of reviving the hopes of the "monster'' of African football ? Egypt.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's policy of fully disclosing the list of his top supporters who bundle campaign cash is ironically responsible for a recent New York Times story hitting him for taking contributions from people who are effectively lobbyists, despite a campaign pledge to shun such money.
"At least 15 of Mr. Obama's 'bundlers' -- supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others -- are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign," the Times reported on Friday. The story noted that the 15 are not registered lobbyists.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, told CNN on Sunday that it was the president's own practice of disclosing his bundlers' names that made the story possible. Republican candidates, who have not sworn off cash from registered lobbyists, are likely signing up bundlers from the same crowd, but voters won't be able to find out as long as they decline to disclose the information.
"Everyone should understand the reason why The New York Times can write that story is because the president is disclosing everyone who raises money for him. None of the Republican candidates are willing to do that," Axelrod said.
In voluntarily banning lobbyists from donating to his campaign, Obama raises the question of just who counts as a lobbyist. The campaign defines a lobbyist as someone who registers with the federal government as one, but a shadow industry of unregistered lobbyists exists in Washington, as people avoid registering under complex federal rules.
"You have people who really are, by any stretch of the imagination, lobbying Congress, lobbying the White House. They are lobbyists and they are bundlers -- that is, they ask other people to give money," CNN's Candy Crowley pointed out.
Axelrod defended the administration by arguing that, since no law requires that bundlers not be lobbyists, whatever steps Obama takes are better than nothing.
"The president has imposed on himself a ban on taking contributions from federal lobbyists. He has imposed on himself a ban from taking money from political action committees. But more importantly as president, he has ended the revolving door between industry and the government so he doesn't hire lobbyists to come in. The last administration you saw lobbyists come in, write the rules, write the laws, then go back to their jobs in industry. That is not going on right now. This is a profound change," Axelrod said.
In fact, some top White House officials have been exempted from that rule. Obama's chief of staff, William Daley, was a lobbyist for JPMorgan Chase, for instance.
"So we can quibble about issues like this, but when you look at the substance of what he's done, he's gone so much farther than anybody has ever gone before. Is it perfect? It's not perfect, Candy. We are not in a perfect political system," Axelrod said. "So it is not a perfect system. But is he better than anybody has ever been before on this? Has he made a real difference on this? Absolutely."
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2011) ? A new study from University of California, Berkeley, researchers demonstrates that adult stem cells can reshape our organs in response to changes in the body and the environment, a finding that could have implications for diabetes and obesity.
Current thinking has been that, once embryonic stem cells mature into adult stem cells, they sit quietly in our tissues, replacing cells that die or are injured but doing little else.
But in working with fruit flies, the researchers found that intestinal stem cells responded to increased food intake by producing more intestinal cells, expanding the size of the intestines as long as the food keeps flowing.
"When flies start to eat, the intestinal stem cells go into overdrive, and the gut expands," said UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Lucy O'Brien. "Four days later, the gut is four times bigger than before, but when food is taken away, the gut slims down."
Just as in humans and other mammals, O'Brien added, the fly intestine secretes its own insulin. In flies, intestinal insulin seems to be the signal that makes stem cells "supersize the gut."
"Because of the many similarities between the fruit fly and the human, the discovery may hold a key to understanding how human organs adapt to environmental change," said David Bilder, UC-Berkeley associate professor of molecular and cell biology.
The research will be published in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Cell.
Experiments such as this "could provide important insights into the therapeutic use of stem cells for treatment of different gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders such as diabetes," wrote Abby Sarka and Konrad Hochedlinger of Harvard University in a Cell perspective accompanying the publication.
Stem cells key to adaptability
Many tissues grow or shrink with usage, including muscle, liver and intestine. Human intestines, for example, regrow after portions have been surgically removed because of cancer or injury, and hibernating animals see their intestines shrink to one-third their normal size during winter.
"One strategy animals use to deal with environmental variability is to tune the workings of their organ systems to match the conditions at hand," O'Brien said. "How exactly this 'organ adaptation' happens, particularly in adult animals that are no longer growing, has long been a mystery."
Following the surprising discovery of stem cells in the intestines of fruit flies five years ago, O'Brien and Bilder decided to investigate the role of adult stem cells in normal intestinal growth in hopes of finding clues to their role in vertebrates like us.
"I looked at stained stem cells in the fruit fly intestine, and they are studded throughout like jewels. The tissues were so beautiful, I knew I had to study them," O'Brien said.
