Saturday, December 31, 2011

Video analysis: Johny Hendricks is a new player in the welterweight title race

Video analysis: Johny Hendricks is a new player in the welterweight title race

It's likely that no one will get their hands on Georges St-Pierre's UFC welterweight title belt before the end of 2012, but the race for the interim strap could be epic. The contenders lining up behind Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit should make the 170-pound division the most entertaining in the sport in 2012.

With his devastating victory over Jon Fitch, Johny Hendricks made sure he got a spot in the race.? Hendricks, who's only career loss is a close decision against fellow contender Rick Story, pleased some in UFC management by making quick work of Jon Fitch in just 12 seconds.

Yahoo! Sports' MMA expert Kevin Iole joined myself following the festivities at the MGM Grand Garden Arena to talk about Hendricks place in the division and what may be next.

After undergoing surgery for a torn ACL, GSP is out until late-2012. Condit and Diaz will fight for the interim UFC welterweight title belt at UFC 143 in early February.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Video-analysis-Johny-Hendricks-is-a-new-player-?urn=mma-wp11422

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Spurs dampen Clippers buzz with big win (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? San Antonio squashed some of the hype surrounding the revamped Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday with a 115-90 victory that lifted the Spurs to 2-0 in the new season.

A blockbuster trade for point guard Chris Paul, and the acquisition of starters Chauncey Billups and Caron Butler, created a buzz about the Clippers that only grew after their season-opening victory over Golden State on Sunday.

However, San Antonio brought them crashing back to Earth on Wednesday with Manu Ginobili scoring 24 points and DeJuan Blair adding 20. The Spurs shot 56 percent for the game.

San Antonio padded a four-point half-time lead into a 25-point advantage in the third, making 16-of-21 shots to add 38 to their tally. Tony Parker added 10 of his 14 points in the decisive quarter to go with his nine assists.

At the other end, San Antonio smothered Los Angeles during the second half where they held them to just 36 points.

"Tonight the best part of our game was our defense," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich told reporters. "Shots went in tonight. Some nights they don't drop but the one thing you can control is your defensive intensity."

Blake Griffin led the Clippers (1-1) with 28 points and nine rebounds and four other Clippers finished in double digits, including Paul with 10.

But Los Angeles had trouble defending the wily Spurs who drained 10 three-pointers on the night, including five from Ginobili. Richard Jefferson also made three and finished with 19 points.

"They shot 52 percent from three, it's tough to win like that," Griffin said. "They hit some tough shots, you have to give it to them. We have to make sure we come out on our game after halftime."

(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by John O'Brien)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111229/sp_nm/us_nba_clippers

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Wicked Audio's Solus headphones let you listen like a DJ at the flick of a switch

For what it's worth, Wicked Audio has a habit of producing egregiously loud headphones -- looks-wise, that is. Hence our surprise, when we glanced at its latest red and black offering in our Gmail inbox. The Solus, "Latin for be yourself" as we're told, doesn't look like much more than a basic set of cans, but the inline volume control on its braided cable serves a unique function for all you budding record-spinners out there. With a flick of this puppy's "DJ switch," you'll be able to rattle both of your ears in stereo, or have an easier time listening with just one of 'em when it comes time to crossfade into your next track. No word on specs (not that we'd expect any), but letting go of a Benjamin will snag you the Solus when it officially releases at CES. Wicked.

Continue reading Wicked Audio's Solus headphones let you listen like a DJ at the flick of a switch

Wicked Audio's Solus headphones let you listen like a DJ at the flick of a switch originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceWicked Audio  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/28/wicked-audios-solus-headphones-let-you-listen-like-a-dj-at-the/

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Friday, December 30, 2011

Lloyds to sell ?900 million property debt to Lone star (www.lloyds.com)

You are here: Home / News / Lloyds to sell ?900 million property debt to Lone star (www.lloyds.com)




Posted by Josh on December 28, 2011 ? Leave a Comment?

Lloyds banking group; which is currently eh second largest part government owned bank in the united Kingdom, has announced that they will be selling off around 900 million pounds of property debt. The bank will be selling around $1.41 billion of their mortgage backed loans to the Lone Star funds company.

Lone Star will be purchasing the loans from Lloyds after funding was provided by both the Royal Bank of Canada and Citigroup for the buyout. Lone Star is a company that is based in Dallas in the United States and made the announcement via and email based statement this week. This is actually the second sale to go ahead this week of commercial real estate loans by a taxpayer assisted bank in the UK. The Royal Bank of Scotland earlier finalised a deal that will see them sell ?1.36 billion of their real estate loans to the Blackstone Group. This is another US based private equity company.

Lloyds has said in a statement that they are confident that Lone Star Funds will be able to deliver a constructive solution to the property sector loans. Lloyds is currently 41 percent owned by the UK taxpayer.

Related posts:

  1. Lloyds Bank to sell ?900 million of property loans (www.lloyds.com) Lloyds bank has entered into talks with the US Private...
  2. Lloyds expects ?350 loss due to real estate debt (www.lloyds.com) The Lloyds Banking Group which is one of the most...
  3. Lloyds Sells ?1 billion of bad property loans (www.lloyds.com) Lloyds is a banking organisation that is in quite a...
  4. Lloyds to axe another 15,000 jobs (www.lloyds.com) The Lloyds banking group is set to axe a further...
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Source: http://www.boosharticles.com/34421/lloyds-to-sell-900-million-property-debt-to-lone-star-www-lloyds-com

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Jenni Lake Lost Her Fight WIth Cancer, but Gave Her Son Life

Jenni LakeIt was truly an inspiring story, but one that ended on a very sad note this week.? Jenni Lake, the courageous Idaho Teen who stopped her cancer treatments in order to avoid terminating her pregnancy, died 12 days after giving birth to a very healthy baby boy.? This is her story.

