Dave Barry's Blog: INSURANCE PROFESSIONAL OF THE WEEK

Actually, I've known some insurance agents, and I would say they would NEVER get tired of a nickname like that. Never, ever, ever. We're talking illustrated stationery.

Posted by: padraig | March 09, 2013 at 01:12 PM

queensbee - he's here in Atlanta (not far from me) In as much as there are almost no native Georgians in Atlanta, he's likely from Up Nawth,from whence they have exported their worst drivers, making this a paradise for carpetbagging insurance agents.

Posted by: pogo | March 09, 2013 at 02:55 PM

So true Pogo. I am a native Georgian so I appreciate that. btw, my insurance man's last name is Pecker. I find it hard to discuss my insurance needs with him sometimes. ISIANMTU.

Posted by: nursecindy | March 09, 2013 at 05:07 PM

Source: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2013/03/insurance-professional-of-the-week.html

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Hubble finds birth certificate of oldest known star

Friday, March 8, 2013

A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken an important step closer to finding the birth certificate of a star that's been around for a very long time.

"We have found that this is the oldest known star with a well-determined age," said Howard Bond of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pa., and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

The star could be as old as 14.5 billion years (plus or minus 0.8 billion years), which at first glance would make it older than the universe's calculated age of about 13.8 billion years, an obvious dilemma.

But earlier estimates from observations dating back to 2000 placed the star as old as 16 billion years. And this age range presented a potential dilemma for cosmologists. "Maybe the cosmology is wrong, stellar physics is wrong, or the star's distance is wrong," Bond said. "So we set out to refine the distance."

The new Hubble age estimates reduce the range of measurement uncertainty, so that the star's age overlaps with the universe's age ? as independently determined by the rate of expansion of space, an analysis of the microwave background from the big bang, and measurements of radioactive decay.

This "Methuselah star," cataloged as HD 140283, has been known about for more than a century because of its fast motion across the sky. The high rate of motion is evidence that the star is simply a visitor to our stellar neighborhood. Its orbit carries it down through the plane of our galaxy from the ancient halo of stars that encircle the Milky Way, and will eventually slingshot back to the galactic halo.

This conclusion was bolstered by the 1950s astronomers who were able to measure a deficiency of heavier elements in the star as compared to other stars in our galactic neighborhood. The halo stars are among the first inhabitants of our galaxy and collectively represent an older population from the stars, like our sun, that formed later in the disk. This means that the star formed at a very early time before the universe was largely "polluted" with heavier elements forged inside stars through nucleosynthesis. (The Methuselah star has an anemic 1/250th as much of the heavy element content of our sun and other stars in our solar neighborhood.)

The star, which is at the very first stages of expanding into a red giant, can be seen with binoculars as a 7th-magnitude object in the constellation Libra.

Hubble's observational prowess was used to refine the distance to the star, which comes out to be 190.1 light-years. Bond and his team performed this measurement by using trigonometric parallax, where an apparent shift in the position of a star is caused by a change in the observer's position. The results are published in the February 13 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The parallax of nearby stars can be measured by observing them from opposite points in Earth's orbit around the sun. The star's true distance from Earth can then be precisely calculated through straightforward triangulation.

Once the true distance is known, an exact value for the star's intrinsic brightness can be calculated. Knowing a star's intrinsic brightness is a fundamental prerequisite to estimating its age.

Before the Hubble observation, the European Space Agency's Hipparcos satellite made a precise measurement of the star's parallax, but with an age measurement uncertainty of 2 billion years. One of Hubble's three Fine Guidance Sensors measured the position of the Methuselah star. It turns out that the star's parallax came out to be virtually identical to the Hipparcos measurements. But Hubble's precision is five times better that than of Hipparcos. Bond's team managed to shrink the uncertainty so that the age estimate was five times more precise.

With a better handle on the star's brightness Bond's team refined the star's age by applying contemporary theories about the star's burn rate, chemical abundances, and internal structure. New ideas are that leftover helium diffuses deeper into the core and so the star has less hydrogen to burn via nuclear fusion. This means it uses fuel faster and that correspondingly lowers the age.

Also, the star has a higher than predicted oxygen-to-iron ratio, and this too lowers the age. Bond thinks that further oxygen measurement could reduce the star's age even more, because the star would have formed at a slightly later time when the universe was richer in oxygen abundance. Lowering the upper age limit would make the star unequivocally younger than the universe.

"Put all of those ingredients together and you get an age of 14.5 billion years, with a residual uncertainty that makes the star's age compatible with the age of the universe," said Bond. "This is the best star in the sky to do precision age calculations by virtue of its closeness and brightness."

This Methuselah star has seen many changes over its long life. It was likely born in a primeval dwarf galaxy. The dwarf galaxy eventually was gravitationally shredded and sucked in by the emerging Milky Way over 12 billion years ago.

The star retains its elongated orbit from that cannibalism event. Therefore, it's just passing through the solar neighborhood at a rocket-like speed of 800,000 miles per hour. It takes just 1,500 years to traverse a piece of sky with the angular width of the full Moon. The star's proper motion angular rate is so fast (0.13 milliarcseconds an hour) that Hubble could actually photograph its movement in literally a few hours.