O'Brien, Bilder and their colleagues discovered that when fruit flies feed, their intestines secrete insulin locally, which stimulates intestinal stem cells to divide and produce more intestinal cells.
"The real surprise was that the fruit fly intestine is capable of secreting its own insulin," BIlder said. "This intestinal insulin spikes immediately after feeding and talks directly to stem cells, so the intestine controls its own adaptation."
Stem cells can divide either asymmetrically, producing one stem cell and one intestinal cell, or symmetrically, producing two stem cells. The team found that, in response to food, intestinal stem cells underwent symmetric division more frequently than asymmetric division, which had the effect of maintaining the proportion of stem cells to intestinal cells, and is a more efficient way of ramping up the total number of cells, O'Brien said.
"Adaptive resizing of the intestine makes sense from the standpoint of physiological fitness," she said. "Upkeep of the intestinal lining is metabolically expensive, consuming up to 30 percent of the body's energy resources. By minimizing intestinal size when food is scarce, and maximizing digestive capacity when food is abundant, adaptive intestinal resizing by stem cells helps animals survive in constantly changing environments."
Bilder and O'Brien's coauthors on the Cell paper are UC Berkeley staff researchers Sarah S. Soliman and Xinghua Li.
The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and, for O'Brien, by a Genentech Foundation Fellowship of the Life Sciences Research Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Berkeley. The original article was written by Robert Sanders.
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Lucy Erin O'Brien, Sarah S. Soliman, Xinghua Li, David Bilder. Altered Modes of Stem Cell Division Drive Adaptive Intestinal Growth. Cell, 2011; 147 (3): 603-614 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.08.048
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
This week, a few hundred people who lead foundations will gather in Scottsdale, Arizona., for the annual meeting of Philanthropy Roundtable, an organization that promotes independent giving to solve America's challenges while encouraging laws and regulations that make it easy for wealthy people to engage in private philanthropy with little oversight.
At this meeting, the organization will pay homage to Charles Koch who, along with brother, David, is owner of Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in America. The firm runs oil refineries and owns consumer brands like Lycra fabric and Brawny paper towels. The brothers are the fourth- and fifth-richest men in America; each has a net worth of $25 billion.
According to Philanthropy Roundtable, the principles that govern Charles Koch's philanthropy are simple: "He wants to sustain and strengthen America as a land of freedom and prosperity. He wants to give others the same opportunity to succeed that he has had. Having benefited from the capitalist system, he wants others to prosper in the same way."
But closer examination suggests that Charles Koch's "philanthropy" is mostly about influencing our political systems to promote and strengthen domestic policies that favor Koch Industries, while at the same time, hurting the rest of us.
The Kochs and their corporations are players in an informal alliance of business executives and conservative theorists who promote an ambitious political agenda. The Kochs use their vast corporate resources to fund an entire political network that includes think tanks, elected officials and undisclosed front groups to advocate for public policies and the dismantling of regulations that help their bottom line, but are bad for the public. They favor dramatically lower personal and corporate income taxes, less government oversight of industry -- particularly environmental regulations that impact their businesses. They have spent millions to fight health care reform, energy independence and combating global warming,
The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation has made multimillion-dollar investments in the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS), which Charles Koch chairs; the Mercatus Center; and George Mason University in Virginia, which houses both of these free market institutes. Koch gave $1.1 million in 2006 and $2.4 million in 2009 to IHS. The university received more than $2.8 million in 2008 and nearly $5 million in 2009.
The Wall Street Journal called the Mercatus Center "the most important think tank you've never heard of." The Journal reported that when George W. Bush first took office, his "hit list" of 23 regulations to be repealed or modified included 14 suggested by Mercatus, including EPA pollution regulations and energy efficiency standards. Koch gave $3.9 million in 2006, nearly $2.7 million in 2007 and $1.7 million in 2008 to the center.
Other notable grants in 2009 include $67,556 to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, started by his brother David and closely involved with the Tea Party movement; and $75,858 to the American Legislative Exchange Council, known for peddling industry-friendly "model" legislation to state legislatures.
Companies controlled by Koch Industries have rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada. Common Cause has highlighted the Kochs' ties to Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who were "featured" guests at two political fundraising and strategy sessions sponsored by the company. Koch Industries was a major beneficiary of the court's decision in the landmark campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned longstanding regulations limiting corporate spending around elections. Both justices sided with the position benefiting the Kochs.
When a wealthy person like Charles Koch creates a private tax-exempt foundation, he or she is indirectly diverting a portion of tax revenue that goes to pay for things like supporting the military, building and maintaining roads and public transportation and public schools to projects of his or her liking.