Jenni Lake was a happy go lucky teenager until the migraines started.? She was 16 and a sophomore at?Pocatello High School when she went to Salt Lake City for an MRI.? The scan revealed a two centimeter mass on her brain. ? Jenni had a biopsy and soon after she was diagnosed with stage three astrocytoma. She had three tumors on her brain and three on her spine.? She had to start chemo and radiation immediately and even with both the doctors gave her a 30% chance of living two years.

She was also told there was a good chance that even if the cancer treatments did work she would be left sterile, with no chance of ever getting pregnant.? She had a boyfriend at the time, Nathan Wittman, and he stuck with her through all the treatments all the issues and he even took her to the prom the following year.? At that point her treatments were shrinking the tumors and it seemed as if she may get through it.

Then she woke up one morning in pain, her stomach was wrenching and she needed to go to the hospital.? What she found out was she was pregnant.? Her and her boyfriend hadn?t worried about protection because they were told she couldn?t conceive anyway.

The Oncologist told her that her treatment regimen could not be given to a pregnant woman, she had two options.

1. Get an abortion and continue her treatments

2. Keep the pregnancy but stop the treatments.

Jenni relaized that it was going to be option 2.? She was going to give life to her baby, and then hopefully continue the treatments after she gave birth.

In the end though, Jenni only weighed 108 pounds when she gave birth a few weeks ago.? Her cancer had come back with a fury and she new that it wasn?t going to get better.? She had the baby 12 days ago and on the day she delivered, she told the nurse ??I?m done, I did what I was supposed to. My baby is going to get here safe,?? said Diana Phillips, Jenni?s mother.

She named the baby Chad Michael.? Then she died 12 days later.

What decision would you have made in Jenni Lake?s Shoes?

Source: http://www.inquisitr.com/173006/jenn-lake-lost-her-fight-with-cancer-but-gave-her-son-life/

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Report: Chinese workers at LG factory strike

Associated Press

Posted on December 28, 2011 at 5:02 AM

BEIJING (AP) ? Some 8,000 employees of a factory in China owned by a unit of South Korea's LG Corp. over complaints about pay discrimination, a labor group said Wednesday.

Chinese employees of the LG Display factory in Nanjing, west of Shanghai, walked off the job Monday over complaints Korean employees at the factory received annual bonuses equal to one year's salary while those for Chinese workers were equal to one month's pay, the New York-based group China Labor Watch said.

Employees at the factory hung up when reporters called.

China has faced a wave of protests over the past two years demanding higher pay and other benefits as rising living costs squeeze workers. Tensions have flared as falling demand in the United States and Europe and Chinese government curbs on bank lending have prompted layoffs and pressure on remaining employees to work harder.

Communist leaders discourage independent labor activity but have allowed many recent protests, especially at foreign companies, as it prods employers to raise pay as part of efforts to boost consumer spending and reduce dependence on exports.

LG employees in Nanjing met with managers but rejected an offer to increase annual bonuses for Chinese employees to the equivalent of two months' pay, China Labor Watch said. It said they wanted "absolute equality in the bonus system."

Labor unrest also has been reported in the southern province of Guangdong, an export-oriented manufacturing center, and Shanghai, China's financial capital.

Source: http://www.kvue.com/news/business/136300433.html

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Tizi app turns your iPhone into a pricey iPad remote, enlists Siri for channel surfing

It's time to show your iPad who's boss -- your iPhone, naturally. The Tizi Remote app is presently available for free via iTunes, letting you use your iPhone to change channels, record shows and pause live TV on iPads connected to the Tizi or Tizi Go TV receivers -- and if you happen to have a 4S, you can harness the power of Siri to change channels for you. Sadly, neither of the aforementioned pieces of hardware are available stateside at the moment, so for now, you'll just have to watch TV shows on your iPad the old fashioned way.

Continue reading Tizi app turns your iPhone into a pricey iPad remote, enlists Siri for channel surfing

Tizi app turns your iPhone into a pricey iPad remote, enlists Siri for channel surfing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/26/tizi-app-turns-your-iphone-into-a-pricey-ipad-remote-enlists-si/

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Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung Galaxy S III specs

This phone has not been officially announced. This page is created based on leaked or rumored information.

The Samsung Galaxy S III is rumored to be announced at MWC 2012 in February and is said to sport a 4.6-inch HD (1280x720 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus display, LTE connectivity, 12MP camera with 1080p video capture and should be running android 4.0 ICS.

Rating

Not rated

Not rated

Samsung Galaxy S III specifications

also known as Samsung Galaxy S 3D

Design

  • Device type:
  • OS:

    OS - Phone that has capabilities, not usually associated with phones. Usually it has some of the above features: - Email, Web browsing - Personal information management - LAN connectivity etc

Display

  • Physical size:
  • Resolution:

    Resolution - Refers to the width and the height of the display

  • Technology:

    Technology - Refers to the type of the color displays. There are five major types: LCD, TFT, TFD, STN and OLED

  • Touchscreen:

Hardware

  • System chip:
  • Processor:
  • Graphics processor:

Camera

  • Camera:

    Camera - Camera specs

  • Camcorder:

Multimedia

  • Music player:

    Music player - Audio support such as MP3

    • Filter by:
    • Features:
      • Album art cover, Background playback
  • Speakers:
  • YouTube player:

Internet browsing

  • Browser:

    Browser - Capability to access special Internet sites using the mobile phone

Technology

  • Data:

    Data - Shows the particular phone's type of data. the major mobile phone data types are GPRS, CDMA2000 1xRTT, EDGE, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, UMTS, etc.

  • Satellite system:

Phone features

  • Phonebook:
    • Caller groups, Multiple numbers per contact, Search by both first and last name, Picture ID, Ring ID
  • Organizer:
    • Calendar, Alarm, Document viewer, Calculator
  • Messaging:
  • E-mail:

    E-mail - Shows if the phone supports email features

      • IMAP, POP3, SMTP, Push e-mail

Connectivity

  • Bluetooth:

    Bluetooth - Low power radio technology replacing the need for wires connecting electronic devices such as personal computers, printers, palm top computers and mobile phones.

