MacPhun, the makers of FX Photo Studio, are working on a selective-coloring photography for iPhone called Color Splash Studio. Unlike similar apps already available in the App Store, FX
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/pC6Jy-VWU7M/story01.htm
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WASHINGTON?? Republican lawmakers will try to force the Obama administration to approve the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by attaching it to a bill that Congress will consider next month, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday.
Other political news of note
Mitt Romney may be on his way to a decisive victory in the Florida GOP primary Tuesday, according to a new NBC News-Marist poll.
President Barack Obama earlier this month denied TransCanada's application for the oil sands pipeline, citing lack of time to review an alternative route within a 60-day window for action set by Congress.
The denial does not block TransCanada from reapplying and the company intends to do just that.
But Republicans have since been looking for a vehicle to claim the $7 billion project as their own, and Boehner said that would be a House Republican energy and highway bill.
"If (Keystone) is not enacted before we take up the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, it will be part of it," Boehner said on ABC's "This Week" news program.
Environmentalists and some Democrats oppose Keystone, citing higher greenhouse gas emissions, while most Republicans say it would create needed jobs.
Story: With oil pipeline to US on hold, Canada eyes ChinaRepublicans in the Senate also plan to introduce a Keystone bill. Some Senate Democrats back the pipeline, but its passage is not guaranteed in the body.
Parts of the House Republican plan, such as opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, stand little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate.
Attaching Keystone to a pending deal to extend payroll tax cuts for workers, which has greater bipartisan backing than the highway bills, is another vehicle Republicans are considering.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46181992/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
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Australian Open men's singles champion Serbia's Novak Djokovic poses with his trophy at a park in central Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. Djokovic defeated Spain's Rafael Nadal in five hours and 53 minutes to win a third Australian Open title earlier in the day. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Australian Open men's singles champion Serbia's Novak Djokovic poses with his trophy at a park in central Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. Djokovic defeated Spain's Rafael Nadal in five hours and 53 minutes to win a third Australian Open title earlier in the day. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Novak Djokovic of Serbia celebrates after defeating Rafael Nadal of Spain during the men's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, early Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Australian Open men's singles champion Serbia's Novak Djokovic poses with his trophy at a park in central Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. Djokovic defeated Spain's Rafael Nadal in five hours and 53 minutes to win a third Australian Open title earlier in the day. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Australian Open men's singles champion Serbia's Novak Djokovic poses with his trophy at a park in central Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. Djokovic defeated Spain's Rafael Nadal in five hours and 53 minutes to win a third Australian Open title earlier in the day. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Novak Djokovic of Serbia celebrates after defeating Rafael Nadal of Spain during the men's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Novak Djokovic has that unbeatable feeling.
And well he should.
The Serb outlasted Rafael Nadal to defend his Australian Open title in the longest ever Grand Slam final and become the fifth man to win three straight majors in the Open Era.
Djokovic now has the French Open ? the one major to elude him ? in his sights. He won't even rule out the ultimate: the Grand Slam.
"One player (Rod Laver) has done it, so it is possible," he said after the traditional post-victory photo shoot in a downtown Melbourne park on Monday. "Obviously the times are different and tennis nowadays is much more competitive and much more physical. And that makes that challenge more difficult to achieve. But everything is possible."
With the London Olympics to follow Wimbledon this year, Djokovic could even make it a Golden Slam by winning the gold medal at London 2012 to go with the four majors.
"The facts are that I'm at the peak of my career," Djokovic said. "I feel physically and mentally at the peak, I feel strong, I feel motivated, I feel eager to win more trophies."
Having slept for only a few hours, Djokovic dispensed with the band and the raucous dressing room celebrations that marked his victory last year, choosing to strum the air guitar and belt out a few lyrics from "Highway To Hell."
Djokovic recalled the brief celebrations after the match at Rod Laver Arena and made a half-hearted attempt to sing the refrain from the AC/DC rock anthem. His legs were too tired, and his throat a bit hoarse. "Oh man, I'm tired."
And so he should be. Djokovic completed a 5-hour, 53-minute 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-5 victory over Nadal at 1:37 a.m. ? ending an epic match with a forehand winner that finally finished off the Spaniard.
He defied exhaustion to tear off his shirt and flex his bare torso as he made his way to celebrate with friends and family. He was still doing interviews after 4 a.m.
It didn't leave much time for celebrating. Unlike his victory at the 2011 Australian Open, when he beat his friend Andy Murray in straight sets and then kicked off an all-night party with a rock band in the locker room.
"I didn't have any more energy left to celebrate," Djokovic said Monday. "I was preferring my bed."
When he awoke not long after, his body reminded him not just of the incredible events of the previous evening, nearly six hours of physically punishing tennis against one of the game's most ferociously competitive athletes, but also of a near five-hour semifinal two nights earlier against Murray.
"I felt lots of pain all over the body," he said. "The adrenaline is still there and I still am very excited about what I have experienced here in the last two weeks and especially last night. I'm full of joy, but I think still I don't have a real sense of what's going on."
Djokovic wasn't the only one feeling a little dazed Monday. There were still 1.86 million people watching in Australia until after 1:30 a.m. The peak audience was 3.86 million, approaching about one-fifth of the population. When the last ball was struck, hardly any of the almost 15,000 spectators in Rod Laver Arena had left.
A historic final provided a fitting climax to a men's tournament that also featured riveting semifinals between Nadal and No. 3-ranked Roger Federer, and Djokovic and No. 4 Murray.
Tournament director Craig Tiley, celebrating a record attendance of 686,006 over two weeks, described the final as "the greatest match of all time."
A day after earning her first Grand Slam title, even Victoria Azarenka came out to watch the men's final. The 22-year-old Belarusian needed 82 minutes ? two minutes more than the first set lasted between Nadal and Djokovic ? to rout Maria Sharapova and claim both the trophy and the No. 1 ranking.
Djokovic's seventh straight win in a final over Nadal underlined his dominance of the men's game, which until last year had been headlined by Nadal and Federer.
Nadal got closer to ending the Serb's recent success against him, but after being a break up in the fifth set, couldn't get over the line. Despite a third straight loss in a Grand Slam final, Nadal leaves Melbourne more motivated than ever.
Less than 24 hours before the tournament began, he was in tears, believing a freak knee injury he sustained while sitting on a chair would prevent him from competing in the tournament.
To end it having pushed his nemesis to the limit was more than enough consolation for the 10-time Grand Slam champion.
"I wanted to win, but I am happy about how I did," he said. "I had my chances against the best player of the world today. I played one against one."