When that happens, the rest of us -- especially the lower and middle-class -- who don't have foundations and fancy tax lawyers shoulder more of the cost of public services.
Philanthropy, at its best, involves selfless giving by individuals and foundations to advance equity and democracy and promote the common good. It reaches down to serve the poor and powerless, such as by assuaging homelessness, hunger and illiteracy and through advocacy for public policies aimed at solving those problems. Paying for policy reform that harms the public good and benefits one's own economic interests isn't consistent with the spirit and history of philanthropic giving in this nation.
Given his self-interested giving, Charles Koch seems an odd choice to become philanthropy's poster boy. It says a lot about the Philanthropy Roundtable that they chose Koch over the many other outstanding philanthropists in the country to receive this year's award.
Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. Bob Edgar is president and CEO of Common Cause in Washington, D.C.
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SANAA, Yemen ? A car bomb killed the head of the anti-terror force in Yemen's restive southern Abyan province Friday, a Yemeni security official said.
Three others, including two children, were wounded in the blast that killed Ali al-Haddi near the coastal city of Aden. The bomb was planted in al-Haddi's car, the official said.
Security has broken down across Yemen during the nine-month popular uprising against autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled the country for more than 30 years. Demonstrations raged around the country on Friday.
Al-Qaida-linked militants have taken over a number of towns in Abyan, along the country's south coast, where they regularly engage in deadly clashes with security forces. Yemeni authorities also accuse them of targeting security officials.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk brief the media.
Tens of thousands marched in anti-government demonstrations across Yemen Friday. Protesters have been on the streets nearly every day since January, despite a bloody government crackdown.
In the central city of Taiz, security forces opened fire on marchers carrying the bodies of protesters killed in recent days, wounding five people, activists said.
Thousands also marched in the capital Sanaa, where government troops have been clashing with army defectors who have joined the protests and armed men loyal to Yemen's most powerful tribal chief, who supports the opposition.
A medical official said a 28-year-old woman was killed in crossfire Friday in Sanaa during a gunbattle between the two sides. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
An iceberg melts in Kulusuk Bay, eastern Greenland, in this July 17, 2007, file photo. A new survey finds growing support for schemes to hack the climate to reduce global warming.
By John Roach
The public is surprisingly aware of the fact that humans could deliberately hack the planet's climate to reduce or offset changes due to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a first-of-its kind survey.
What's more,?72 percent of the 3,105 respondents think scientists should be allowed to study ways to do this that involve managing the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth's surface, such as injecting tiny particles into the stratosphere to reflect some of the sun's energy back into space.
This field of science is technically known as geoengineering, though the survey found that more people have a better idea of what it's all about when the tem "climate engineering" is used, according to the results, which were presented Monday in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Growing recognition Scientists have batted around the concept since the 1960s, though it remained on the periphery of the climate debate until the last few years largely due to fears that public discussion would lessen incentives for political action to curb emissions, note the researchers.
But in recent years the concept has gained traction due in part to the fact that the prominent scientist Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel for his work on the ozone hole, has urged systematic study of solar radiation management.?
As well, news media coverage of geoengineering has spiked and bookshelves have begun to creak under the weight of tomes dedicated to the idea, such as Eli Kintisch's "Hack the Planet" and Jeff Goodell's "How to Cool the Planet".
Given the growing recognition, the researchers felt the time is ripe to collect data on public opinions and awareness on the subject.?
Survey results According to the results, 8 percent of the respondents correctly described geoengineering and 45 percent correctly described the interchangeable term "climate engineering," adding weight to the argument that the term geoengineering is misleading and difficult to understand.?
While 72 percent of the respondents support studying solar radiation management, uncertainty about using the technique to stop a climate emergency now or deploying it immediately was considerable.
"Overall the support for [solar radiation management] is surprisingly high," the team writes. "Our own view, and our impression of the dominant opinion within the research and policy community, is that near term use of SRM would be reckless."
The research team, which includes David Keith, an expert on scientific study of geoengineering at Harvard University and the University of Calgary, was pleased to also find broad public trust in university researchers to dispense honest information about the field.
In fact, 75 percent or respondents ranked university researchers as trustworthy.?
"As future policy and governance debates concerning SRM continue, scientists are likely in a unique and trusted position of influence ? ensuring that the science remains disentangled from the politics will help to preserve the public's trust in scientists on the topic of SRM," they conclude.
Less than trustworthy Less than a third, however, trust information about geoengineering from the government. The?media is an even less trustworthy source of information (26 percent).