  • Wi-Fi:

    Wi-Fi - Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) - used radio waves (RF) or infrared signals to send and receive data over the air. Most popular WLAN solutions today is Wi-Fi (802.11b and 802.11g) standards. 801.11b provides data speeds of around 11mbps while 802.11g can go up to 54 mbps.

  • USB:
    • Connector:
    • Features:

      Features - Universal Serial Bus - is a plug-and-play interface for connection a computer and add-on devices such as joysticks, keyboards, wireless phones, scanner, cameras etc. USB supports hot-swap (ability to add a new device without having to reboot the computer). USB supports data speed of 12 megabits per second.

      • Mass storage device, USB charging

To see the full specifications with in-depth details click here.

Despite our efforts to provide full and correct Samsung Galaxy S III specifications, there is always a possibility of admitting a mistake. If you see any wrong or incomplete data, please LET US KNOW.

If you are interested in using our specs commercially, check out our Phone specs database licensing page.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Texas Oil Production Great for State's Economy, Tax Collections

Texas crude oil and natural gas producers are leading a historic expansion of domestic supplies, which is having a huge impact on the state's economy and tax collections.

"We are witnessing a stunning crude oil renaissance in Texas and across the U.S., and the state and the nation are clearly better for it," petroleumeconomists Karr Ingham said following the release of numbers from the Texas Petro Index for October and the office of Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.

The Texas Petro Index climbed another 2.8 points to 253.0, registering the largest month-tomonth increase since last spring.

"The expansion of North American crude oil reserves is clearly shifting the supply picture from reliance on unstable regions to much more stable and politically predictable sources," Ingham said.

"The turnaround in the supply picture is staggering, and was largely unfathomable just a few short years ago." Ingham added. "This is what the industry is capable of when it is turned loose to do its job."

A composite index based upon a comprehensive group of upstream economic indicators, the Texas Petro Index (TPI) increased in October for the 22nd consecutive month to 253.0, from a low in December 2009 of 186.6. The TPI peaked at 286.0 in September and October 2008.

Among leading TPI indicators during October: Crude oil production in Texas totaled an estimated 38.2 million barrels, nearly 1.5 million barrels (3.1 percent) more than in October 2010. The value of Texas-produced crude oil totaled an estimated $3.16 billion, 8.8 percent more than the same month last year.

Estimated Texas natural gas output was nearly 576.8 billion cubic feet, a year-over-year monthly decline of more than 10 percent. With natural gas prices in October trailing prices in October 2010 by about 2.4 percent, the value of Texas-produced gas declined 12.1 percent to about $2.13 billion.

The Baker Hughes count of active drilling rigs in Texas averaged 914, 27.5 percent more than in October 2010. Drilling activity in Texas peaked in September 2008 at a monthly average of 946 rigs.

The number of Texans on oil and gas industry payrolls appeared to reach a record high in October for the fourth consecutive month, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, totaling an estimated 237,800. Until the past four months, the previous high - a n estimated 223,200 workers following a revision to reflect new industry employment data for 2009 and 2010 - o ccurred in October 2008.

The increase oil and gas activity has sparked a surprising increase in tax revenues that has made the Texas comptroller predict a billion dollar increase in revenues.

The comptroller's latest estimate predicts a $1.6 billion increase than was budgeted for 2012-13, the two-year budget that started Sept. 1.

Through the first three months of fiscal 2012, sales tax revenues are up 13.2 percent. During fiscal 2011 (Sept. 1, 2010, to Aug. 31, 2011), sales taxes increased 9.4 percent over fiscal 2010.

Oil and gas production taxes increased 46 percent and 53 percent, respectively, in fiscal 2011 over fiscal 2010.

Copyright 2011 Wichita Falls Times Record News. All Rights Reserved.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.


Source: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=113653&rss=true

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

John Ford-John Wayne Movies

If there was ever a director-actor tandem that defined the Western genre, it was John Ford and John Wayne. Over the course of five decades, Ford and Wayne made over 20 pictures, most of them Westerns and some that stood the test of time as the model for all others to follow.

They made other pictures, too, including war movies and even a romantic comedy. But it was Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Searchers for which they were best known and made them one of the most successful director-actor tandems in Hollywood history.

1. ?Stagecoach? ? 1939

Ford?s groundbreaking Western that set the precedent for all others to follow was also Wayne?s breakthrough film after scores of B-films in the 1930s. Wayne played the key role of The Ringo Kid, an outlaw and prison escapee who gets picked up by a stagecoach driven by Marshal Curley Wilcox (George Bancroft) through dangerous Apache territory. Ringo seeks revenge on Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler), who killed his family and sent him to jail on false testimony, but finds himself under arrest by Curley while the motley crew of passengers find themselves without troop protection the closer they get to the Apaches. Not only one of the greatest movies ever made, but also one of the most influential which helped inspire countless other directors.

2. ?The Were Expendable? ? 1945

A stirringly patriotic tale inspired by Ford?s love of the U.S. Navy and born from America?s involvement in World War II, They Were Expendable cast Wayne as a gruff lieutenant to Robert Montgomery?s determined PT boat captain, as they island hop in the Pacific fighting an ever-increasingly dangerous Japanese fleet. Though an obvious attempt by Ford to promote the Navy, his film was actually a far more subdued effort that attempted to layer psychological complexity to his characters while refusing to sugarcoat the romance between Wayne and Donna Reed. An exemplary film, They Were Expendable was one of the more underappreciated efforts between Wayne and Ford.

