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LONDON ? Global stocks advanced Monday as further proposals to get a grip on Europe's debt crisis were touted amid signs that the U.S. Christmas shopping season has started off strongly.

The advance came despite denials that the International Monetary Fund was readying a euro600 billion ($794 billion) rescue package for Italy and that the eurozone's six triple-A rated countries were preparing to float bonds together and use the proceeds to provide assistance to some of the single currency bloc's indebted members, such as Italy and Spain.

Investors are clearly hoping that the recent signs of deterioration in the debt crisis will finally get Europe's leaders to agree on a package of measures that can ease market concerns over whether the euro currency itself can survive. Anecdotal evidence that the U.S. enjoyed a strong day for retailing on Friday after Thanksgiving Day has eased concerns that the world's largest economy will slide back into recession.

"While positive news provides a welcome relief for the markets, it cannot detract from the fact that the future of the eurozone is hanging in the balance," said Jane Foley, an analyst at Rabobank International.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 2.1 percent at 5,272, while Germany's DAX rose 2.9 percent to 5,653. The CAC-40 in France was 3.6 percent higher at 2,961.

The euro, meanwhile, was 0.7 percent higher at $1.3385.

Wall Street was poised for a strong open, too ? Dow futures were up 2.3 percent at 11,445 while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 futures rose 2.9 percent to 1,187.

Many in the markets think that the euro project, as currently designed, is at a crucial turning point. With more and more governments finding it prohibitively expensive to borrow money to finance their debts, there's a groundswell of opinion that says the euro's days are numbered. Belgium, Italy and France all have big bond issues this week. More failures on that front following last week's disappointing auction from Germany could stoke further turmoil.

"The success or otherwise of these auctions may determine the future of the EU," said Gary Jenkins, an analyst at Evolution Securities. "We do seem to be moving slowly towards more of a fiscal union but at a pace that may result in all the components being put in place after a complete meltdown of the financial system."

Credit rating agency Moody's issued a similar warning Monday. It said the "rapid escalation" of Europe's financial crisis is threatening the creditworthiness of all eurozone governments, even the most highly rated. Only six of the eurozone's 17 countries have the top rating ? Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Finland.

And the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said policy makers around the world must "be prepared to face the worst," as the economic impact of Europe's debt crisis threatens to spread around the developed world.

The Paris-based OECD says in its latest Economic Outlook that continued failure by EU leaders to stem the debt crisis that has spread from Greece to much-bigger Italy "could massively escalate economic disruption" and end in "highly devastating outcomes."

The biannual report released Monday recommends urgently boosting the EU bailout fund and calls on Europe's central bank to do more to stem the crisis.

Oil prices tracked equities higher, too. Benchmark crude for January delivery was up $3.53 to $100.30 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

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Janeen Delany describes herself as an "old hippie" who's smoked plenty of marijuana. But she never really dabbled in hallucinogens ? until two years ago, at the age of 59.

A diagnosis of incurable leukemia had knocked the optimism out of the retired plant nurserywoman living in Phoenix. So she signed up for a clinical trial to test whether psilocybin ? the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" ? could help with depression or anxiety following a grim diagnosis.

Delaney swallowed a blue capsule of psilocybin in a cozy office at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She donned a blindfold, a blood pressure cuff and a headset playing classical music. With two researchers at her side, she embarked on a six-hour journey into altered consciousness that she calls "the single most life-changing experience I've ever had."

What a long, strange trip it's been. In the 1960s and '70s, a rebellious generation embraced hallucinogens and a wide array of street drugs to "turn on, tune in and drop out." Almost half a century later, magic mushrooms, LSD, Ecstasy and ketamine are being studied for legitimate therapeutic uses. Scientists believe these agents have the potential to help patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, drug or alcohol addiction, unremitting pain or depression and the existential anxiety of terminal illness.

"Scientifically, these compounds are way too important not to study," said Johns Hopkins psychopharmacologist Roland Griffiths, who conducted the psilocybin trial.

In their next incarnation, these drugs may help the psychologically wounded tune in to their darkest feelings and memories and turn therapy sessions into heightened opportunities to learn and heal.