There's also a subset of people out there who believe governments or scientists are already distributing chemicals in the atmosphere for purposes ranging from culling the population to mind control.
"We found that 2.6 percent of the subjects believe that it is completely true that the government has a secret program that uses airplanes to put harmful chemicals into the air and 14 percent of the sample believe that this is partly true," the team notes.
More on geoengineering:
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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more information of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
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Disposable computers for hurling into infernos, underwater robots that team up for search and rescue, and other new tools are coming to the aid of emergency responders during calamities.
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) ? The slot machines jangle away with the promise of sudden riches, but many visitors to a job fair at a second-tier casino here are hoping merely for a minimum-wage job to snap their losing streak.
The grim economy hasn't been the only disappointment of the past several years for those hoping to find work with the limousine companies, insurance agencies and home healthcare providers that have set up shop at this career fair.
Ask Kimberly Howard who she voted for in 2008, and she glances sideways before confiding what appears to be a shameful secret. "Obama," she mutters.
It's not a choice she plans to repeat next year. She thinks perhaps Republicans will do a better job of fixing the economy. "I hope so. I'm praying so," she says quietly.
In order for Obama to win reelection next year, he will have to convince voters like Howard to give him another chance, particularly in battleground states with high unemployment like Nevada, which the president visited on Monday.
The unemployed, long an afterthought in political campaigns, could emerge as a surprise swing constituency next year. For decades, conventional wisdom was that the unemployed did not vote as much as those with jobs.
But new research based on the current economic slump shows a different picture. People who have lost their jobs are nearly twice as likely to switch support from incumbents, according to Andrew Healy, an economist at Loyola Marymount University.
Examining local layoff notices around the 2008 election, Healy found in an national study that 39 percent of the newly unemployed who had backed the incumbent party in the prior election switched their support to the opposition, compared with only 20 percent of other voters.
That helped Obama win Republican-leaning states like Indiana in 2008, but could put him on the defensive this time in states like Nevada and Michigan, where jobless households could make up a substantial portion of the electorate.
During the last two elections as the economy has stagnated, those who have lost their jobs have actually voted at a higher rate than the employed, according to national research being developed by Matthew Incantulpo, a graduate student at Princeton University.
UNHAPPY WITH STATUS QUO
He found that those who lost their jobs before the 2008 and 2010 elections had turnout rates roughly 7 percentage points higher than a control group of voters who lost their jobs shortly after the election. In 1996, when the economy was healthy, the newly unemployed had turnout rates 10 percentage points lower than the control group.
The economic downturn has hit especially hard among large swaths of the coalition that powered Obama to victory in 2008, and many of those voters could have a hard time squaring his promises of hope and change with their own struggles.
"I don't see any changes he's made that have been positive for people," Howard says as she fills out an application form. "He keeps saying 'more jobs, more jobs,' but I've been out of work for four months and I'm not seeing any improvement."
The shaky economy is expected to be the dominant issue in the November 2012 election. Those who have personal experience with job loss could make up a significantly larger chunk of the electorate than the official 9.1 percent unemployment rate would suggest.
In last year's congressional elections, a historic rout for Obama's Democrats, nearly one in three voters had experienced a job loss in their households, according to exit polls.
Next year's election could see a similar pattern as the jobless rate is projected to remain above 8 percent.
Obama aims to convince voters he is a better bet to boost the economy than his eventual Republican rival. Since September, he has been campaigning on his American Jobs Act, which has been blocked by Republicans in Congress.
"The President brought the economy back from the brink of another depression and he has fought for a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility," said campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. "He is fighting every day to create jobs and restore economic security for the middle class."
That argument doesn't carry much weight with those at the job fair who backed Obama in 2008.
"He could have done a lot more from what he promised at the beginning and I just haven't seen it happen," says Augistin Zaragosa, 49. "The help that he gave us all a couple years ago, that was basically nothing."
LABOR UNIONS GET INVOLVED
Democrats' traditional allies in the labor movement are trying to mobilize the unemployed.
With the help of the Service Employees International Union, Linda Overby, an out-of-work painter in Las Vegas, has been organizing protests at the local offices of Republican lawmakers who oppose Obama's jobs bill.
Participation has grown as the protests have harnessed the anger many feel about Republican efforts to erode workers' rights, she said, and the Occupy Wall Street has helped to raise awareness as well.
"I am seeing people start to wake up," Overby said.
But increased activism does not necessarily equal increased support for Obama.