In the end, Djokovic's unshakable belief that began to develop when he won the Davis Cup with Serbia at the end of 2010, and strengthened when he went the first 41 matches of last season unbeaten, pulled him through.
Once the bridesmaid to Nadal and Federer, Djokovic understood exactly how his opponent felt.
"When I played three, four years ago against Rafa and Roger in Grand Slam semifinals and finals, I felt that they were just superior on the court, that they had this mental advantage," he said. "Because they just know that when the time comes, when the match is breaking down, fifth set, they will always prevail, because they believe more, they have more experience and they know what to do."
Now it's Djokovic's turn to feel like he's the one who can't lose.
___
AP Sports Writer John Pye contributed to this report.
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DAWEI, Myanmar ? Euphoric seas of supporters waved opposition party flags and offered yellow garlands. They lined crumbling roads for miles and climbed atop trees, cars and roofs as Aung San Suu Kyi spoke at impromptu rallies. Some cried as her convoy passed.
Cheered by tens of thousands, the 66-year-old opposition leader electrified Myanmar's repressive political landscape everywhere she traveled Sunday on her first political tour of the countryside since her party registered to run in a historic ballot that could see her elected to parliament for the first time.
"We will bring democracy to the country," Suu Kyi said to roaring applause as her voice boomed through loudspeakers from the balcony of a National League for Democracy office in the southern coastal district of Dawei. "We will bring rule of law ... and we will see to it that repressive laws are repealed."
As huge crowds screamed "Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi!" and others held banners saying "You Are Our Heart," she said: "We can overcome any obstacle with unity and perseverance, however difficult it may be."
Suu Kyi's campaign and by-elections due April 1 are being watched closely by the international community, which sees the vote as a crucial test of whether the military-backed government is really committed to reform.
The mere fact that Suu Kyi was able to speak openly in public in Dawei ? and her supporters were able to greet her en masse without fear of reprisal ? was proof of dramatic progress itself. Such scenes would have been unthinkable just a year ago, when the long-ruling junta was still in power and demonstrations were all but banned.
Suu Kyi's visit was equivalent to waking a sleeping dragon, said environmental activist Aung Zaw Hein.
"People had been afraid to discuss politics for so long," he said. "Now that she's visiting, the political spirit of people has been awakened."
Looking into the giant crowds, Hein added: "I've never seen people's faces look like this before. For the first time, they have hope in their eyes."
Businesman Ko Ye said he was ecstatic that Suu Kyi came, and like most people here, he welcomed the recent dramatic changes that made her trip possible. "We are all hoping for democracy," the 49-year-old said, "but we're afraid these reforms can be reversed at anytime."
After nearly half a century of iron-fisted military rule, a nominally civilian government took office last March. The new government has surprised even some of its toughest critics by releasing hundreds of political prisoners, signing cease-fire deals with ethnic rebels, increasing media freedoms and easing censorship laws.
Suu Kyi's party boycotted the 2010 election as neither free nor fair. It sought to have its legal status restored after the government amended electoral laws. Her party has been cleared to offer candidates in the April vote, and an Election Commission ruling on Suu Kyi's candidacy is expected in February.
Some critics are concerned the government is using its opening with Suu Kyi to show it's committed to reform. The government needs her support to get years of harsh Western sanctions lifted.
On Sunday, Suu Kyi said the opposition had struggled for democracy for decades, but the best way to do that now was to fight "from within parliament." But she also expressed caution over the challenges ahead. "It's easy to make problems, but it's not easy to implement them," she said. "We have a lot to do."
An NLD victory would be highly symbolic, but her party would have limited power since the legislature is overwhelmingly dominated by the military and the ruling pro-military party. Up for grabs are 48 seats vacated by lawmakers who were appointed to the Cabinet and other posts.
Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 23 years under house arrest, and as a result, has rarely traveled outside Yangon. Although she conducted one successful day of rallies north of Yangon last year, a previous political tour to greet supporters in 2003 sparked a bloody ambush of her convoy that saw her forcibly confined at her lakeside home.
She was finally released from house arrest in late 2010, just days after the elections that installed the current government and led to the junta's official disbandment.
Suu Kyi met with party members in Dawei, including one running for a parliament seat. She will make similar political trips to other areas, including the country's second-largest city, Mandalay, in early February before officially campaigning for her own seat, party spokesman Nyan Win said.
Suu Kyi is hoping to represent the constituency of Kawhmu, a poor district just south of Yangon where some villagers' homes were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
Lay Lay Myint, a 35-year-old grocery store manager, said Suu Kyi's platform in parliament would allow her to "let the world know what is happening" in Myanmar.
"People have been living in fear here," Myint said. "Just seeing her hear makes us braver, more courageous."
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?Actress Zoe Saldana, left, co-writer and co-director Lee Sternthal, center, and actor Bradley Cooper pose at the premiere of "The Words" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
Actress Zoe Saldana, left, co-writer and co-director Lee Sternthal, center, and actor Bradley Cooper pose at the premiere of "The Words" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
Actor Bradley Cooper, from the film "The Words," poses for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
Actress Zoe Saldana, from the film "The Words," poses for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
From left to right, actor Dennis Quaid, actor Ben Barnes, actress Zoe Saldana, co-director and co-writer Brian Klugman, co-director and co-writer Lee Sternthal, and actor Bradley Cooper, from the film "The Words," pose for a portrait during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) ? Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana are in Park City to promote their film, "The Words," which is closing the Sundance Film Festival.
The two actors play a married couple in the film, which follows an aspiring writer who gains fame when he finds an old manuscript and passes it off as his own.
The pair avoided any appearance of their reported off-screen romance by staying apart from one another while posing for photos and giving interviews to support the film. Saldana did affectionately touch Cooper as they passed in a hallway, though.
"The Words" was among the first films acquired at Sundance. CBS Films is set to release it in the fall.
The drama, which also stars Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons, Ben Barnes and Olivia Wilde, premiered Friday.
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In the desert of Southern Tunisia, a group of renewable energy entrepreneurs, NUR Energie Ltd, (www.nurenergie.com) and their Tunisian joint venture partner (www.topoilfieldservices.com), Top Oilfield Services, are creating what may just be the most ambitious solar power renewable energy project to date. Along with the endorsement of the Desertec Foundation (www.desertec.com), NUR Energie has launched the TuNur project to export solar energy from North Africa to Europe, linking Tunisia to Italy via a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Cable and into the Italian electricity grid in order to supply a constant 2,000 MW of electricity. When completed, TuNur is set to be the world's largest solar energy project. And with the menacing reality of climate change, limited traditional energy reserves and memories of recent nuclear and oil disasters, renewable energy is no longer the choice of idealists, but a simple necessity. We as a human race cannot afford to not go full speed ahead with projects such as this.