3. ?3 Godfathers? ? 1948

Though on the surface another Western, 3 Godfathers drew quite heavily from the Bible in its allegorical tale of the Three Wise Men. Wayne played the leader of a bank heist crew that goes on the run with a sheriff?s posse in dogged pursuit. After avoiding ambush, the three outlaws are trapped in a sandstorm that scatters their horses and forces them to flee on foot, where they come across a covered wagon sheltering a pregnant women about to give birth. Following her death delivering the child, the bandits shepherd her newborn to the safety of New Jerusalem, where they hope to find their ultimate redemption. Ford had previously made the film in 1919 as Marked Men, itself a remake of a 1916 silent feature and now considered a lost picture.

4. ?She Wore a Yellow Ribbon? ? 1949

Wayne offered one of his best performances in this second installment of Ford?s Cavalry Trilogy, in which he played Captain Nathan Brittles, an aging cavalry captain on the verge of mandatory retirement who faces an all-out Indian attack following the defeat of Custer. After a series of attacks and reprisals, he manages to secure the peace with the rival chief before his retirement. Filmed in brilliant Technicolor, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon featured breathtaking images of Monument Valley ? Ford?s favorite location ? while Wayne gave a rather moving performance that was highlighted by an emotionally vulnerable scene where Brittles receives a pocket watch as a retirement gift, one of the actor?s most poignant moments on screen.

5. ?The Quiet Man? ? 1952

This romantic comedy was the last film which earned Ford an Oscar for Best Director, and contained one of Wayne?s most diverse and understated performances. Wayne was Sean Thornton, an American boxer who travels to his Irish homeland to escape the trauma of having accidentally killed a man in the ring. There he meets and falls in love with the high-spirited Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O?Hara), sister of a bullying landowner named Red (Victor McLaglen). Red refuses to consent to their marriage. They eventually do, only Red won?t give them a dowry, which forces Sean to confront his demons in the face of Irish tradition. The film earned further nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and became one of the top box office hits of that year.

6. ?The Searchers? ? 1956

The Searchers was the pinnacle of the Wayne-Ford collaboration and one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Wayne delivered his most complex role as Ethan Edwards, a hateful Civil War veteran whose family is brutally murdered by a gang of Comanches and goes in search of his lone surviving niece (Natalie Wood) after she?s taken hostage. The search in question is the five year quest Ethan and his brother?s adopted son (Jeffrey Hunter) undertake to find her, only to discover she has married into the tribe. Ethan suffers a moral quandary that turns to bloody-minded madness, with Wayne unflinchingly delving into the character?s dark side. His Oscar-worthy performance received nary a nomination, but remained his most indelible.

7. ?The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? ? 1962

Following The Searchers, Wayne made five more films with the aging Ford, whose health began deteriorating in the 1960s. They had another success with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which told in flashback the tale of a young lawyer (James Stewart) trying to take down a gang of outlaws (led by Lee Marvin) who terrorized and robbed him. With the help of a tough local cowboy (Wayne), he learns how to fight back in the ways of the Old West, only to become a champion of a new civilized way as a U.S. Senator. Dismissed as a throwback to Westerns past, thanks in part to the black-and-white photography, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ranked as one of the great efforts between Ford and Wayne, and also one of the last. The pair made one more film, Donovan?s Reef, before Ford?s career gave way to ill health.

Source: http://classicfilm.about.com/od/movieslistsbydirector/tp/7-Best-John-Ford-John-Wayne-Movies.htm

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Kimora Lee Simmons, Djimon Hounson St. Barts Trip; Couple Vacations WIth Son Kenzo (PHOTOS)

justjared.buzznet.com:

Kimora Lee Simmons shows off her bikini bod while celebrating Christmas with her husband, actor Djimon Hounsou.

Read the whole story: justjared.buzznet.com

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Monday, December 26, 2011

Sun, December 25, 2011 - Coloring Outside the Lines Exhibit at City College

The best of the Bay Area for KQED fans: discover events hand-picked by our editors, sponsored listings, and more.

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From here you can:

  1. Select a shaded day 17 from the mini-cal.
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StevenL57: @StevanRidley You're gonna get a bunch of new followers via @ochocinco . Well deserved, lots of energy to the offense. Merry XMas

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

escravoroger_rf: Esqueci o iPad ma casa dos meus pais. u_u

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SnellvilleBlog: Gwinnett is under a Tornado Watch until 11 pm

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Previously unconnected molecular networks conspire to promote cancer

Thursday, December 22, 2011

An inflammation-promoting protein triggers deactivation of a tumor-suppressor that usually blocks cancer formation via the NOTCH signaling pathway, a team of researchers led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in Molecular Cell.

Working in liver cancer cell lines, the team discovered a mechanism by which tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF?) stimulates tumor formation, said senior author Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson's Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology. Hung also is MD Anderson's vice president for basic research.

"We've discovered cross-talk between the TNF? inflammation and NOTCH signaling pathways, which had been known to separately promote cancer development and growth," Hung said. Liver cancer is one of several cancers, including pancreatic and breast, associated with inflammation.

Their findings have potential implications for a new class of anti-cancer drugs currently in clinical trials. "Pharmaceutical companies are developing NOTCH inhibitors," Hung said. "TNF? now presents a potential resistance mechanism that activates NOTCH signaling in a non-traditional way."

Pathways also unite in colon, lung, prostate cancers

"In addition, co-activation of these two pathways was also observed in colon, lung and prostate cancers, suggesting that the cross-talk between these two pathways may be more generally relevant," Hung said.

However, TNF? also presents an opportunity to personalize therapy, Hung said. The presence of TNF? or a separate protein that it activates called IKK alpha may serve as useful biomarkers to guide treatment.

"If a patient has only NOTCH activated, then the NOTCH inhibitor alone might work. But if TNF? or IKK? are also activated, then the NOTCH inhibitor alone might not work very well and combination therapy would be warranted," Hung said.

"We'll try this in an animal model and then go to clinical trial if it holds up," Hung said.