"We're trying to break a social mind-set saying these are strictly drugs of abuse," said Rick Doblin, a public policy expert who founded the Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies in 1986 to encourage research on therapeutic uses for medical marijuana and hallucinogens. "It's not the drug but how the drug is used that matters."

Regulators and medical researchers remain wary. But among at least some experts at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, the shift in attitude "has been dramatic," Doblin said.

Researchers explored the usefulness of hallucinogenic agents as an adjunct to psychotherapy in the 1950s and '60s. But allegations that hallucinogens were used in government-funded "mind control" efforts, freewheeling experimentation by proponents like Dr. Timothy Leary, and the drugs' appeal to a generation in revolt quashed legitimate research for decades.

The thaw has been slow in coming. In 2008, Griffiths co-wrote a report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology comparing psilocybin with a placebo for people dealing with incurable diseases. Psilocybin resulted in "mystical experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance," according to the study, the first since 1972 to explore a hallucinogen's therapeutic value.

In January, a team led by UCLA psychiatrist Charles Grob reported in Archives of General Psychiatry that psilocybin improved the mood of patients with "existential anxiety" related to advanced-stage cancer. The benefits lasted at least three months.

Janeen Delany is a typical case: The insights she gleaned during her encounter with psilocybin continue to shape her attitudes toward life and death.

Delany said her "trip" awakened a deep and reassuring sense of "knowing." She came to see the universe and everything in it as interconnected. As the music in her headphones reached a crescendo, she held her breath and realized it would OK ? no, really easy ? not to breathe anymore. She sensed there was nothing more she needed to know and therefore nothing she needed to fear about dying.

And that, paradoxically, has allowed her to live.

"When you take the veil of fear away from your life, you can see and experience everything in such a present way," she said. "I don't have to know what the future is. Every day is the day of days."

Fighting addiction

Such mystical insights are central in another potential use for psilocybin ? as an addiction treatment. Griffiths is conducting a pilot study combining psilocybin with cognitive behavioral therapy to help smokers quit. Four people have completed the program, and so far none has returned to smoking, Griffiths says.

At the University of Arizona in Tucson, addiction specialist Dr. Michael P. Bogenschutz has proposed a clinical trial to test whether psilocybin can help ease alcohol dependence. If the NIH agrees to fund the study, it would be the first instance in decades of government financial support for a trial involving any drug of abuse.

Psilocybin's effect on the brain can be described, if not explained. It increases the activity of serotonin, a chemical that affects mood. Brain networks associated with emotions are highly active in the presence of psilocybin, as are structures involved in higher reasoning and judgment, MRI scans show.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/3wi-sVDdTcw/la-he-drugs-of-abuse-20111130,0,327696.story

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E. coli bacteria engineered to eat switchgrass and make transportation fuels

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A milestone has been reached on the road to developing advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels with a domestically-produced clean, green, renewable alternative.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered the first strains of Escherichia coli bacteria that can digest switchgrass biomass and synthesize its sugars into all three of those transportation fuels. What's more, the microbes are able to do this without any help from enzyme additives.

"This work shows that we can reduce one of the most expensive parts of the biofuel production process, the addition of enzymes to depolymerize cellulose and hemicellulose into fermentable sugars," says Jay Keasling, CEO of JBEI and leader of this research. "This will enable us to reduce fuel production costs by consolidating two steps ? depolymerizing cellulose and hemicellulose into sugars, and fermenting the sugars into fuels ? into a single step or one pot operation."

Keasling, who also holds appointments with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkley, is the corresponding author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that describes this work. The paper is titled "Synthesis of three advanced biofuels from ionic liquid-pretreated switchgrass using engineered Escherichia coli."

Advanced biofuels made from the lignocellulosic biomass of non-food crops and agricultural waste are widely believed to represent the best source of renewable liquid transportation fuels. Unlike ethanol, which in this country is produced from corn starch, these advanced biofuels can replace gasoline on a gallon-for-gallon basis, and they can be used in today's engines and infrastructures. The biggest roadblock to an advanced biofuels highway is bringing the cost of producing these fuels down so that they are economically competitive.