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NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center: http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Thanks to NASA/Goddard Space Flight 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/127216/Hubble_finds_birth_certificate_of_oldest_known_star

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Facebook Barely Poked Snapchat, Active Usage Data Shows

After initially missing the boat on mobile-photo sharing and then having to turn around and plunk down nearly $1 billion for Instagram, Facebook wasn’t going to let a hot app (and potential existential threat) emerge too quickly again. Although Facebook is more than 1 billion users strong, the company still has a paranoia and mortal fear that the next social network could emerge out of a distant dorm room. With promising engagement and growth metrics, Snapchat had quietly piqued some interest about a year ago before entering a hyper-growth phase with about 5 billion photos sent in a year plus $13.5 million in funding led by Benchmark Capital. By late last year, Snapchat was sending 50 million photos a day compared to 300 million photos posted on Facebook per day. Facebook responded much faster this time with an app called Poke that they built in about 12 days. It had extras like the ability to send?simple text messages, in addition to video and photos. It also allowed group conversations. But for many reasons, a Facebook clone does not a startup killer make. Data on the active usage for both apps showed that Snapchat actually grew in market share from December to January after Facebook Poke’s launch. It then leveled off into February, while Facebook Poke has declined from a 2 percent market share down to less than 0.25 percent among iPhone users in the U.S. A Sequoia-backed startup called Onavo has a panel of a few million users that it samples active usage data for apps from. Because the company’s products track data compression, they can actually see the “market share” of different apps — or what percentage of iPhone owners in the U.S. used them in the last month. So as you can see below, their data suggests that 12 percent of U.S. iPhone users opened up Snapchat in February. Facebook has a mixed track record of competing against what it considers emerging threats. It has had successes like Messenger, which the company launched after buying Beluga. But on the other hand, it bought Instagram after it looked like a Facebook Camera app was going to come out too late in the market to be competitive. It shut down Quora-competitor Questions after about two years. It shut down a “Deals” product after exploring the super-competitive group buying space and Foursquare didn’t decline after Facebook launched its own “check-in” product.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dtFcImIE9Jo/

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Internet and Businesses Online ? Kaucsuk.com - Kaucsuk's Blog

Many of us could have experienced cases, the place bulk emails get loaded in our inbox and it is a regular feeling between individuals, that these messages are often scam, which suggests that they?re some unsolicited letters sent just for industrial intention. Nevertheless, you will find also some superior companies, utilizing bulk email computer software like a component of their marketing and advertising approach for reaching out a substantial group of probable customers. Normally, sending mail messages to a substantial group of people is usually a challenging task, but you will find companies offering the services of sending bulk email service?on behalf of their consumers.

The majority of the expert firms giving this services make sure that their consumers will positive be inside a place to have the desired reputation and their letters won?t become unnoticed through the recipients as scam. This is because they take advantage of constructive and spam-free companies plus they guarantee that the promoting message will directly reach the inbox on the intended audience and producing the marketing message to reach the appropriate person could be the initially thriving step in an e mail promoting approach.

For reaching the preferred goal of advertising and marketing, these companies will probably be building use of bulk email application and some of them can also be promoting their software program to preferred clients. The very best characteristic about these software package packages is that the particular person sending the letter can get a preview of how the e-mail will appear like for different electronic mail clientele like Gmail and yahoo users. This may enable the end users to produce the necessary improvements according towards the support utilized by the recipients.

As these application programs are presented having a wide variety of attributes like dynamic written content blocks, built-in spam checker, ability to send the same content material to various inbox at one shot, the consumer can pick out whether or not to send the mail to a particular recipient now or at a later instance, automatic bounce handling, and so forth? As these messages can have a forward to pal hyperlink, the viewers might be obtaining the simple choice to forward it to their close friends or relatives conveniently. Over all, if your person making use of this application wishes to generate some attachment towards the mail, he can get it done simply. These program plans provide the facility of embedding photographs as attachment, which means that the receiver can view the written content from the letter by downloading it to his technique and later on he can view it without having connecting the method for the online service.

Our company that specialized in software, electronic mail advertising, on the internet revenue, and every little thing on Google. We at Afmailer give Website design and Email advertising and marketing answer. For extra information about internet based email marketing and advertising service South Africa please go to us bulk email software.

Source: http://www.kaucsuk.com/internet-and-businesses-online/03/10/23/

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Report: LeBron James, fiancee set September wedding date

LeBron James and his fiancee have reportedly set a wedding date. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

By?Ben Golliver

LeBron James and fiancee Savannah Brinson are reportedly planning to be married in a September wedding in San Diego.

TMZ.com reports that the couple recently sent out ?Save the Weekend? invitations for Sept. 13-15, 2013. The invitations include images of James, Brinson and their two sons, LeBron Jr. and Bryce, flying on an airplane towards a beach.