The International Association of Machinists counts 10,000 to 15,000 members in its Union of Unemployed, an effort to counteract the sense of isolation that can come with job loss and push for policies that would help those looking for work.
The group views Obama's jobs bill as a mixed bag, and an unscientific survey found widespread dissatisfaction with his presidency, even among Democrats.
"These folks are the swing voters of the next election cycle," said Rick Sloan, the group's executive director. "If they don't see any change in their lives, they're going to vote for a change."
Obama's bill would continue enhanced unemployment benefits in place since 2009 but that would do nothing for those who have been jobless for so long they have already exhausted them, Sloan said.
Sam Guy, a 24-year-old who hopes to find work in the insurance industry, said he hasn't decided how to vote next year. But his enthusiasm for Obama has waned. "I'm not rolling around with a bumper sticker this time," he said.
(Additional reporting by Lily Kuo; Editing by Alistair Bell and Todd Eastham)
New York ? After packing a sex toy in her luggage, a woman allegedly opens her suitcase to find a note from the TSA reading, "GET YOUR FREAK ON." Cue the jokes
The TSA's full body scanners have prompted privacy and modesty concerns, but one woman alleges that the TSA violated her privacy in a far more overt way. Feminist blogger Jill Filipovic says that after flying from Newark to Dublin, she opened her suitcase to find a special note from the TSA. Scrawled across the agency's official search form was a message: "GET YOUR FREAK ON." (See a picture of the note here.) I "guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag," Filipovic tweeted. "Wow." The item in question was a small, inexpensive silver bullet vibrator from the sex toy chain Babeland, chosen because Filipovic thought it "wouldn't raise any flags at TSA." Now "I'm grossed out,"?says Filipovic, "but it's also hilarious." The TSA says it's investigating the incident. Meanwhile, bloggers are cracking wise. Here, a sampling:
Conservative agenda? "Is self-pleasuring really considered 'freaky' by anyone's standards these days?" asks John Del Signore at Gothamist. "Or is Newark airport subcontracting out their security screening to Focus on the Family?"
Mission accomplished "As part of its ongoing efforts to make air travel as uncomfortable as possible,"?says Dan Amira at?New York, "the TSA is now, apparently, leaving behind little creepy notes about the personal items it finds in your checked luggage."
Just saying "Given that 'groping' leaps to many people's minds the minute the TSA is mentioned,"?says Anna North at?Jezebel, "it might behoove agents to exercise a little discretion when going through people's stuff."
Touchy subject Is this "hilarious or horrifying?" asks Lauri Apple at Gawker. "I'm gonna go with 'horrifying lite' ? if only because there's the chance that the agent(s) touched the 'item' without washing his/her/their hands, or wasn't paying attention to other potentially freaky things," like, say loaded guns.?
The lesson "On your next business trip,"?says John Giuffo at?Forbes, "you might want to leave your more private possessions at home ? unless getting your luggage handled is how you 'get your freak on.'"
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Does reading achievement spur independent reading, or vice versa?Public release date: 26-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Hutcheon shutcheon@srcd.org 202-289-7905 Society for Research in Child Development
Reading achievement at age 10 influences how much independent reading children do at age 11. However, independent reading doesn't directly improve children's achievement in reading, at least among children at the end of elementary school. In addition, individual differences in independent reading among 11-year-olds partly reflect genetic influences on reading achievement at age 10.
Those are the findings of a new longitudinal study that sought to answer the question: Does reading achievement lead to independent reading or does reading on your own boost reading achievement? Or are there relationships between the two that go in both directions?
The study appears in the journal Child Development. It was conducted by researchers at the Ohio State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
Educators have long emphasized the importance of independent reading for fun or leisure, assuming that getting kids to read more on their own will lead to improvements in their reading scores. However, although such independent reading is linked to reading achievement, it's been unclear whether reading for fun leads to increased reading achievement, or whether children who are better at reading simply read more.
To better understand what causes what and also to determine what role genetics play, researchers in this study looked at reading achievement and independent reading in 436 pairs of identical and same-sex nonidentical twins at age 10 and again a year later at 11.
Reading achievement was assessed using standard measures of word recognition (recognizing single words) and reading comprehension. Independent reading was assessed by asking each twin questions about his or her motivation to read. Parents estimated how often their children read for pleasure.
The study found that children's reading achievement at age 10 predicted their independent reading at 11, regardless of how much independent reading they were doing at 10, suggesting that reading achievement influenced later independent reading.
The reverse was not true. After accounting for reading achievement at age 10, independent reading at 10 didn't predict reading achievement at 11.