Unlike the simple sugars in corn grain, the cellulose and hemicellulose in plant biomass are difficult to extract in part because they are embedded in a tough woody material called lignin. Once extracted, these complex sugars must first be converted or hydrolyzed into simple sugars and then synthesized into fuels. At JBEI, a DOE Bioenergy Research Center led by Berkeley Lab, one approach has been to pre-treat the biomass with an ionic liquid (molten salt) to dissolve it, then engineer a single microorganism that can both digest the dissolved biomass and produce hydrocarbons that have the properties of petrochemical fuels.

"Our goal has been to put as much chemistry as we can into microbes," Keasling says. "For advanced biofuels this requires a microbe with pathways for hydrocarbon production and the biomass-degrading capacity to secrete enzymes that efficiently hydrolyze cellulose and hemicellulose. We've now been able to engineer strains of Escherichia coli that can utilize both the cellulose and hemicellulose fractions of switchgrass that's been pre-treated with ionic liquids."

E. coli bacteria normally cannot grow on switchgrass, but JBEI researchers engineered strains of the bacteria to express several enzymes that enable them to digest cellulose and hemicellulose and use one or the other for growth. These cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic strains of E. coli, which can be combined as co-cultures on a sample of switchgrass, were further engineered with three metabolic pathways that enabled the E. coli to produce fuel substitute or precursor molecules suitable for gasoline, diesel and jet engines. While this is not the first demonstration of E. coli producing gasoline and diesel from sugars, it is the first demonstration of E. coli producing all three forms of transportation fuels. Furthermore, it was done using switchgrass, which is among the most highly touted of the potential feedstocks for advanced biofuels.

Gregory Bokinsky, a post-doctoral researcher with JBEI's synthetic biology group and lead author of the PNAS paper, explains that the pre-treatment of the switchgrass with ionic liquids was essential to this demonstration.

"The magic is in the ionic liquid pre-treatment," Bokinsky says. "If properly optimized, I suspect you could use ionic liquid pre-treatment on any plant biomass and make it readily digestible by microbes. For us it was the combination of biomass from the ionic liquid pretreatment with the engineered E. coli that enabled our success."

The JBEI researchers also attribute the success of this work to the "unparalleled genetic and metabolic tractability" of E. coli, which over the years has been engineered to produce a wide range of chemical products. However, the researchers believe that the techniques used in this demonstration should also be readily adapted to other microbes. This would open the door to the production of advanced biofuels from lignocellulosic feedstocks that are ecologically and economically appropriate to grow and harvest anywhere in the world. For the JBEI researchers, however, the next step is to increase the yields of the fuels they can synthesize from switchgrass.

"We already have hydrocarbon fuel production pathways that give far better yields than what we obtained with this demonstration," says Bokinsky. "And these other pathways are very likely to be compatible with the biomass-consumption pathways we've engineered into our E. coli. However, we need to find enzymes that can both digest more of the ionic liquid pre-treated biomass and be secreted by E coli. We also need to work on optimizing the ionic liquid pre-treatment steps to yield biomass that is even easier for the microbes to digest."

###

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov

Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 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/115553/E__coli_bacteria_engineered_to_eat_switchgrass_and_make_transportation_fuels

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In a front page editorial Sunday, New Hampshire's prominent statewide Union Leader newspaper endorsed Newt Gingrich. It's a big boost for Gingrich and a blow to Mitt Romney, currently leading in polls.

Newt Gingrich?s presidential campaign just got a big boost in New Hampshire ? the state holding the first Republican primary election.

Skip to next paragraph

The Union Leader, the state?s most prominent publication and a leading voice in conservatism, says it?s backing Gingrich over Mitt Romney.

Romney, who holds a commanding lead in New Hampshire polling, is still the man to beat there. But the Union Leader?s rejection of his candidacy is a blow nonetheless ? particularly since Gingrich has vaulted past his GOP rivals to claim neck-and-neck status with Romney in national Republican polls as well as likely-voter surveys in other states.

The newspaper?s endorsement ? spread across the top of the front page in the Sunday edition and signed by publisher Joseph W. McQuaid ? carries a granite-like tone typical of a publication prominent in Republican politics. Four years ago, its endorsement of John McCain helped propel McCain past Romney to a win in New Hampshire and to his party?s nomination.

"We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing," the newspaper wrote in its editorial.