What is so unique about this project is that it is a true South-North collaboration which is taking a profound look at not only the socio-economic benefits the collaboration can bring (The Tunur projects that the project will create an estimated 20,000 much needed jobs in Tunisia) but also taking into consideration environmental impacts which have affected the technology chosen (CSP solar) and the overall design of the project. In order to not add to the desertification process, TuNUR will make use of very little water and will recycle in a closed system the steam produced by the process of the array of mirrors reflecting sunlight to a tower storage unit (http://bit.ly/ysNbzQ) thereby turning the Sahara into a resource which can drive both the local economies as well as satisfy growing demand for low carbon electricity.
Unlike other ambitious projects, where idealism, high costs and bad timing, came before the practical realities of setting up massive solar pipelines, NUR Energie's TuNUR project arrives right on time. The combination of the horrific incident at Fukushima which forced Germany and other European nations to either decide to phase out nuclear energy and the increasing need to meet EU guidelines on renewables in the years to come, means that TuNUR's ability to make up for what will be an increased demand is being recognized by the likes of the World Bank, the European Commission. Other entities which stand to gain from this initiative include Brightsource Energy Inc (who was represented in Tunis by former Ambassador to Morocco, Tom Riley) and the Tunisian people themselves. The TuNUR project will not simply be supplying electricity to Europe, but will also be providing industrial and economic development to the local community.
Perhaps one of the most interesting and positive outcomes of most of NUR Energie's projects is how they are working hand in hand with those from the oil industry to make use of one another's knowledge and skills, as well as combining assets, even converting polluting industries and their waste, into renewable energy locales. This rising from the ashes approach is not only realistic, but also the best way to bring the more traditional energy sector (with its 8 trillion USD annual turnover and many hundreds of millions of subsidies) to the renewable energy table.
Kevin Sara, the CEO of NUR Energie Ltd, said something to me at the conference in Tunis (hosted by the British Ambassador, Chris O'Connor) which resonated with my own Texas background and understanding of the oil industry when he asserted that, "Renewable energy folks are energy people, unlike the electrical utility types because we capture the source energy so we are more like the oil industry than the electric industry. People in the oil industry know how to take risks and build large infrastructure projects in hostile natural environments".
Thus it makes sense to work with the likes of "wildcatters" and the private oil sector in Tunisia. Converting both the oil industry and phasing out nuclear is not easy, precisely because the economics created by recent disasters, such as Fukushima and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, entail massive cleanup projects which will last, in some cases decades, and bring in revenues to what are usually subsidiaries of the very kinds of companies which helped create the disasters in the first place.
The likes of Tunisia and Morocco (another locale where NUR Energie is setting up solar projects along with Greece, France and Italy) are not only growing economically and demographically, these countries are finding themselves rated higher than much-troubled Spain and Greece. The deep need for employment and an increasingly well-educated workforce is a major focus of discussion in Tunisia which is already in discussions about how best to train those who will educate the future generations of the renewable energy workforce. TuNur Ltd's CEO in Tunisia will be Dr Till Stenzel, who is looking forward to "...working closely with the Tunisian authorities, as well as European utilities and governments" to make sure this project happens, and meets all of its ambitious, yet very much needed goals. Dr. Stenzel adds that TuNur is, "...natural production on an industrial scale". Along the same lines, the Desertec Foundation's Director, Dr Thiemo Gropp, adds that, "TuNur will benefit Tunisia by creating jobs and spurring investments in local education to aid the long term management of the plants after 2016...With this important first step, we are showing the world's governments, industries and consumers that what many thought to be science fiction is actually science fact. We hope that this is the first of many more such plants to be built in the desert regions of the world."
This week in Tunis, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, saw visits from the likes of Google's Eric Schmidt and the IMF's Christine Lagarde, as local members of civil society from Tunisia, members of both the traditional and renewable energy private sector, young business leaders, diplomats, NGOs focused on Green issues, and journalists, primarily from Africa and the Arab world, gathered to discuss the TuNUR project and exchange ideas about how North Africa can look towards a stronger more stable economic future through true win-win collaborations.
If the disturbing story of how one Tunisian citizen lost hope, his economic livelihood destroyed and his family's future placed in peril, can serve as a lesson to what would best help the region, i.e. economic opportunity and growth, then may the memories of the martyrs of the Tunisian revolution live on through a better future for Tunisia and its people. Through utilizing local partners and management to develop the project, setting up new manufacturing industries (for example for the flat plate mirrors needed by TuNUR), economic growth is assured. Up to five years of construction translating as up to 20,000, as well as hundreds of long term jobs and revenues for local governments, this North-South collaboration is not only needed but should be encouraged and replicated around the world.
The Tunisian partners, include Top Oil's CEO, Fehti Somrani, who will serve as Director of TuNur Ltd., who is enthusiastic about how this project will help his country,
"Proper investment and job creation, not simple charity can help alleviate the poverty and corruption that helped trigger the Arab Spring".
With optimistic, collaborative and ambitious projects such as those being launched through collaborations between Europe and North Africa, and the public and private sector initiatives, the bright future of millions of people is assured.
?
Follow Vivian Norris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vivian-norris-de-montaigu/here-comes-the-sun-tunisi_b_1239117.html
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posted by fernandejackson @ 11:00 PM
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By Helen A.S. Popkin
via BuzzFeed
Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning. Here's everything that you need to know before taking that first sip of coffee today.
Apple CEO does not care for your comments about Apple not caring about worker abuse in China.
Twitter announced Thursday that it would begin restricting Tweets in certain countries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popular uprisings recently sweeping across the Middle East.
But here's how you get around those restrictions.
Teens ages 13 and up in the U.S. can now join Google's social network, Google+, although the search giant said it is adding safety measures for younger users. What it didn't say is that it adds to Google's efforts to get more users on Google+, including an announcement earlier this week it will allow users to have alternate names.
Meanwhile, Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill didn't spare Facebook in her speech opening?a forum on Data Privacy Day ? even though the event was live-streamed by the social network, in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Counsel.
Meanwhile, Aerosmith's?Steven Tyler might've sung about a?"dude [who] looks like a lady," but Google's convinced that a lady?? yours truly?? has the Internet browsing habits of a dude.
The next time you make a particularly strange typo, don't throw your keyboard out the window ? instead just smile. Smile, because it's possible for a simple typo to lead to a marriage -- like it did there these two.?