The NBA?s reigning MVP proposed to his longtime girlfriend on Jan. 1, 2012, at a New Year?s Eve party in South Beach. At the time, James told Oprah Winfrey that he was ?nervous ? like before a Finals game? when he popped the question. One estimate placed the retail value of Brinson?s engagement ring at upwards of $250,000.

James, 28, has known Brinson since high school. Since proposing, James won the 2012 Finals, won the 2012 MVP and Finals MVP awards, won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics and was named 2012 Sports Illustrated?s Sportsman of the Year. His Heat are in the midst of a franchise-record 16-game winning streak and currently boast the best record in the Eastern Conference at 37-21. James is the odds-on favorite to win 2013 MVP honors.

Source: http://nba.si.com/2013/03/07/lebron-james-wedding-savannah-brinson-fiancee/

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Key developmental mechanism in plants explained for first time

Mar. 6, 2013 ? When a stem cell commits to becoming a leaf cell, how does a polycomb gene-repressing protein complex know where in the genome to go, and when? The normal development of an animal or plant can be compared in at least two ways with the successful performance of a great symphony. The whole is the product of a great number of events involving contributions by many different "players"; and these contributions must occur in a precise and almost perfectly coordinated temporal and spatial sequence.

In simple animals like the fruit fly and more recently in plants and mammals, scientists have been able to identify some of the principal players in the developmental symphony. Today, a team of researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) explains for the first time the operation of a mechanism in plants that controls a class of key developmental regulatory genes, called homeobox genes.

The homeobox genes under study, called BREVIPEDICELLUS (BP) and KNAT2, need to be active in plant stem cells in order for the cells to maintain their non-specialized character. Stem cells are totipotent: they can develop, or "differentiate," into any plant cell type, depending on signals they receive which send them down the developmental path. When the moment is just right for plant organs such as leaves to begin to grow, BP and KNAT2 are switched off so that development can proceed.

"We were already familiar with the players in this regulatory mechanism, which have been conserved, or preserved, by evolution across species from flies to plants to animals," says CSHL Professor Marja Timmermans, who led the research team. "What we have not understood until now is how, in plants, the action of the players is very precisely coordinated in time and space."

It turns out that a highly conserved assembly of polycomb proteins, called Polycomb-repressive complex2 (PRC2), spurs a process called epigenetic regulation that physically marks targeted genes -- in this case, BP and KNAT2 -- for repression. But how do these protein complexes know where along the plant cell's genome to go, and when, in order to induce this gene-repressing effect?

The key discovery by the Timmermans team, which appears online today in the journal Genes & Development, is the identification of the mechanism that brings PRC2 to specific sites along the genome precisely in those cells committed to become a leaf.

Timmermans' team showed that PRC2 physically interacts with DNA binding proteins that attach to plant DNA in specific genome regions just ahead of where the homeobox genes are situated. In the plant they studied, Arabidopsis, those DNA binding proteins are ASYMMETRIC LEAVES1 (AS1) and AS2. When a stem cell commits to becoming a leaf cell, AS1 and AS2 become active, attach at the DNA sites near BP and KNAT2, and recruit PRC2 to repress these homeobox genes. The epigenetic mark made by PRC2, which acts like a cellular memory, is heritable, and is essential in order for leaves and other plant organs to develop.

In other locations along the genome, other analogous mechanisms are surely at work, says Timmermans, whose broad interest in this research concerns its implications for patterning in development.

Timmermans is intrigued to learn the effects of tweaking with the timing of regulatory gene expression and repression. She suspects small adjustments to expression of master regulators during development are one of the means by which evolution proceeds over vast stretches of time.

She also notes that by tweaking these developmental regulatory systems, it might be possible to beneficially affect plant regeneration -- the process in which a new plant is generated from the leaf of an existing one. This process involves de-differentiating a mature cell and returning it to a primitive developmental state before once again allowing it to proceed down a developmental path -- a process akin to that employed in the making of human IPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells.

This work was supported by grants from the New York State Department of Health (C024308) and the National Science Foundation (MCB-0616114).

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. M. Lodha, C. F. Marco, M. C. P. Timmermans. The ASYMMETRIC LEAVES complex maintains repression of KNOX homeobox genes via direct recruitment of Polycomb-repressive complex2. Genes & Development, 2013; DOI: 10.1101/gad.211425.112

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/UQYgIqfXs6k/130307124758.htm

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Motorola Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx get updated to Android 4.1

Today is the day for Jelly Bean updates on older carrier-branded devices, apparently. In this round, it's the Verizon-branded Motorola Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx that have the honor of being bestowed with Google Now, expanded notifications and the rest of everything Android 4.1 has to offer. The rollout will take place in phases, so don't be terribly concerned if you don't see the update showing up on your device right away. We haven't had the chance to play with it yet, but soak tests seemed to indicate that much of the Droid-related bloatware has been removed in favor of several stock Google apps; if you get the update, let us know in the comments if this is the case.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Verizon

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Via: Android Central

Source: Motorola

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/PtYsNHfk-cw/

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