"We don't back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers,? the paper declared in obvious reference to Romney. ?We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job.?

"We don't have to agree with them on every issue," the newspaper wrote about Gingrich, some of whose positions (on immigration, for example) have rankled conservatives. "We would rather back someone with whom we may sometimes disagree than one who tells us what he thinks we want to hear."

Writes Maggie Haberman at Politico.com: ?It's the most significant?and impactful endorsement in the GOP race so far, and solidifies Gingrich's standing as the alternative to Romney as the race heads into the final pre-Iowa caucuses stretch.?

While the Union Leader?s endorsement shakes things up, Romney remains the clear front-runner in New Hampshire, a state where he owns a home and where he?s well-known because of his time as governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/usa/~3/ekCQ8aEqzAY/Newt-Gingrich-Union-Leader-endorsement-a-big-boost-in-New-Hampshire

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LONDON (Reuters) ? World stocks rose from last week's 7-week low on Monday as hopes grew euro zone leaders would unveil fresh measures to resolve the two-year-old debt crisis, while caution ahead of next week's key summit kept the euro and German yields under pressure.

An unsourced report in Italian daily La Stampa suggested the International Monetary Fund was preparing a rescue plan for Italy worth up to 600 billion euros ($796 billion), later dismissed by an IMF spokesperson.

But a downgrade in Belgium's sovereign rating late on Friday and a warning by Moody's that the rapid escalation of the region's sovereign and banking crisis threatens the rating of all European government bonds kept top-rated German debt supported.

"The bears out there will know that markets do not go down in a straight line and this could be just a relief rally in what will prove to be a prolonged bear market," said Stan Shamu, strategist at IG Markets.

MSCI world equity index (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.9 percent, rising for the first time after ten consecutive days of losses. The index is down nearly 15 percent since January and more than 22 percent since hitting a three-year high in May.

European stocks (.FTEU3) and emerging stocks (.MSCIEF) both rose around 1.5 percent.

U.S. stock futures were up more than 2 percent, pointing to a firmer open on Wall Street later.

The market was also expected to get some support from news that U.S. retailers racked up a record $52.4 billion in sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, a 16.4 percent jump.

U.S. crude oil gained 2.2 percent to $98.92 a barrel.

Bund futures were steady on the day.

After the Italian aid report, Italian/German 10-year government bond yield spread tightened 10 basis points to 496 bps.

The premium investors pay to hold Belgium's 10-year government bonds rather than German debt was largely unchanged from Friday at 368 basis points.

Belgian borrowing costs have increased sharply in past weeks as the country has struggled to set up a government, with the country's benchmark 10-year yield rising near the 6 percent level on Friday, beyond which financing costs could become unsustainable.

A sustained rise in yields is likely to scare some of the long-term euro bond buyers. Kokusai Asset Management, Japan's biggest mutual fund, said it had sold all its Italian, Spanish and Belgian bond holdings, spooked by a jump in Italian bond yields to above 7 percent and other signs that the crisis in Europe was deepening [ID:nL4E7MS152].

Investors will keep a close eye on developments in the euro zone. Documents showed detailed operational rules for the region's bailout fund were ready for approval and will clear the way for the 440 billion euro facility to attract cash from private and public investors in coming weeks.

Officials say Germany and France are exploring ways for rapid fiscal integration among euro zone countries. Germany's original plan was to get all 27 countries on board, but officials have been looking at alternatives such as an agreement among just the euro zone countries or a separate agreement outside the EU treaty that could involve a core of around 8-10 euro zone countries.

The euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.3301.

The dollar (.DXY) fell 0.6 percent against a basket of major currencies.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/bs_nm/us_markets_global

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Joe Raedle / Getty Images file

Maureen Stevens' husband, Bob Stevens, a photo editor for American Media Inc., was the first fatality in the anthrax mailings.

By Associated Press

The U.S. government has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the widow and family of a Florida tabloid photo editor killed in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

A document obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press shows that Maureen Stevens will drop all other claims stemming from the death of Robert Stevens. The document also says the U.S. is not admitting fault.