The study also found that that individual differences in reading achievement at both ages were partly due to genetic factors, and that genetic influences on reading achievement at age 10 partly contributed to individual differences in independent reading at age 11. This finding is consistent with the notion of genetic niche-picking: Children may actively select experiences based on their genetic predispositions or children's genetically influenced characteristics may evoke certain responses from others. For example, children with a high genetic proclivity for reading may seek out opportunities to read at home, and their parents may take them to the library on a more regular basis. Conversely, children at high genetic risk for reading difficulties may avoid reading and be less interested in visiting the library.
"Overall, our results indicate that children look for independent reading opportunities, in part, on the basis of genetic effects related to reading achievement, at least among children at the end of elementary school," notes Nicole Harlaar, senior research associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the study when she was with the Ohio State University.
"Our findings don't diminish the importance of encouraging independent reading among children," Harlaar adds. "Other aspects of independent reading that this study didn't look at may be very important for children's reading achievement, such as volume of reading or whether or not the books that children read are sufficiently challenging."
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The study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Department of Education.
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Does reading achievement spur independent reading, or vice versa?Public release date: 26-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Hutcheon shutcheon@srcd.org 202-289-7905 Society for Research in Child Development
Reading achievement at age 10 influences how much independent reading children do at age 11. However, independent reading doesn't directly improve children's achievement in reading, at least among children at the end of elementary school. In addition, individual differences in independent reading among 11-year-olds partly reflect genetic influences on reading achievement at age 10.
Those are the findings of a new longitudinal study that sought to answer the question: Does reading achievement lead to independent reading or does reading on your own boost reading achievement? Or are there relationships between the two that go in both directions?
The study appears in the journal Child Development. It was conducted by researchers at the Ohio State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
Educators have long emphasized the importance of independent reading for fun or leisure, assuming that getting kids to read more on their own will lead to improvements in their reading scores. However, although such independent reading is linked to reading achievement, it's been unclear whether reading for fun leads to increased reading achievement, or whether children who are better at reading simply read more.
To better understand what causes what and also to determine what role genetics play, researchers in this study looked at reading achievement and independent reading in 436 pairs of identical and same-sex nonidentical twins at age 10 and again a year later at 11.
Reading achievement was assessed using standard measures of word recognition (recognizing single words) and reading comprehension. Independent reading was assessed by asking each twin questions about his or her motivation to read. Parents estimated how often their children read for pleasure.
The study found that children's reading achievement at age 10 predicted their independent reading at 11, regardless of how much independent reading they were doing at 10, suggesting that reading achievement influenced later independent reading.
The reverse was not true. After accounting for reading achievement at age 10, independent reading at 10 didn't predict reading achievement at 11.
The study also found that that individual differences in reading achievement at both ages were partly due to genetic factors, and that genetic influences on reading achievement at age 10 partly contributed to individual differences in independent reading at age 11. This finding is consistent with the notion of genetic niche-picking: Children may actively select experiences based on their genetic predispositions or children's genetically influenced characteristics may evoke certain responses from others. For example, children with a high genetic proclivity for reading may seek out opportunities to read at home, and their parents may take them to the library on a more regular basis. Conversely, children at high genetic risk for reading difficulties may avoid reading and be less interested in visiting the library.
"Overall, our results indicate that children look for independent reading opportunities, in part, on the basis of genetic effects related to reading achievement, at least among children at the end of elementary school," notes Nicole Harlaar, senior research associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the study when she was with the Ohio State University.
"Our findings don't diminish the importance of encouraging independent reading among children," Harlaar adds. "Other aspects of independent reading that this study didn't look at may be very important for children's reading achievement, such as volume of reading or whether or not the books that children read are sufficiently challenging."
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The study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Department of Education.
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POSTED: 4:07 pm MDT October 24, 2011 UPDATED: 4:33 pm MDT October 24, 2011
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Bacteria inside the mouth is offering clues to scientists about the detection of pancreatic cancer.Despite all the advances in cancer treatment, just 5 percent of patients with the disease are still alive five years after diagnosis. The problem is the disease has spread beyond the pancreas by the time that the patients show symptoms.KOAT medical expert Dr. Barry Ramo said changes in the bacteria in the mouth can lead to gum disease and inflation the body. Now, researchers at UCLA?S Pancreas Center are looking to mouth for cancer clues.Researchers found that the bacteria in the saliva of pancreatic cancer patients differentiated from that of normal individuals. The cancer patients? saliva was also different from the saliva of patients afflicted with other pancreas diseases.Ramo said this early finding could not tell us whether the bacteria change was a cause of the cancer or merely a marker. It also couldn?t determine if the bacteria came before or after the cancer was present.Ramo said that doctors are a long way from a screening test, but the data adds another piece to the equation.