A path from inflammation to liver cancer

In a series of experiments, Hung and colleagues connected the following molecular cascade:

  • TNF?, a proinflammatory cytokine, signals through a cell's membrane, activating IKK?, a protein kinase that regulates other proteins by attaching phosphate groups (one phosphate atom, four oxygen atoms) to them.
  • IKK? moves into the cell nucleus, where it phosphorylatesFOXA2, a transcription factor that normally fires up the tumor suppressor NUMB.
  • NUMB usually blocks a protein called NICD, the activated portion of NOTCH1 that slips into the cell nucleus to activate genes that convert the normal cell to a malignant one.
  • But when FOXA2 is phosphorylated, it does not activate NUMB. With NUMB disabled, NOTCH1 is activated. New understanding, new targets for cancer therapy

In liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) tumors, IKK?, the phosphorylated version of FOXA2 and NOTCH1 are expressed more heavily than in normal liver tissue. Expression of all three is correlated in liver cancer tumors, the team found.

The authors conclude that identifying the link between TNF? and NOTCH1 pathways provides a new starting point for understanding the molecular basis for TNF?-related tumor growth and for identifying new targets for cancer therapy.

Finding ways to inhibit FOXA2 phosphorylation or to activate NUMB would provide new options for treating and perhaps preventing cancer, Hung said.

###

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: http://www.mdanderson.org

Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116280/Previously_unconnected_molecular_networks_conspire_to_promote_cancer

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Is Your Business Planning to Hire in 2012?

American Express OPEN recently took a look back at its past 10 years? worth of Small Business Monitor surveys, with a particular focus on hiring. The resulting new report,?Trends in Small Business Hiring: 2002-2011, hones in on business owners? responses when asked whether they plan to hire new full-time or part-time employees, cut staff, or keep the same staffing levels over the next six months. The survey used a ?net hiring score,? subtracting the percent of firms that plan to cut staff from the percent planning to hire.

hiring

Here?s some of what they found:

Overall, small business owners tend to ?hold the line.? No matter what the economic situation, over the past 10 years the percentage of entrepreneurs who are planning to add employees has consistently surpassed the percentage planning cutbacks. This doesn?t surprise me, as entrepreneurs who work closely with their teams are likely to do everything in their power to avoid layoffs.

The bigger the small business, the more likely it is to hire. Over the 10-year period, companies with 20 or more workers, or sales of $500,000 and up, were consistently more likely to plan to hire than other groups.

That?s also not surprising, but what is more unexpected is that the smallest companies?those with under 10 employees?were far more likely to fall in line with the hiring average. In contrast, companies with 10 to 19 employees have consistently been the most volatile. In Fall 2006, Fall 2007 and again in Fall 2010, their hiring plans fell far below the national average. Why? Perhaps these companies are in the ?growth pains? stage of business where it?s often difficult to judge hiring needs.

So what?s the current outlook? In the Fall 2011 survey, 31 percent of business owners surveyed were planning to hire new employees while 9 percent planned to cut back, for a net hiring score of +22. American Express OPEN notes that while regional differences in hiring have lessened since the 2008 recession, industry?differences have increased.

The Fall 2011 survey reports a net hiring score of +28 score among small manufacturers, +26 among business/professional service firms, +17 among retailers and +17 in all other firms.

How do small businesses? hiring plans compare to those of big business? In the most recent Manpower Employment Outlook Survey of global companies, 14 percent of U.S. employers surveyed expected to add staff in the first quarter of 2012, while 9 percent planned to cut, for a Net Employment Outlook of +5 percent (or +9 percent if seasonally adjusted). Some 70 percent planned no change, while 7 percent were uncertain about their hiring plans. This 7 percent was an increase from 3 percent in the last survey and was a historically high level of uncertainty.

What does it all mean? Whether you?re a big business sitting on unprecedented amounts of cash, or a small entrepreneur with far less room for error, employers are still fearful of hiring in this uncertain economy. Still, small business owners are significantly more optimistic about hiring, showing that their reputations as job creators and engines of the economy are well deserved.


Hiring Photo via Shutterstock

About the Author

Rieva Lesonsky Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Visit her blog, SmallBizDaily. Visit her website SmallBizTrendCast to get the scoop on business trends and sign up for Rieva?s free TrendCast reports.

Connect with Rieva Lesonsky:

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/12/is-your-business-planning-hire-2012.html

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Friday, December 23, 2011

BofA's Countrywide to pay $335 million over bias case (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Bank of America Corp's Countrywide Financial unit agreed on Wednesday to pay a record $335 million to settle civil charges that it discriminated against minority homebuyers, an historic settlement for the Obama administration in the wake of the subprime mortgage morass.

As the financial and housing crisis deepened in 2008, Bank of America bought Countrywide, which specialized in so-called subprime mortgages, focusing on loans to those with lower credit ratings and charging them higher interest rates and payments that suddenly increased after two or three years.

The settlement covers conduct between 2004 and 2008, before the acquisition by Bank of America, and involved a range of alleged wrongdoing, including charging African-Americans and Hispanics higher interest rates and fees than non-minorities.

Minorities also were steered to more expensive subprime loans even though they were qualified for traditional mortgage rates. Justice Department officials said it was the largest residential discrimination settlement in U.S. history.

"The victims had no idea they were being victimized. They were thrilled to have gotten a loan and realize the American dream," Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, told reporters. "This is discrimination with a smile."

The civil settlement comes as the Obama administration has faced criticism for the lack of criminal prosecutions related to the conduct of financial institutions during the U.S. housing crisis.

Federal prosecutors dropped a probe of former Countrywide Chief Executive Officer Angelo Mozilo after determining his actions in the mortgage debacle did not amount to criminal wrongdoing.

The proposed settlement was filed in a federal court in California where a judge must approve it.

SWIPE AT BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Perez said that Countrywide's actions contributed to the housing crisis and that the Justice Department was again using tools in its "law enforcement arsenal including some that were dormant for years," an apparent swipe at the previous Bush administration.