Stevens' lawsuit, filed in 2003, claimed the government was negligent because it failed to stop someone at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., from creating weapons-grade anthrax used in letters that killed her husband and four other people. Seventeen more people were sickened.

Maureen Stevens' attorney did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. The settlement names her and her three grown children, and notes that attorneys' fees of no more than 25 percent will be paid out of that amount.

Robert Stevens worked in Boca Raton for American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, Sun and Globe tabloids when he was exposed to anthrax. He died Oct. 5, 2001. Other anthrax-laced letters were mailed to television networks in New York and a U.S. Senate office building in Washington.

After a lengthy and unprecedented investigation, the FBI concluded that a government scientist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, was solely responsible for the attacks. Ivins, however, committed suicide in 2008 and some who worked with him at Fort Detrick have expressed doubt that he did it or had the means to create the anthrax used in the letters.

For years the FBI investigation focused on another scientist, Steven Hatfill, who was identified as a "person of interest" in 2001 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Hatfill was eventually cleared and sued the government for invasion of privacy, resulting in a $5.8 million settlement.

Lawsuits filed by other victims have been dismissed, although at least one is on appeal.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/29/9092419-us-to-pay-25-million-to-anthrax-victims-widow

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OSLO, Norway ? Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was insane when he killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in Norway, and should be sent to a psychiatric ward instead of prison, prosecutors said Tuesday.

A psychiatric evaluation ordered by an Oslo court found that the self-styled anti-Muslim resistance fighter was psychotic during the July 22 attacks, the country's worst peacetime massacre ? which means he's not mentally fit to be sentenced to prison, prosecutors told reporters.

The report, written by two psychiatrists who spent a total of 36 hours talking to Breivik, will be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists before the court makes a ruling on whether Breivik is legally insane.

Their conclusions contrasted with earlier comments by the head of that board, who told The Associated Press in July that it was unlikely that Breivik would be declared legally insane because the attacks were so carefully planned and executed.

"The conclusions of the forensic experts is that Anders Behring Breivik was insane," prosecutor Svein Holden said, adding Breivik was in a state of psychosis during the attacks.

In their report, the experts describe a man "who finds himself in his own delusional universe, where all his thoughts and acts are governed by these delusions," Holden said. "They conclude that Anders Behring Breivik during a long period of time has developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today."

In Norway, an insanity defense requires that a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime with which he or she is charged. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he's no longer in control of his own actions.

The 243-page report will be reviewed by a panel from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine, which could ask for additional information and add its own opinions.

"That's interesting," the head of the panel, Dr. Tarjei Rygnestad, told the AP on Tuesday when asked to comment on the report's conclusions.

In July, Rygnestad said that a psychotic person typically struggles to perform even simple tasks like driving a car, and that the meticulous planning and skills required for Breivik's attacks spoke against psychosis.

On Tuesday, Rygnestad told AP that his earlier comments were based on "secondary information" and that a person's mental state can only be determined through in-depth analysis. He said he had not read the full report yet. But he maintained his assertion that psychotic people typically aren't able to carry out complex tasks that require intricate planning.

"Usually not. Then again, unusual things also happen," he said.

Breivik has confessed to carrying out the attacks but denies criminal guilt, saying he's a commander of a Norwegian resistance movement opposed to multiculturalism.

Investigators have found no sign of such a movement and say Breivik most likely plotted and carried out the attacks on his own.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_re_eu/eu_norway_massacre

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LONDON ? Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese is in London's Leicester Square for the royal premiere of his first-ever 3D movie, "Hugo."

Based on Brian Selznick's best-seller, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," the film stars Jude Law, Sir Ben Kingsley, Chloe Moretz with Asa Butterfield as Hugo.

The fantasy film is about an orphan boy who lives in the wall of a train station in 1930s Paris. He is on a quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father.

Making it a royal premiere Monday night are two specially invited guests, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

"Hugo" is the 64th Royal Film Performance to take place in London.

"Hugo" opens in the U.K. on Friday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_en_mo/eu_britain_hugo

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Los Angeles police Detective Lt. Tim Torsney provides details of the investigation.

By msnbc.com staff

Police may seek charges against the woman whose use of pepper spray in a scrum with bargain seekers at a Los Angeles Walmart became a national talking point.