In closing: "Facebook & Twitter For Seniors For Dummies" exists.?
???compiled by Helen A.S. Popkin, who invites you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook.?Also, Google+.??
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U.S. job losses in recent years ? especially high-paying technology jobs ? are a startling reality that even the Obama administration is having to acknowledge, however reluctantly. As the Florida presidential primary looms just five days away,?former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are both ratcheting up their job-creation rhetoric.
The U.S. has lost nearly 30 percent of its technology jobs in recent years, according to a new report from the National Science Board, an advisory panel for the National Science Foundation. Asia is becoming the world?s technology job leader, the report indicates.
The National Science Board?reported this month?that the U.S. lost 687,000 high-tech manufacturing jobs since 2000, and that 85 percent of new?research and development-related job growth for U.S. technology companies occurred overseas.
Although the report portrays that decline as one spread out over the past 10 years, other data indicate a steep slide in recent months.?The hiring website SimplyHired.com indicates that tech hiring in the United States plunged by 15.3 percent during the last year alone.
Gingrich told Miami?media Wednesday that Obama?s policies constitute the ?most anti-job? agenda ever pursued by a U.S. president. Romney called on Obama to stop shifting blame?and do something dramatic to foster job creation.
?Aren?t you the leader of the free world,? Romney rhetorically?asked an absent Obama Wednesday morning. ?Why don?t you draft some legislation??
U.S. employment in high-technology manufacturing peaked 12 years ago?with 2.5 million jobs, the National Science Board report found, during the waning days of the Clinton administration.
Some other recent surveys, like one this week from the recruiting firm Challenger, Grey & Christmas, indicate that tech hiring has picked up in recent weeks.
Examples of tech contraction are seemingly everywhere.
Wells Fargo in November announced that it was cutting 25 staff and leaving 30 positions unfilled in IT, in order to save $188 million.?State Street Financial slashed 850 IT jobs last summer, primarily in Boston. The computing giant Cisco Systems, the cell-phone company Nokia and Blackberry maker RIM collectively announced last year that they had cut 10,000 jobs.
Even Obama, who last year blamed ATMs and factory automation for the loss of many American jobs, agrees there is a problem.
?The Chinese have been surging ahead of the U.S. in creating and nurturing startups and encouraging innovation for the past several years,? Simply Hired?spokesman?Darah Roslyn told?The Daily Caller.??And even with President Obama?s administration recognizing and investing in technology ? the Chinese have continued to surpass us.?
Competitive Enterprise Institute economic analyst?Hans Bader called the president the ?outsourcer-in-chief? in an e-mail to?TheDC. He said?jobs that can be performed here in the U.S. have increasingly moved overseas during the Obama administration?s?first three years.
But what could the leading GOP candidates ? Gingrich and Romney ? do to reverse this seeming trend from the Oval Office?
During a Jan. 7?debate in New Hampshire, Gingrich said the U.S. needs to focus on developing technological infrastructure. ?You cannot compete with China in the long run if you have an inferior infrastructure. You?ve got to move to a 21st-century model. That means you?ve got to be technologically smart and you have to make investments,? he said.
Romney has also written and spoken about improving America?s technology infrastructure, but focuses mostly on lowering tax rates and reforming the tax code so more businesses can thrive.
During an Iowa debate on Dec. 10, the former governor said he disagrees with Gingrich?s view of the government?s role in tech job creation.
?Speaker Gingrich and I have a lot of places where we disagree,? said Romney. ?We can start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon, I?m not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that.?
Gingrich retorted, ?I?m proud of trying to find things that give young people a reason to study science and math and technology, and telling them that someday in their lifetime they could dream of going to the moon ? they could dream of going to Mars.?
Jeff Manber, a Reagan administration appointee who worked on science and technology policy, told?TheDC?that ?Newt gets it? on technology policy. Government investments in computing by the Defense Department led to the creation of the consumer Internet, he explained, and government spending on NASA during the 1960s powered growth in computer chips and satellites.
Even within the GOP, there are splits in the business community regarding different approaches to job creation.
Some, like Viewfinity CEO?Leonid Shtilman, a former professor at Tel Aviv University and the City University of New York, want a focus on entrepreneurial work instead of trade wars overseas.
?It is not realistic to compete with China, India and Korea in heavy industry since the wages are really different,? he told TheDC in an email.
?The attempts of some presidential candidate to point to unfair trade are not serious, since even if you devaluate Chinese currency by 100 percent, the wages in China will be much lower than in USA,? he said. ?The only way to compete is to create a new agenda for development in potentially growing areas, like new energy, nanotechnology and material research. ? [W]e need to create an atmosphere of respect for the sciences.?
Stina Ehrensvard, CEO of the Palo Alto, Calif., tech firm Yubico Inc., is one tech player who wants the president to unleash more government investment. He told TheDC that?he ?advises? the White House to speed up government spending and regulation to ?drive innovation and mass implementation? of online security for Internet companies.
Ehrensvard reckons that firms like PayPal, Facebook and Google are today?s versions of what Apple and Microsoft were the 1980s: job-creating engines of American economic growth.
But too few American students are equipped to take many of those jobs today.
Todd Brabender, a spokesman for Neumont University, a technology college in Utah, told TheDC about a?recent marked ?decline in qualified and engaged U.S. students exploring tech degrees and careers.? His school is beginning to recruit in China for interested students, he said.
As the philosophical battles heat up during this election year, the arguments over America?s tech-jobs future have intensified ? including among those who believe a less tech-obsessed employment culture is a good thing for business.
?America has not declined in technology, but has achieved a bittersweet victory of sorts in multiple dimensions via its outsourcing arrangements to both China and India,? said Phil Lieberman, the CEO of Lieberman Software in Los Angeles.
?In return for peace and the promotion/insertion of capitalism and a mutated form of democracy into these regimes, America has achieved peace and cooperation from former serious combatants,? he told TheDC. ?America has also been the recipient of below domestic market value products and services.?
During that December Iowa debate, Gingrich cast his lot with those who see Lieberman as short-sighted.
?I grew up in a generation where the space program was real, where it was important, and where frankly it is tragic that NASA has been so bureaucratized,? Gingrich added. ?Iowa?s doing brilliant things, attracting brilliant students. I want to give them places to go and things to do. And I?m happy to defend the idea that America should be in space and should be there in an aggressive, entrepreneurial way.?