Copyright 2011 by KOAT.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
(Reuters) ? Exelixis Inc said a late-stage trial of its experimental thyroid cancer drug met the main goal of improving survival of patients without disease progression, compared with a dummy drug.
The drug cabozantinib significantly improved median progression-free survival (PFS) by 7.2 months compared with a placebo. The median PFS for patients taking cabozantinib was 11.2 months versus 4 months for those on placebo.
The trial, named EXAM, is being conducted under a special protocol assessment (SPA) agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
SPA provides a company with a written agreement that the design and analysis of the trial are adequate to support a marketing application submission with the FDA.
Exelixis said it was requesting permission to begin a rolling submission of the new drug application for cabozantinib in advanced medullary thyroid cancer and expects the filing will be completed in the first half of 2012.
Shares of the company closed at $5.99 on Friday on Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)
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That slick, speedy new interface DirecTV recently pushed out to beta testers is officially getting hyped with a new landing page and (unfortunately not embeddable) video trailer. It advertises all the features we'd heard about, including the facelifted HD graphics, "lightning fast" scrolling, visual browsing experience and personalized recommendations. The HD UI is still without a release date however, and while we'd probably put it it ahead of the DirecTiVo on the company's current priority list, let's not forget who we're dealing with here. Hit the source link for the orientation materials, there will be a quiz later.
Update: You can now view the video here, embedded after the break, thanks to our friend Dave Zatz!
Using one of the largest DNA data sets for a group of birds and employing next-generation sequencing methods, Smithsonian scientists and collaborators have determined the evolutionary family tree for one of the most strikingly diverse and endangered bird families in the world, the Hawaiian honeycreepers.
Not only have the researchers determined the types of finches that the honeycreeper family originally evolved from, but they have also linked the timing of that rapid evolution to the formation of the four main Hawaiian Islands.
"There were once more than 55 species of these colorful songbirds, and they are so diverse that historically it wasn't even entirely clear that they were all part of the same group," said Heather Lerner, who was a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics when she conducted this research, and is currently an assistant professor of biology at Earlham College and Joseph Moore Museum director.
"Some eat seeds, some eat fruit, some eat snails, some eat nectar. Some have the bills of parrots, others of warblers, while some are finch-like and others have straight, thin bills. So the question that we started with was how did this incredible diversity evolve over time," Lerner said.
The answer is unique to the Hawaiian Islands, which are part of a conveyor belt of island formation, with new islands popping up as the conveyor belt moves northwest. Each island that forms represents a blank slate for evolution, so as one honeycreeper species moves from one island to a new island, those birds encounter new habitat and ecological niches that may force them to adapt and branch off into distinct species.
The researchers looked at the evolution of the Hawaiian honeycreepers after the formation of Kauai-Niihau, Oahu, Maui-Nui and Hawaii. The largest burst of evolution into new species, called a radiation, occurred between 4 million and 2.5 million years ago, after Kauai-Niihau and Oahu formed but before the remaining two large islands existed, and resulted in the evolution of six of 10 distinct groups of species characterized by different sizes, shapes and colors.
"This radiation is one of the natural scientific treasures that the archipelago offers out in the middle of the Pacific," said Helen James, a research zoologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and a co-author of the paper. "It was fascinating to be able to tie a biological system to geological formation and allowed us to become the first to offer a full picture of these birds' adaptive history."
James' previous work on Hawaiian birds' morphology, the branch of biology that deals with form and structure of organisms, played a pivotal role in determining which avian species to survey to determine the closest living relatives of the Hawaiian honeycreepers.
Using genetic data from 28 bird species that seemed similar to the honeycreepers morphologically, genetically or that shared geographic proximity, the paper's authors determined that the various honeycreeper species evolved from Eurasian rosefinches. Unlike most other ancestral bird species that came from North America and colonized the Hawaiian Islands, the rosefinch likely came from Asia, the scientists found.
"There is a perception that there are no species remaining that are actually native to Hawaii, but these are truly native birds that are scientifically valuable and play an important and unique ecological function," said Rob Fleischer, head of SCBI's Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics and a co-author of the paper.
Fleischer has been studying the genetics, evolution and conservation of these birds for more than 25 years. "I'm thrilled that we finally had enough DNA sequence and the necessary technology to become the first to produce this accurate and reliable evolutionary tree."