Los Angeles police Detective Lt. Tim Torsney told reporters late Monday afternoon that the 32-year-old woman, whose name hasn't been released, was a suspect in the "unlawful use of O.C. spray."?

"O.C." stands for oleoresin capsicum, an extract of superhot chili peppers. Its use in spray form as a crowd-control agent has focused attention on police response to Occupy Wall Street protests in several U.S. cities.

The incident seized public attention and held it through the weekend as a symbol of the annual post-Thanksgiving consumer frenzy that traditionally opens the Christmas shopping season.

Describing a "chaotic situation," Torsney said, "We need to do something better as a society to control ourselves."

The incident occurred just after 10 p.m. Thursday at an early Black Friday sale at a Walmart in Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. Fourteen people have come forward who either were?directly sprayed or were exposed to the stinging chemical, and as many as 10 others may have been exposed, Torsney said.

Torsney said police would forward the case to the district attorney for possible charges against the woman, who turned herself in Friday night. She refused to answer questions and was released.?

"If you use O.C. spray for anything other than self-defense, it could be a felony or it could be a misdemeanor, depending on the circumstances," Torsney said.?

That decision is up to the district attorney, he said, but the key determiner is "the suspect's state of mind at the time the incident took place."

Detective Michael Fesperman said at the news conference that two separate groups of shoppers were trying to get to a pallet of Xbox games. The suspect may have gotten caught up in the melee and may not have meant to use the spray as a weapon, he said.

"This may have been a case of self-preservation," he said.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/28/9076436-charges-possible-in-la-walmart-pepper-spraying

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black-friday-online

According to an IBM Benchmark study released today, online shopping during both Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday saw a sizable increase in spending over 2010. Specifically, online sales increased by 24.3 percent on Black Friday and rose by 39.3 percent on Thanksgiving Day. The large increase in Thanksgiving Day sales is likely attributed to?stores?like Best Buy and Amazon offering discounts on merchandise before Black Friday even started. In addition, traffic on?mobile devices rose from 5.6 percent in 2010 to just over 14 percent this year. This can be attributed to many price comparison apps, like RedLaser, that allow users to scan the bar code of an item and compare prices both on the Internet and local stores.

Sales on mobile devices?such?as tablets and smartphones shot up from about 3 percent in 2010 to nearly 10 percent this year. The most popular mobile device to use when making purchases was the iPad as it had double the conversion rate over the average on other mobile devices. While the iPad and the iPhone were the two most popular devices for browsing online sales, Android devices came in at third place for online mobile shopping. Social networks that?referred?users to shopping sites comprised less than one percent of all online sales on Black Friday, but Facebook was the clear leader in social referral traffic with 75 percent of all visits coming from the social network.

However, discussion volume on social networks rose by 110 percent over the previous year. The most common topics discussed included wait times, parking issues and concern about products being out-of-stock when the customer got to the front of the time. There was also positive discussion around the announced Cyber Monday sales that go into effect on November 28. Thanksgiving Day online sales peaked between 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. this year while Black Friday online sales peaked between 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

More from Digital Trends

Amazon kickstarts its Black Friday deals: first list of its big deals

This week in apps: Thanksgiving edition

Nearly 7 percent of U.S. traffic comes from handheld devices

Amazon?s tablet will be named the Kindle Fire

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enterprise/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111126/tc_digitaltrends/onlineblackfridayspendingisupnearly25percentoverlastyear

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HTC's had a rough go of it in the legal arena this year, and the company just got hit with another judicial setback in Germany. Patent holding firm (read: patent troll) IPCom was granted an injunction in 2009 against HTC based upon HTC's devices alleged infringement of an IPCom patent on UMTS 3G technology. HTC appealed that injunction in 2009 to suspend its enforcement, and today the German court upheld the previous decision. With the injunction back in full effect, IPCom plans to seek sanctions against the Taiwanese firm and ban the sale of its devices in Deutcheland. So, that means HTC will have to pony up the cash to license the IP in question or leave lots of Beats fanatics disappointed come Christmas morning.

IPCom to enforce injunction against HTC, ban sales of its 3G devices in Germany originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEW YORK?? An album to benefit Occupy Wall Street is planned with Jackson Browne, Third Eye Blind, Crosby & Nash, Devo, Lucinda Williams and even some of those drummers who kept an incessant beat at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.