More than 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers in 41 states and the District of Columbia were affected by Countrywide's conduct, of which 30 percent were in California, a state particularly hard-hit by the mortgage meltdown, the Justice Department said.

They will receive compensation from the money paid by the Bank of America unit, and those steered into subprime mortgages will receive a greater share because they suffered more, Justice Department officials said. However, there was no relief in the settlement for the higher interest rates they pay.

Government investigators reviewed some 2.5 million loans in their probe and found that African Americans and Hispanics were more than three times as likely to receive high-cost subprime loans than non-minorities.

Before imploding and being bought by Bank of America, Countrywide had net earnings of about $6.7 billion between 2004 and 2007, according to the Justice Department.

Countrywide no longer originates new loans.

"We are committed to fair and equal treatment of all our customers, and will continue to focus on doing what's right for our customers, clients and communities," said Bank of America spokesman Dan Frahm.

"We discontinued Countrywide products and practices that were not in keeping with our commitment," he said, adding that they were working to resolve any remaining Countrywide issues. He also said that Bank of America's own practices were not at issue.

The Justice Department's civil rights division has about 20 investigations open into allegations that financial institutions engaged in discriminatory practices against minorities buying homes.

This is the latest settlement involving Bank of America's Countrywide unit. Earlier this year it agreed to pay $20 million to settle with the Justice Department over allegations Countrywide illegally foreclosed on about 160 members of the U.S. military without court orders.

And the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Countrywide last year for $108 million over allegations it overcharged homeowners for loan servicing fees.

Shares of Bank of America closed up 6 cents, or 1.2 percent, at $5.23 in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Gary Hill, Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/bs_nm/us_boa_countrywide

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'Hobbit' trailer tantalizes fans

Warner Bros.

By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

Showing Tolkien fans "The Hobbit" trailer is like dangling a choice Christmas present in front of their eyes for two minutes and thirty seconds and then snatching it away for another year.

We're going back to Middle Earth, and it's gorgeous once again. Fans are already raving about the trailer's sneak peek back into the magical world, even though the movie won't hit theaters until Dec. 14, 2012.

It may be blasphemy, but as a reader, I preferred "The Hobbit" to "Lord of the Rings." Maybe it was because I read it as a kid and it seems to be the simpler, lighter, more kid-friendly read. But that's not meant to dismiss it?--?it's every bit as compelling a tale and as fascinating a world, and the movie looks to satisfy and delight fans just like the "LOTR"?trilogy did.

What do you think of the trailer? Tell us in the comments.

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Related content:

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Source: http://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/21/9609674-hobbit-trailer-tantalizes-fans

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Monday, December 19, 2011

AP Enterprise: Russia oil spills wreak devastation (AP)

USINSK, Russia ? On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam.

This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.

Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.

Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.

It's part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution seeping into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water.

Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, more the result of a drip-drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they're more numerous than in any other oil-producing nation including insurgency-hit Nigeria, and combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world, scientists say.

"Oil and oil products get spilled literally every day," said Dr. Grigory Barenboim, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Water Problems.

No hard figures on the scope of oil spills in Russia are available, but Greenpeace estimates that at least 5 million tons leak every year in a country producing about 500 million tons a year.

Dr. Irina Ivshina, of the government-financed Institute of the Environment and Genetics of Microorganisms, supports the 5 million ton estimate, as does the World Wildlife Fund.

The figure is derived from two sources: Russian state-funded research that shows 10-15 percent of Russian oil leakage enters rivers; and a 2010 report commissioned by the Natural Resources Ministry that shows nearly 500,000 tons slips into northern Russian rivers every year and flow into the Arctic.

The estimate is considered conservative: The Russian Economic Development Ministry in a report last year estimated spills at up to 20 million tons per year.

That astonishing number, for which the ministry offered no elaboration, appears to be based partly on the fact most small leaks in Russia go unreported. Under Russian law, leaks of less than 8 tons are classified only as "incidents" and carry no penalties.

Russian oil spills also elude detection because most happen in the vast swaths of unpopulated tundra and conifer forestin the north, caused either by ruptured pipes or leakage from decommissioned wells.

Weather conditions in most oil provinces are brutal, with temperatures routinely dropping below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) in winter. That makes pipelines brittle and prone to rupture unless they are regularly replaced and their condition monitored.

Asked by The Associated Press to comment, the Natural Resources Ministry and the Energy Ministry said they have no data on oil spills and referred to the other ministry for further inquiries.

Even counting only the 500,000 tons officially reported to be leaking into northern rivers every year, Russia is by far the worst oil polluter in the world.

_Nigeria, which produces one-fifth as much oil as Russia, logged 110,000 tons spilled in 2009, much of that due to rebel attacks on pipelines.

_The U.S., the world's third-largest oil producer, logged 341 pipeline ruptures in 2010 ? compared to Russia's 18,000 ? with 17,600 tons of oil leaking as a result, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Spills have averaged 14,900 tons a year between 2001 and 2010.

_Canada, which produces oil in weather conditions as harsh as Russia's, does not see anything near Russia's scale of disaster. Eleven pipeline accidents were reported to Canada's Transport Safety Board last year, while media reports of leaks, ranging from sizable spills to a tiny leak in a farmer's backyard, come to a total of 7,700 tons a year.

_In Norway, Russia's northwestern oil neighbor, spills amounted to some 3,000 tons a year in the past few years, said Hanne Marie Oeren, head of the oil and gas section at Norway's Climate and Pollution Agency.

Now that Russian companies are moving to the Arctic to tap vast but hard-to-get oil and gas riches, scientists voice concerns that Russia's outdated technologies and shoddy safety record make for a potential environmental calamity there.

Gazpromneft, an oil subsidiary of the gas giant Gazprom, is preparing to drill for oil in the Arctic's Pechora Sea, even as environmentalists complain that the drilling platform is outdated and the company is not ready to deal with potential accidents.