Along these lines, the London-based?New Scientist?journal recently called Gingrich ?Newt Skywalker? after he won the South Carolina GOP primary, no doubt alluding to the former speaker?s passion for big science projects.
In the current tech-jobs climate, however, President Obama may soon be cast in the role of Darth Vader when voters go to the polls in November. Or perhaps Emperor Palpatine. Join the conversationRead more stories from The Daily Caller
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posted by fernandejackson @ 5:36 AM
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? New orders for manufactured goods rose in December and a gauge of future business investment rebounded, showing the economy ended the year with more momentum than previously thought.
Other reports on Thursday showed new claims for jobless benefits rose moderately last week, suggesting the labor market was healing only slowly, while new U.S. single-family home sales unexpectedly fell in December.
The Commerce Department said orders for durable goods climbed 3.0 percent last month, boosted by a surge in aircraft orders. Economists had forecast orders rising 2.0 percent.
"There's some momentum here," said Jacob Oubina, an economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York. "Heading into the first quarter, the momentum is going to be pretty decent."
Durable goods range from toasters to big-ticket items like aircraft which are meant to last three years and more.
The data suggested U.S. companies could be growing more willing to invest the $2 trillion pile of cash they amassed in recent years.
Orders for capital goods outside defense and excluding aircraft, which are a proxy for business spending plans, climbed a steeper-than-expected 2.9 percent. They had declined the previous two months, and the U.S. Federal Reserve warned on Wednesday that business investment had cooled.
Also pointing to rising investments, shipments of orders within that category, which go into the calculation of gross domestic product, rose 2.9 percent after declining 1.0 percent in November.
SLOW HEALING
The overall increase in orders was buoyed by an 18.9 percent jump in orders for civilian aircraft. Boeing received 287 orders for aircraft during the month, according to the plane maker's website, up from 96 in November.
The Conference Board said its index of future U.S. economic activity rose to a five-month high in December as labor market conditions improved.
U.S. stock prices (.SPX) fell, with housing-related stocks among the top decliners after the report on new home sales dented optimism that the housing market may have reached a bottom. Prices rose for U.S. Treasury debt.
In a separate report, the Commerce Department said new U.S. single-family home sales unexpectedly fell in December for the first time in four months, while the median home price dropped.
The housing market remains constrained by high unemployment, falling prices and an oversupply of unsold homes following a bust that triggered the 2007-09 recession. Despite the decline in sales, there were a record low 157,000 new homes on the market last month.
Labor Department data showed new U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose last week but the underlying trend continued to point to improving labor market conditions.
Initial claims for state unemployment aid increased 21,000 to 377,000. The four-week moving average for initial claims, which provides a better view of trends, fell 2,500 to 377,500.
"We're still very much established below 400,000, continuing to suggest that there is modest improvement in the labor market," said Lindsey Piegza, an economist at FTN Financial in New York.
On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. central bank could do more to help growth if the economy falters, and the Fed indicated interest rates would likely remain near zero until late 2014.
Among the darker clouds looming over the U.S. economy is a sovereign debt crisis in Europe that is widely seen triggering a recession in the euro zone.
Greece held negotiations on a debt swap with private creditors in Athens on Thursday aimed at averting a chaotic default that could send shockwaves through the global economy.
Increased consumer spending and efforts by companies to restock their shelves likely led the U.S. economy to accelerate at the end of 2011 although many economists expect some of that strength to wane early this year.
A report due Friday is expected to show the economy grew at a 3.0 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, up from 1.8 percent in the previous period.
(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Emily Flitter and Karen Brettell in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci and James Dalgleish)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/bs_nm/us_economy
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NEW YORK ? The son of New York City's police commissioner, also a co-host of a popular New York City morning television show, has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman, a person familiar with the investigation said Thursday.
Greg Kelly, 43, was absent Thursday morning from his job as anchor of "Good Day New York" and through a lawyer denied the allegations.
The woman said she met him on the street Oct. 8 and had drinks with him, then went back to her office, where she was assaulted, the person familiar with the case told The Associated Press. She went to police Tuesday, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. It's not clear why she went to police weeks later.
Police spoke to the woman but turned the case quickly over to the Manhattan district attorney's office because of the potential conflict of interest in investigating the son of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the person said.
Kelly, a former Fox News correspondent, is cooperating with the investigation, his lawyer, Andrew Lankler, said in an emailed statement.
Greg Kelly "strenuously denies any wrongdoing of any kind," Lankler said. "We know that the district attorney's investigation will prove Mr. Kelly's innocence." The lawyer didn't respond to questions about the focus of the investigation.
The commissioner was recently made aware of an accusation against his son by an unknown man believed to be the accuser's boyfriend. The man approached the elder Kelly at a public event, chief police spokesman Paul Browne said.
"He said, `Your son ruined my girlfriend's life,'" Browne said. "The commissioner said, `Well, what do you mean?' He said he didn't want to talk about it here so the commissioner told him to send a letter."
Browne wasn't sure whether the letter was ever sent. He said he could not comment on the investigation because of the potential conflict of interest and referred inquiries to the district attorney's office, which declined to comment.
Messages left for officials at WNYW, the Fox affiliate that hosts "Good Day New York," were not returned.
Kelly joined Fox News in 2002. He covered the Iraq War, including four assignments in Baghdad, and was the White House correspondent from 2005-2007, according to his biography on WNYW's website.
In 2007, the television show "Extra" identified Kelly as the most eligible anchorman on TV. The show's website said Kelly "has enough heart and courage to make any woman swoon."
He's been involved in an ongoing feud with Joel McHale, host of "The Soup" on E! Entertainment. The show plays clips from television shows to poke fun at people, and McHale has frequently targeted Kelly and "Good Day New York."
One clip noted his sullen response to partner Rosanna Scotto the morning after a loss by the NFL's New York Jets, another showed Kelly playing disco music on his laptop coming off a commercial.
Kelly struck back last Halloween by showing up on "Good Day New York" in a McHale costume and making fun of "The Soup."
Earlier in his career, Kelly covered politics for local cable news channel New York 1 and was an anchor and reporter for NewsChannel 34, an ABC and NBC affiliate in Binghamton, N.Y., his biography said.
He also served for nearly a decade in the Marine Corps and is now a lieutenant colonel in its reserves.
Raymond Kelly has been police commissioner since 2002. He also served as commissioner in the 1990s.
___
Associated Press writer Colleen Long and AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON ? The Federal Reserve went further than ever Wednesday to assure consumers and businesses that they'll be able to borrow cheaply well into the future.
The Fed pushed back the date for any likely increase in its benchmark interest rate by at least a year and a half, until late 2014 at the earliest.