Participants said Wednesday that "Occupy This Album," which will be available sometime this winter, will also feature DJ Logic, Ladytron, Warren Haynes, Toots and the Maytals, Mike Limbaud, Aeroplane Pageant, Yo La Tengo and others.

Activist filmmaker Michael Moore is also planning to sing.

Jason Samel, a musician who is putting together the disc, said the goal is to raise between $1 million and $2 million to help fuel the movement that is protesting income disparity.

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"It's really going to be an amazing help for years to come," Samel said.

Money raised will go through the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice. The initial plan is that half of the proceeds will go to the New York movement that was based in Zuccotti Park until being kicked out last week, and the other half to offshoots across the world who apply for specific projects, he said.

While many members of Music for Occupy have worked with Occupy Wall Street, the album was produced autonomously, organizers said.

Consumer fasts, mall sit-ins urged

There's a long history of benefit albums, from George Harrison's "Concert for Bangla Desh" that raised millions for flood victims through Unicef in 1971, and the "We Are the World" single in the 1980s, which raised more than $60 million for famine relief in Africa.

Amnesty International also announced Wednesday that it will put on sale in January a 75-song set of Bob Dylan covers by various artists to benefit the human rights organization.

The Occupy Wall Street album will be available in digital form first, with plans for a physical CD still unclear.

The music will generally be a mixture of live cuts and new songs. Third Eye Blind, for example, has already posted its song, called "If There Ever Was a Time," which specifically addresses the protest movement.

To demand or not? That's 'Occupy' question

Haynes has offered a live version of "Rivers Gonna Rise," a song from his last disc.

Some little-known artists who have participated in the protest will also be included, such as Kaneska Carter and Matt Pless, who wrote "Something's Got to Give."

"The lyrics convey a universal feeling of compassion and a hope for a better existence that I believe are the common threads that wind through everyone," Pless said. "The positive spirit behind this song is a reflection of what birthed the movement and still exists at its core."

One song will feature the loosely-formed group of people that would beat on drums at the entrance to Zuccotti Park, much to the consternation of neighbors and even some demonstrators as they tried to get some sleep.

Musicians like Tom Morello, David Crosby and Graham Nash had impromptu concerts for some of the demonstrators.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45418892/ns/today-entertainment/

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Click here to read Lego Lovers Will Want Every Item In this Gift Guide

Every year I go through the same process: 1) avidly open my Lego Holiday Catalog, 2) plan how to obtain the $37,495 needed to get all the models I want, 3) weep in desperation. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/I3-lGS8V6X4/lego-lovers-will-want-every-item-in-this-perfect-gift-guide

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Feathered dino ate true bird

Web edition : Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

More than 120 million years before the first Thanksgiving ? before the first turkey even ? at least one dinosaur was feasting on a bird.

A fossil Microraptor gui from northeastern China ? still a dinosaur despite winglike feathers on all four limbs ? has bird bones in its abdomen, report Jingmai O?Connor and her colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The position of the bird feet and partial wing suggest the dinosaur swallowed some now-extinct, tree-perching bird whole, the researchers contend in a paper published online November 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They propose that Microraptor frequented trees and hunted deftly enough to snag what was probably an adult bird.

Possible, but not the only possibility, cautions paleontologist Jerry D. Harris of Dixie State College in St. George, Utah. If the dino caught its lunch, he wonders why there weren?t more bird bones. Also, studies of Microraptors and their relatives suggest ground-based hunting. ?Today?s cats certainly get into trees, and perching birds visit the ground, Harris says, but ?bird remains in a cat?s guts don?t mean that it was hunting and catching birds in trees.? ?