Government scientists acknowledge that Russia does not currently have the required technology to develop Arctic fields but say it will be years before the country actually starts drilling.

"We must start the work now, do the exploration and develop the technology so that we would be able to ... start pumping oil from the Arctic in the middle of this century," Alexei Kontorovich, chairman of the council on geology, oil and gas fields at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a recent news conference.

The same academy's Barenboim said, however, that Russian technology is developing too slowly to make it a safe bet for Arctic exploration.

"Over the past years, environmental risks have increased more sharply compared to how far our technologies, funds, equipment and skills to deal with them have advanced," he said.

In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, became the scene of Russia's largest oil spill when an estimated 100,000 tons splashed from an aging pipeline.

It killed plants and animals, and polluted up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) of two local rivers, killing thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by some 28 percent in the year following the leak.

Seen from a helicopter, the oil production area is dotted with pitch-black ponds. Fresh leaks are easy to find once you step into the tundra north of Usinsk. To spot a leak, find a dying tree. Fir trees with drooping gray, dry branches look as though scorched by a wildfire. They are growing insoil polluted by oil.

Usinsk spokeswoman Tatyana Khimichuk said the city administration had no powers to influence oil company operations.

"Everything that happens at the oil fields is Lukoil's responsibility," she said, referring to Russia's second largest oil company, which owns a network of pipelines in the region.

Komi's environmental protection officials also blamed oil companies. The local prosecutor's office said in a report this year that the main problem is "that companies that extract hydrocarbons focus on making profits rather than how to use the resources rationally."

Valery Bratenkov works as a foreman at oil fields outside Usinsk.

After hours, he is with a local environmental group. Bratenkov used to point out to his Lukoil bosses that oil spills routinely happen under their noses and asked them to repair the pipelines. "They were offended and said that costs too much money," he said.

Activists like Bratenkov find it hard if not impossible to hold authorities to account in the area since some 90 percent of the local population comprises oil workers and their families who have moved from other regions of Russia, and depend on the industry for their livelihood.

Representatives of Lukoil denied claims that they try to conceal spills and leaks, and said that no more than 2.7 tons leaked last year from its production areas in Komi.

Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, who studies oil spills, said the situation in Komi is replicated across Russia's oil-producing regions, which stretch from the Black Sea in the southwest to the Chinese border in Russia's Far East.

"It is happening everywhere," Blokov said. "It's typical of any oil field in Russia. The system is old and it is not being replaced in time by any oil company in the country."

What also worries scientists and environmentalists is that oil spills are not confined to abandoned or aging fields. Alarmingly, accidents happen at brand new pipelines, said Barenboim.

At least 400 tons leaked from a new pipeline in two separate accidents in Russia's Far East last year, according to media reports and oil companies. Transneft's pipeline that brings Russian oil from Eastern Siberia to China was put into operation just months before the two spills happened.

The oil industry in Komi has been sapping nature for decades, killing or forcing out reindeer and fish. Locals like the 63-year-old Bratenkov are afraid that when big oil leaves, there will be only poisoned terrain left in its wake.

"Fishing, hunting ? it's all gone," Bratenkov said.

___

Bjoern H. Amland contributed to this report from Oslo, Norway.

___

Nataliya Vasilyeva can be reached at http://twitter.com/natvasilyevaap

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111218/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_russia_oil_calamity

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Windows Phone 7.5 SMS bug breaks messaging hub, hard reset is the only remedy

An SMS message on your Windows 7.5 handset could knock messaging out cold, a one shot kill you can't prepare for. Apparently, WP devices that receive a text containing a certain string of characters will reboot and return with a non-functional messaging client which can only be restored via a hard reset. The flaw is not device-specific and has been found to affect other parts of the OS, locking up your handset if you've pinned a friend as a live tile and that buddy posts the magic bug words on Facebook or Windows Live Messenger. Fixing the problem requires quick tapping fingers, as you've got to remove the pinned tile after rebooting before it flips and freezes the phone again. Before you go abandoning WP7's ship, just know that SMS issues are a known phenomenon and have affected all the major mobile players, iOS and Android included. Until Microsoft releases a fix, cross your fingers and hang tight, but in the meantime, all you mobile masochists can see the bug in action after the break.

Continue reading Windows Phone 7.5 SMS bug breaks messaging hub, hard reset is the only remedy

Windows Phone 7.5 SMS bug breaks messaging hub, hard reset is the only remedy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/PPzPMCTf7SE/

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IBM Acquires Emptoris in Smarter Commerce Move (NewsFactor)

IBM on Thursday announced an agreement to acquire a leader in the cloud and on-premise analytics software field. IBM will take over Emptoris for an undisclosed amount.

Emptoris makes software that works to add intelligence to procurement and supply-chain operations with spend, supplier and contract management. The acquisition is the latest addition to IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative the company launched earlier this year. The initiative aims to help companies respond to shifting customer buying patterns.

"Procurement officers need to manage the full engagement, integrating suppliers with key internal systems, and have the capability and visibility to manage compliance and mitigate supply risk," said Patrick Quirk, CEO of Emptoris. "That is the value we bring to the procurement organization."

Emptoris in Action

With the Emptoris acquisition, IBM builds on its capabilities in what it calls the "buy" aspect of Smarter Commerce, while also extending it to a new line of C-suite executives -- chief procurement officers. This growing list of decision makers includes chief information officers, chief financial officers, chief supply chain officers and chief marketing officers.

As IBM sees it, procurement and sourcing professionals increasingly need better supplier management, spend analysis and contract management solutions to lower sourcing costs and risks. Emptoris helps execs drive these benefits by automating vendor selection, negotiation, management and compliance.

Here's an example of Emptoris in action: A large global oil and gas company established a centralized sourcing network across its entire enterprise operating in more than 80 countries. The network allowed the firm to focus on the most strategic, highest-cost, frequently-purchased items. This brought speed, transparency and simplification to the sourcing process.