Its new timetable showed the Fed is concerned that the economy's recovery remains stubbornly slow. But it also thinks inflation will stay tame enough for rates to remain at record lows without igniting price increases.
Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned that its late-2014 horizon for any rate increase is merely the Fed's "best guess." It has the flexibility to change its mind if the economic picture changes. But speaking at a news conference later Wednesday, Bernanke said:
"Unless there is a substantial strengthening of the economy in the near term, it's a pretty good guess we will be keeping rates low for some time."
The Fed reduced its outlook for growth this year but is slightly more optimistic about the unemployment rate. It expects the economy to grow between 2.2 percent and 2.7 percent this year. That's down from its November's forecast of between 2.5 percent and 2.9 percent.
But it sees unemployment falling as low as 8.2 percent this year, better than its earlier forecast of 8.5 percent. December's rate was 8.5 percent.
The quarterly updated forecast also shows that some Fed members wanted to extend the period of record-low interest rates beyond late 2014. The Fed also offered a firmer target for inflation ? 2 percent ? in a statement of its long-term policy goals.
Treasury yields fell on the news that the Fed plans no rate increase until late 2014 at the earliest.
The yield on the five-year Treasury hit an all-time low of 0.76 percent. The yield on the 10-year note sank to 1.95 percent. The 10-year yield had been 2.02 percent just before the Fed made its announcement around 12:30 p.m. EST.
Lower yields could help further reduce mortgage rates and possibly boost stock prices as investors shift out of lower-yielding Treasurys.
Stocks, which had traded lower all day, quickly recovered their losses. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been down about 60 points before the announcement, was up 43 points in mid-afternoon.
The central bank said in a statement after a two-day policy meeting that the economy is growing moderately, despite some slowing in global growth. It held off on any further bond-buying programs to try to increase growth.
The Fed announced no further bond buying efforts. But it held out the possibility of doing so later. It said it was prepared to adjust its "holdings as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in the context of price stability."
Some economists say that means the Fed will take further action soon.
Julie Coronado, an economist at BNP Paribas, said the Fed is signaling it will boost its purchases of bonds and other assets if growth fails to accelerate, even if the economy doesn't slow.
That is a "very low bar indeed," she wrote in a note to clients.
The Fed described inflation as "subdued." That was a more encouraging description than it offered last month. A more positive outlook on prices gives the Fed more room to keep rates low.
"This is a fairly clear-cut signal that inflation is not on their radar at this point," Tom Porcelli, an economist at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a research note.
The Fed's statement was approved on a 9-1 vote. Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond regional Fed bank, dissented. He objected to the new time frame for a rate increase.
The extended time frame is a shift from the Fed's previous plan to keep the rate low at least until mid-2013. Some economists said the new late-2014 target could lead to further Fed action to try to invigorate the economy.
Chairman Ben Bernanke will discuss the updated economic forecasts and Fed policy at a news conference later.
The central bank has kept its key rate at a record low near zero for about three years. Its new time frame suggests the rate will stay there for roughly an additional three years.
Beyond the adjusted outlook for interest rates, Wednesday's statement closely tracked the Fed's previous comments about economic conditions.
The Fed used the same language as before in describing Europe's debt problems and the impact on the world economy.
The economy is looking a little better, according to recent private and government data. Companies are hiring more, the stock market is rising, factories are busy and more people are buying cars. Even the home market is showing slight gains after three dismal years
Still, the threat of a recession in Europe is likely to drag on the global economy. And another year of weak wage gains in the United States could force consumers to pull back on spending, which would slow growth.
The Fed has taken previous steps to strengthen the economy, including purchases of $2 trillion in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to try to cut long-term rates and ease borrowing costs.
The idea behind the Fed's two rounds of bond buying was to drive down rates to embolden consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more. Lower yields on bonds also encourage investors to shift money into stocks, which can boost wealth and spur more spending.
Some Fed officials have resisted further bond buying for fear it would raise the risk of high inflation later. And many doubt it would help much since Treasury yields are already near historic lows. But Bernanke and other members have left the door open to further action if they think the economy needs it.
The Fed said it would keep its holdings of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed bonds at record levels and continue a program to further drive long-term rates lower by selling shorter-term securities and buying longer-term bonds.
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Video of the Week #27 January 25th, 2012
From: Winners of the Cyberscreen Science Film Festival at Science Online 2012 by Carin Bondar and Joanne Manaster at PsiVid
Source: Derek Muller & Chris Stewart on techNyouvids and Veritasium on YouTube.
Derek Mueller of Sydney Australia won this year?s Cyberscreen Science film festival with his physics film ?Mission Possible: Graphene?. The festival took place during the Science Online 2012 conference last weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina. Despite the dense subject matter of the film (pun intended), Derek kept it entertaining with fantastic storytelling and fun characters. We will be doing a full feature on Derek?s work in the near future on PsiVid, stay tuned!
About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.More??
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=5b73f6f83bd4aa9bb7ab9015dfe13af0
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GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? The captain of the Italian liner Costa Concordia said he was told by managers to take his ship close to shore on the night it ran aground and capsized, but the company denied having any prior knowledge of the maneuver.
The daily La Repubblica published transcripts of a conversation Captain Francesco Schettino had with a person identified only as Fabrizio in which he implicates an unnamed manager of the vessel's owners, Costa Cruises.
"Fabri ... anyone else in my place wouldn't have been so nice as to go there because they were breaking my balls, saying 'go there, go there'," Schettino says in the conversation taped while he was being held following his arrest over the incident.
"...the rock was there but it didn't show up in the instruments I had and I went there ... to satisfy the manager, 'go there, go there'."
The conversation, in a thick Neapolitan dialect which the transcription translates into standard Italian, was apparently taped without the knowledge of Schettino. It was posted on the website of the newspaper.
A source in the prosecutor's office said the transcript was genuine. Schettino's lawyer Bruno Leporatti did not dispute it but said his client should not be treated as a "scapegoat."
Investigators say Schettino steered the 114,500-tonne vessel to within 150 meters of the shore to perform a maneuver known as a "salute" in which a ship makes a special display by coming in very close to land.
"Taking a tourist ship close to shore is allowed under certain conditions and is a practice adopted by all the cruise ship companies around the world," Pier Luigi Foschi, chief executive of Costa Cruises, told the Senate on Wednesday.
"In this case the company wasn't aware of such a maneuver, and the program distributed to the cruise's passengers spoke of the ship passing Giglio island at a distance of miles."