The diversity of Hawaiian honeycreepers has taken a huge hit, with more than half of the known 56 species already extinct. The paper's researchers focused on the 19?now 18?species that have not gone extinct, but of those, six are considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, four are considered endangered and five are vulnerable.
The next, ongoing step in the research is to use museum specimens and subfossil bones to determine where the extinct species fit into the evolutionary family tree, or phylogeny, to see if the new lineages fit into the overall pattern found in this study.
To analyze the DNA for the study that came out this week, the researchers used specialized next generation sequencing protocols developed by Michi Hofreiter's group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. To look at ancient DNA that is by nature damaged or degraded, they are using additional innovative techniques to capture the DNA and come up with a sufficiently informative dataset.
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Smithsonian: http://www.si.edu
Thanks to Smithsonian for this article.
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RALLY: A broad rally swept through the stock market Friday after McDonald's and several other large companies reported solid earnings. McDonald's Corp., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Harman International Industries Inc. were among companies that beat analysts' expectations.
HOPEFUL SIGN: On Friday the government said unemployment fell last month in half of U.S. states and was unchanged in 11. That's much better than in August, when unemployment rose in 26 states.
GOOD STREAK: The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed higher for the third straight week, its best run since February.
ARLINGTON, Texas - All these years later, a blown call by a first base umpire actually helped the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
While it remains to be seen whether Ron Kulpa will be as vilified by Texas Rangers fans as Don Denkinger is by Cardinals fans, there's no doubt this mistake was as bad or worse ? perhaps enough to revive talk of expanding video replay in baseball.
In the top of the fourth inning Saturday night, St. Louis was leading only 1-0 when Matt Holliday hit a grounder to shortstop Elvis Andrus that was perfect for the Rangers to turn into a double play. Andrus threw to Ian Kinsler for the force out at second, but Kinsler's throw pulled first baseman Mike Napoli off the bag but into Holliday's path. Napoli caught the ball and slapped a tag across Holliday's left shoulder a step before he reached first base.
Kulpa was in decent position to make the correct call ? but didn't. The Cardinals took advantage, scoring four runs that inning on their way to a 16-7 victory and a 2-1 lead in the series.
Kulpa is a St. Louis native and lifelong Cardinals fan who was 17 when Denkinger made the mistake that triggered a collapse by the Cardinals that cost them the 1985 World Series to the neighboring Kansas City Royals.
Kulpa is in his 13th year in the majors and this is his first World Series. He was picked before it was known the team he grew up dreaming of playing for would be involved.
While conspiracy theories are sure to abound, it's important to note that Kulpa made the correct call on perhaps the most difficult play yet of the World Series, a steal of second base by Kinsler in the ninth inning of Game 2, with St. Louis trying to protect a 1-0 lead. Kulpa called him safe and Kinsler went on to score the tying run and Texas went on to win 2-1.
Having video replay would help clear things up. It's already been added to determine whether balls clear the fence for a home run.
This wasn't the first missed call this series, either. In the ninth inning of the opener, which Texas lost 3-2, Adrian Beltre fouled a ball off his foot but umpires called it a fair ball.
In the opener, Kulpa missed a call at third base, ruling a ball was caught in the air when it actually bounced. That mistake did not lead to any runs.
Kulpa's every move the rest of this series is certain to be scrutinized ? especially Sunday, when he's scheduled to be behind the plate.
Denkinger was behind the plate, too, the night after his crucial mistake in the '85 World Series.
The play that made Denkinger infamous came in the ninth inning of Game 6, with the Cardinals up 1-0 and leading the series 3-2. Leadoff hitter Jorge Orta hit a grounder to first baseman Jack Clark, and he tossed it to pitcher Todd Worrell covering first base. Replays show that Worrell beat Orta to the bag, but Deninger insisted he was safe.
The Royals went on to win that game 2-1, then won the decisive seventh game 11-0, with St. Louis manager Whitey Herzog and pitcher Joaquin Andujar getting ejected by Denkinger in the fifth inning.
Until this series, Kulpa ? who happens to have a Herzog-esque brush cut ? was probably best known for being head-butted by Carl Everett in 2000. He's worked an All-Star game and was behind the plate for Justin Verlander's first career no-hitter, in 2007.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Pujols' 3 blasts carry Cards
??Albert Pujols joined Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson as the only players to hit three home runs in a World Series game, tying records with five hits and six RBIs that led the Cardinals to a 16-7 rout of the Texas Rangers on Saturday night that gave St. Louis a 2-1 Series lead.
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Public release date: 26-Oct-2011
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