Found in: Earth Science, Environment and Life

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336423/title/Cretaceous_Thanksgiving__

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Kay Henderson reports on early fallout from Newt Gingrich's comments about a more "humane" approach to immigration:

Iowa Congressman Steve King says the immigration stand Newt Gingrich articulated in last night?s debate is a problem for Gingrich. Gingrich said his proposal was the ?humane? way to deal with the problem, by giving some illegal immigrants who?ve lived here for years a pathway to legal status.
?I think if Speaker Gingrich had that to do over again he might couch his language differently, at a minimum,? King says. ??It is a form of amnesty.?
Continue Reading
King says this ?makes it harder? to support Gingrich.? ?That piece is something that concerns me because the rule of law is one of the essential pillars of American exceptionalism and if we let the rule of law be eroded and we allow people to be rewarded for breaking the law and by the way these people probably had false identification; t were working illegally; they maybe just didn?t get arrested in a quarter of a century, so I think that principle of the rule of law needs to be examined."

King is, of course, a conservative bellwether in he state, and he would be a key piece of an endorsement puzzle for any candidate looking to consolidate conservative voters.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1111_69063_html/43696920/SIG=11m4d245c/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69063.html

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anthonyhenriques

Well, that was quick. Carrier IQ just sent out a press statement saying it's withdrawn its cease-and desist letter to Trevor Eckhart, who recently detailed how the company's action worked. Said Carrier IQ:

"Our action was misguided and we are deeply sorry for any concern or trouble that our letter may have caused Mr. Eckhart. We sincerely appreciate and respect EFF’s work on his behalf, and share their commitment to protecting free speech in a rapidly changing technological world."

Looks like the Electronic Frontier Foundation's backing of Eckhart paid off, the lawyers have done their thing, and the security and privacy advocate known as TrevE won't be pursued for thousands of dollars of fines after all.

That doesn't change the fact that the Carrier IQ software remains on a number of phones, and many of you aren't crazy about having a hidden background app report how you use your phone back to the manufacturer -- even if you do agree to it up front -- and that's certainly an argument that needs to continue.

We've got the full press release after the break.

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1a4735ee/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A110C110Ctoday0Eon0Enew0Escientist0E210Enove0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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SYDNEY?? Australian police were looking for the owner of a suitcase "full of money" that was left at a restaurant on Tuesday.

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Ten Network television reported the luggage found at Cafe Marco in the Burwood district of Sydney contained about 1 million Australian dollars ($1 million) in $50 notes.

Detective Inspector Ian Pryde told reporters a man wearing surfing shorts carried the suitcase into the Italian restaurant. He "seemed to get spooked" and left without the money.

The Daily Telegraph in Sydney reported that a 49-year-old Asian man matching the description given by staff was identified from nearby surveillance cameras.

"The man entered the cafe briefly and was acting suspiciously, fleeing on foot following an incident with another patron, without his bag," the report said. "Given the circumstances of him leaving staff checked the bag, discovering the cash."

'Medical condition'
New South Wales police confirmed to msnbc.com that a man had been arrested but declined to comment on whether he was the suspect who had earlier been sought.

A spokesman said the arrested man had been taken to a local police station but had suffered "a medical condition" and was taken to hospital where was being kept under police guard.

Police would only describe the suitcase's contents as "a significant amount of cash."

A cafe staff member contacted by telephone told The Associated Press she was too busy with customers to comment.

Earlier, a statement from New South Wales Police said: "Local detectives have commenced inquiries to determine who the money belongs to."

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45398139/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/

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anthonyhenriques

The feds may soon know the way to your heart. Literally. Earlier this month, the forward-thinkers over at DARPA announced plans to develop new technologies capable of identifying human life through walls. The program, known as "Biometrics-at-a-distance," would essentially combine two pre-existing Pentagon projects: the Radar Scope, a device that can see through walls, and 2009's LifeReader, a system that uses Doppler radar to detect heartbeats. Though the military already employs a handful of devices to help soldiers see humans from behind walls, DARPA apparently thinks there's room for improvement. Most contemporary technologies, for example, only work from a maximum distance of eight meters, and aren't as accurate within more densely populated areas. DARPA wants its next project to extend this range beyond ten meters, while sharpening its ability to penetrate thicker obstructions. The agency also wants its sensor to identify individual humans using electrocardiography, which traces the heart's electrical activity. According to DARPA, this could allow users to pinpoint up to ten people at the same time, which could pay dividends during disaster rescue efforts, military operations, or your next Eyes Wide Shut party.

DARPA to develop biometric sensor capable of seeing through walls, pulling your heartstrings originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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