Schettino is under house arrest and blamed for causing the accident by steering too close to shore. He is accused of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship before the evacuation of more than 4,200 passengers and crew was complete.
At least 16 people died when the cruise ship struck a rock which tore a hole in its side and caused it to capsize off the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13. Another 16 people are still unaccounted for. Six bodies are still unidentified.
Whether or not "salute" maneuvers were encouraged by the ship's operators is one of the key questions in the investigation.
Costa Cruise's Foschi said it was common practice "and is not dangerous by definition, but of course one cannot proceed at 16 knots there in that location."
The practice is a matter of discretion that must be planned, recorded in the ship's log beforehand and performed safely, but it is allowed, a Coast Guard source said on Wednesday.
SEARCH RESUMED
Divers resumed their search on Wednesday after blasting four new holes to open up submerged interior space in the ship almost 12 days after the accident.
"It's obvious that for all the time that has passed, and given the conditions, finding someone alive today would be a miracle," said Franco Gabrielli, head of the civil service agency, who is in charge of the state's emergency operations.
Salvage teams are continuing preparations to pump more than 2,300 tons of diesel fuel from the hulk, an operation expected to start by Saturday and last about a month.
Giulia Bongiorno, one of Italy's best-known criminal lawyers, is to represent passengers who are planning to seek damages from the cruise company.
Bongiorno represented Raffaele Sollecito when he was acquitted last year on appeal, with U.S. student Amanda Knox, of murdering Briton Meredith Kercher.
In the transcript published by La Repubblica, Schettino also suggests that he abandoned ship soon after realizing that the vessel was listing dangerously.
During questioning by magistrates, Schettino said he fell into a lifeboat while investigating the state of the ship, which suffered an electrical blackout after it struck the rock. In the confusion, he had been unable to return to the ship.
Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise ship operator, has blamed the captain and suspended him. The company has begun disciplinary action against Schettino, a legal source told Reuters on Wednesday.
Neither the company nor individual executives, apart from Schettino and the ship's first officer, have been placed under investigation even though Schettino's lawyer has said that the probe will be extended to other parties.
(Additional reporting by Cristian Corvino and Ilaria Polleschi in Grosseto, Roberto Landucci in Rome, Emilio Parodi in Milan, and Laura Viggiano in Naples.; Writing By James Mackenzie and Steve Scherer; Editing by Giles Elgood and Robert Woodward)
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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks dipped on Tuesday as talks to resolve Greece's debt crisis hit a snag and some lackluster earnings put the S&P 500 index's five-day string of gains in jeopardy.
Greece moved closer to the possibility of a chaotic default after euro zone officials rejected a bond swap offer from the country's private bondholders, who pleaded with European officials to reach a deal.
A disorderly default by Greece could revive the possibility of contagion among euro zone nations, putting weaker members of the bloc at higher risk of default.
"They don't seem that far apart," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco, referring to the two groups.
"At this point, people think they are going to come to some resolution. They have to get the pin back in the hand grenade somehow."
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) dropped 50.06 points, or 0.39 percent, to 12,658.76. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) lost 3.77 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,312.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) dipped 1.19 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,782.98.
Along with developments in Greece, investors grappled with corporate earnings that have failed to reach levels of performance seen in recent quarters. This week is one of the busiest in the quarterly earnings season, with 117 S&P 500 companies due to report.
According to the latest Thomson Reuters data, 20 percent of S&P 500 companies have reported earnings, with 58 percent topping Wall Street expectations, less than usual at this point in the earnings season.
Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) and Travelers Cos Inc (TRV.N) were the biggest drags on the Dow after posting quarterly results.
Travelers reported a smaller-than-estimated profit as it released less money from its reserves than a year earlier, but it also announced its biggest rate increases in eight years. The stock fell 3.6 percent to $58.10, but analysts had expected the drop and called it a buying opportunity.
Verizon's profit missed estimates by a penny as its wireless business was hit by the high costs of sales of advanced phones, such as the Apple Inc (AAPL.O) iPhone.
McDonald's reported stronger-than-expected December sales, but its shares fell on investor concerns its profit may have beat expectations only because of income unrelated to operations.
McDonald's fell 2.2 percent to $98.77, and Verizon shed 1.8 percent to $37.70.
Traders said they were impressed by the market's ability to shrug off bad news. The five-day advance has helped put the benchmark S&P index up more than 4 percent for the year.
Results from other large U.S. corporations, including DuPont (DD.N) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), failed to ignite much enthusiasm.
"These earnings numbers weren't that great this morning, but the way the market acts right now, you could see it close up on the day," said Massocca.
DuPont shares edged up 0.1 percent to $49.42 after its quarterly revenue rose 14 percent but missed estimates.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) advanced 0.2 percent at $65.10 on better-than-expected quarterly earnings, even as the diversified healthcare company forecast 2012 earnings below estimates.
The Federal Open Market Committee began a two-day meeting
on Tuesday, at the end of which policymakers will start a new practice of announcing their interest rate projections. The Fed hopes the projections, to be released
on Wednesday, will give markets and the public greater clarity about its decision-making.
(Reporting By Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Kenneth Barry)
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2012) ? Research has found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people.
In the classic film "12 Angry Men," Henry Fonda's character sways a jury with his quiet, persistent intelligence. But would he have succeeded if he had allowed himself to fall sway to the social dynamics of that jury?
Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. "You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study.
The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.
"We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ," said Montague. "Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect."
"Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning," said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit."
The researchers recruited subjects from two universities and administered a standard test to establish baseline IQ. The results were not viewed until after a series of ranked group IQ tasks, during which test takers, in groups of five, received information about how their performances compared to those of the other group members.
Although the test subjects had similar baseline IQ scores -- a mean of 126, compared to the national average of 100 -- they showed a range of test performance results after the ranked group IQ tasks, revealing that some individuals' expressed IQ was affected by signals about their status within a small group.
The researchers wanted to know what was happening in the brain during the observed changes in IQ expression. The subjects were divided into two groups based on the results of their final rank -- the high performers, who scored above the median, and the low performers, who scored at or below the median. Two of every group of five subjects had their brains scanned using fMRI while they participated in the task.
Among the researchers' findings:
1. Dynamic responses occurred in multiple brain regions, especially the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and the nucleus accumbens -- regions believed to be involved in emotional processing, problem solving, and reward and pleasure, respectively.
2. All subjects had an initial increase in amygdala activation and diminished activity in the prefrontal cortex, both of which corresponded with a lower problem-solving ability.