As a result, the company runs thousands of sourcing events per year, managing more than 15,000 suppliers in 10 languages, achieving more than 9 percent reduction on managed categories of goods.

IT's New Bar

"IBM is demonstrating that by moving forward in a very orderly and measured way, it is not only creating a large number of solutions that its customers can use to drive profits, but that it understands its customers' businesses in a very tangible, if not intimate way," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "That's the base of the Smarter Commerce strategy but it also creates a new bar for computing IT vendors to be able to meet."

King argued that it's no longer enough for IT vendors to sell hardware or databases or productivity software anymore. Rather, business organizations need IT vendors that understand the mechanics of their business and how technology can help them work better, smarter and faster.

"The world has become an increasingly competitive place, and the laggards get left behind and plowed over. Vendors like IBM in particular understand that. How many of the company's competitors understand that is open to speculation," King said.

"When we see this kind of strategy that IBM is pursuing in commerce, you can see how the company could take the basic template of what they are doing in commerce and extend it into almost any other industry. And that's precisely what I expect IBM to do in the coming months and years."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/software/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20111215/tc_nf/81399

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Research shows hands-free phones just as risky

A driver uses a cellphone while driving Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Los Angeles. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States and is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

A driver uses a cellphone while driving Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Los Angeles. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States and is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? When someone is talking to you, your brain is listening, processing and thinking about what's being said ? even if you're in the driver's seat trying to concentrate on traffic.

That's why drivers get distracted during cellphone conversations, even when using hands-free phones, researchers say. It's also part of the reason why the National Transportation Safety Board made a recommendation this week it knows a lot of drivers won't like ? that states ban hands-free, as well as hand-held, cellphone use while driving.

It's not where your hands are, but where your mind is that counts, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman told reporters.

The board doesn't have the power to force states to impose a ban, but its recommendations carry significant weight. And, judging from the public reaction, they've already started a national conversation on the subject. NTSB has been swamped with calls, emails and tweets from drivers both praising and condemning the action.

It's the proposed hands-free ban that has generated the most controversy.

What's next? No passengers? No kids? No tuning the radio? Maybe NTSB will ban driving altogether, was the tenor of the response on Twitter.

The scientific evidence, however, is generally with NTSB, researchers said.

"There is a large body of evidence showing that talking on a phone, whether hand-held or hands-free, impairs driving and increases your risk of having a crash," Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said.

Jim Hedlund, a safety consultant and former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official, recently examined 300 cellphone studies for the Governors Highway Safety Association. He couldn't recall a single study that showed drivers talking on a headset or hands-free phone were at any less risk of an accident than drivers with one hand on the wheel and a phone in the other.

A similar analysis for the government of Sweden recently came to the same conclusion: "There is no evidence suggesting that hands-free mobile phone use is less risky than handheld use."

What's missing is hard evidence that accidents are increasing because of cellphone use. One reason is that U.S. privacy laws have made it difficult for researchers to study whether cell phones were in use in accidents in the U.S. The two large studies that have been done ? in Canada and Australia ? found drivers were four times more likely to have a crash if talking on a cellphone. It didn't matter whether the cellphone was hands-free or hand-held.

But that hasn't translated to an increase in highway fatalities in the U.S., where they hit their lowest level since 1949 last year.

Of 6,000 drivers surveyed by the highway administration, 40 percent said they don't consider it unsafe for drivers to talk on a hands-free cellphone. Less than 12 percent said that about a hand-held phone.

Marcel Just, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, isn't surprised.

It's counterintuitive to think that hands-free talking is dangerous because people don't have any sense that their conversation is draining brain power away from driving, but that's exactly what's happening, he said.

Just is the co-author of a 2008 study that used driving simulators to test the performance of drivers not engaged in conversation and drivers who could hear someone talking to them through headphones. Drivers took the simulator tests inside an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine that recorded images of changes in their brains while driving, including which areas of the brain were used for driving. The amount of the brain devoted to driving was 37 percent less in drivers who could hear someone talking to them than for drivers not using cellphones.

"The human mind can multitask, but each task is performed with less brain power and lower proficiency," Just said.

The driving simulators also showed a deterioration of skills on the part of drivers who could hear someone talking to them, including weaving between lanes and edging over the side of the road.

"When someone is speaking your native language, you can't will yourself to not hear and process it. It just goes in," Just said. Even if a driver tries to ignore the words, scientists "can see activation in the auditory cortex, in the language areas (of the brain). "

Accident investigators have seen cases of drivers talking on hands-free phones whose minds are so engrossed in their conversations that they ran into something plainly visible.

In a 2004, a bus driver taking students on a class trip drove his 12-foot-high bus into a 10-foot, 2-inch-high bridge arch in Alexandria, Va., peeling off the roof of the bus. There were signs warning drivers about the height of the bridge, and the bus driver was familiar with the route. He also saw a bus in front of him change lanes to avoid the low arch. But the bus driver, who was talking a hands-free phone at the time, drove right into it.

"There is a standard code for crash investigations called roughly 'look, but didn't see.' In other words, I was looking in the right place, but I didn't register what was there," Hedlund said.

Of course, drivers don't have to be using cellphones to have conversations ? they talk with passengers all the time. But talking to an adult passenger doesn't involve the same risk as a phone conversation, researchers said. That's because passengers are engaged in the driving experience with the driver. If they see a danger, they'll usually warn the driver. Passengers also tend to instinctually adjust their conversation to the level of traffic and other difficulties confronting the driver.

There are lots of other things that go on in cars that are risky: eating and drinking, tuning the radio, studying maps and applying makeup, for example. Just like talking on the phone, most of those things involve a choice by the driver.

As for the screaming toddler in the backseat demanding attention, "some things are just part of life," McCartt said.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

___

Governors Highway Safety Association: http://www.ghsa.org/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-15-US-Drivers-Cellphones/id-da9a26ba5fae434da7f635b4e665b936

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