3. By the end of the task, the high-performing group showed a decreased amygdala activation and an increased prefrontal cortex activation, both of which were associated with an increased ability to solve more difficult problems.
4. Positive changes in rank were associated with greater activity in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, which has traditionally been linked to learning and has been shown to respond to rewards and pleasure.
5. Negative changes in rank corresponded with greater activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, consistent with a response to conflicting information.
6. Neither age nor ethnicity showed a significant correlation with performance or brain responses. A significant pattern did emerge along gender lines, however. Although male and female participants had the same baseline IQ, significantly fewer women (3 of 13) were in the high-performing group and significantly more (10 of 13) fell into the low-performing group.
"We don't know how much these effects are present in real-world settings," Kishida said. "But given the potentially harmful effects of social-status assignments and the correlation with specific neural signals, future research should be devoted to what, exactly, society is selecting for in competitive learning and workplace environments. By placing an emphasis on competition, for example, are we missing a large segment of the talent pool? Further brain imaging research may also offer avenues for developing strategies for people who are susceptible to these kinds of social pressures."
"This study tells us the idea that IQ is something we can reliably measure in isolation without considering how it interacts with social context is essentially flawed," said coauthor Steven Quartz, a professor of philosophy in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Caltech. "Furthermore, this suggests that the idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other."
"So much of our society is organized around small-group interactions," said Kishida. "Understanding how our brains respond to dynamic social interactions is an important area of future research. We need to remember that social dynamics affect not just educational and workplace environments, but also national and international policy-making bodies, such as the U.S. Congress and the United Nations."
The research appears in the Jan. 23, 2012 issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in the article, "Implicit signals in small group settings and their impact on the expression of cognitive capacity and associated brain responses," by Kenneth Kishida; Dongni Yang, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine; Karen Hunter Quartz, a director of research in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies of the University of California, Los Angeles; Steven Quartz; and Read Montague, corresponding author, who is also a professor of physics at Virginia Tech. The research was supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust and the Kane Family Foundation to Montague and the National Institutes of Health to Montague and Kishida.
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GREENVILE, South Carolina (Reuters) ? Presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich battled to win last-minute supporters on Saturday in a South Carolina primary that could reshape the Republican nominating contest.
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, must win the conservative southern state to secure his front-runner status in the race to determine who will challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in November.
Gingrich's recent rise in popularity has slowed Romney's momentum.
A victory by the former speaker of the House of Representatives could prolong the state-by-state Republican nominating battle and give Obama's re-election campaign a boost as his would-be Republican opponents beat each other up.
"I'm the only guy's who's spent his life in the real world," said Romney, standing on a chair in a crowded restaurant, Tommy's Country Ham House. He referred to Gingrich as a "Washington insider" and acknowledged he might not lock up the nomination this weekend.
"We've got a long way to go. So come join us in Florida, in Nevada, Michigan, Colorado. We've got a long way to go."
Romney may be helped if the South Carolina conservative vote is splintered among Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and libertarian Congressman Ron Paul.
Voter turnout, which weather could influence, will also be key. A tornado watch was in effect for much of the state and severe thunderstorms were on the forecast.
Gingrich was hoping to create a storm of his own. A new poll conducted by the American Research Group showed him leading Romney 40 percent to 26 percent among likely voters. The margin of error in the survey, conducted Thursday and Friday, was 4 percentage points.
Gingrich's latest surge in opinion polls came after disappointing finishes in the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has fended off publicity about his turbulent marital history and painted himself as the more conservative candidate whose experience in Washington would help him lead.
That was convincing to some voters in Charleston.
"Yeah, he had his baggage. Who doesn't?" said Bryan Riddle, 48, who voted for Gingrich. "I don't think he spins everything that comes out of his mouth."
Kim Woods, 53, a photographer, said Gingrich's Washington experience -- which Romney has attempted to demonize -- was an asset. "He's been in D.C. He's been in the political realm. He can get some things done," she said.
A multimillionaire ex-businessman who runs a sleek campaign, Romney has consistently won the support of a quarter of Republicans nationally with his message on jobs and the economy. But he has failed to capture the hearts of many conservatives.
Gingrich is a former history teacher with strong debating skills and a personal life that is dotted with marital infidelity, in contrast to Romney's stable family tableau, punctuated by five sons and 16 grandchildren.
TWO MAN RACE
With two other candidates trailing in the polls, the primary looks like a straight fight between the two very different men.
"Newt has positioned himself as the 'anti-Romney' and this strategy has played well in South Carolina," said Republican strategist Ron Christie.
"The question is whether this has broader appeal in more diverse states. As for Romney, this sparring will serve him well for the general election should he become the Republican nominee."
Fueled by a grudge that has become almost personal, Gingrich has sown seeds of doubt among Republicans who were beginning to see Romney as the inevitable nominee after strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Romney has stumbled, acknowledging in the last week he pays a much lower tax rate than many Americans and struggling to answer questions about a planned release of tax records.
Romney's campaign tried to turn the tables and ask for more information about ethics violations for which Gingrich was sanctioned in Congress in the 1990s.
The campaign noted that Saturday was the 15th anniversary of Gingrich being reprimanded by fellow lawmakers.
"Don't you love these guys? He doesn't release anything, he doesn't answer anything. And he's even confused about whether or not he will ever release anything. And then he's decided to pick a fight over releasing stuff," Gingrich said.
Animosity between the two has been festering since December, when a group supporting Romney launched a blitz of negative TV ads in Iowa that effectively ruined Gingrich's campaign there.
He has hit back by attacking Romney's business record.
The fight has been bruising in South Carolina, a conservative state with a history of dirty politics.
Romney's team is playing up his family background. His wife of 42 years, Ann, appears in an ad extolling the virtues needed in a strong president.
"If you really want to know how a person will operate, look at how they have lived their life. And I think that's why it's so important to understand the character of a person," she says.
The winner of South Carolina's Republican presidential primary has gone on to win the party's nomination in every election since 1980. Romney's path to the nomination would be nearly clear if he can clinch the state on Saturday. Polling closes at 7 p.m. eastern/0000 GMT.
The next contest is in Florida, where Romney has agreed to participate in more debates, which have been Gingrich's most successful venues.
"Regardless of what happens in South Carolina, this is still Mitt Romney's race to lose, and I don't think he's going to lose it," said Republican strategist Todd Harris, adding that Gingrich had failed repeatedly to capitalize on his strengths.
"Romney's campaign is like a slow and methodical game of chess. Newt's is more like Chutes and Ladders."
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posted by fernandejackson @ 9:28 PM
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