Sunday, July 1, 2012

Obamacare, Nora Ephron, and BuzzFeed?s Secrets

?Growing Up With Nora Ephron? by?Emily Yoffe. Nora Ephron, award-winning screenwriter, journalist, and writer, died Tuesday night due to complications from a rare blood disorder. Yoffe, who admits that she largely credits Ephron?s influence for her own career choice, looks back at writer?s impact on her life and the lasting effect of Ephron?s wisdom.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=5a639052fca0cf27e787f45c2265474f

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Empirical Esthetics: 18 Outstanding Images That Celebrate the Beauty Revealed by Science [Slide Show]

News | More Science

Czech "Science Is Beautiful" photo and illustration competition explores the wondrous worlds discovered via scientific investigation


Life is filled with unexpected moments of beauty, something those on a lab bench know just as well as any poet. The third annual Science Is Beautiful competition at Charles University in Prague allowed students and faculty to share these moments through photographs, digital imagery and illustration.

"What is beautiful about science?" asked Bohuslav Ga?, dean of the university's Faculty of Science, which organized the competition, during his introductory speech at the exhibition of winning entries. "Two things: the enchantment in the discovery of the unknown and the delight in the elegance of ideas and shapes. The last one we can fully perceive in the present exhibition."

View the Science Is Beautiful slide show

The contest, which debuted in 2009, aims to share science's esthetic with the general public, raising awareness of the marvels scientists encounter daily. The winning entries cross disciplines, setting mathematical models and crustacean anatomy side by side. Each image blurs the distinction between art and science, from a da Vinci?esque painting of a fetus in utero, to a photograph of magnified mineral surface with a palette that would have pleased Kandinsky.

The competition received 281 entries, and jurists included a number of prominent Czech scientists and artists, including a singer?songwriter-cum-dragonfly-photographer as well as the founder of the Digital Imaging Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. In addition, the general public could comment on and rate entries online to elect a people's choice winner, which was announced alongside the jury's selections.

Winners could place in one of four categories: scientific microphotography, scientific photography, scientific illustration or virtual nature. In addition, the jury chose a grand prize?winner who received 12,000 Czech crowns.

The jury announced winners of the 2011 competition on December 14, 2011. This past May, the Czech edition of Scientific American shared a selection of winners and other outstanding entries. You can see more images from 2011 and previous years at the competition's Web site (in Czech).

View the Science Is Beautiful slide show

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=3033c69d7dc2a8170fccf9b0b4dc08d2

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Saturday, June 30, 2012

bulgaria real estate : Understanding Commercial Real Estate ...

Try to collection a budget straight into gear if you have any intention of creating real estate postcards. These can be quite pricey; more so when compared with most people assume, and if you don?t budget your hard earned money, you?ll find yourself spending greater than you can afford in order to. Always employ a financial specialist when location a budget.

A widely used method of real estate marketing is having properties in bulgaria a wide open house. Wide open houses also have a way associated with bringing considerable buyers and the curious right into a home. A house allows the real estate agent to meet and also greet people that are interested in your house. It also allows the consumers to walk through a home and get specific inquiries of the real estate professional. It?s an effective marketing notion because it a new lets the actual buyers imagine living in that specific residence. The three benefits we discussed above are usually sufficient to get a serious investor to consider paying for real estate in Costa Rica because these will be the only things a real estate individual looks in the property she or he wants to spend. Even though the evaluator will fasten a market value to some home, it is possible to still flip it for what you may feel like. If it?s appraised on $300,000 there is absolutely no reason it?s not possible to ask for a lot more. If you get additional is another pot of fish though. You may even get less than your so-called market value. There isn?t really just about any connection between the exact price a house is sold with regard to and its worth. There are a lot regarding other things that you need to know about the real estate industry, but with aid from a realty agent, it is possible to get over every one of the troubles you will experience without having problems. This is the reason why it?s very advisable to get a real estate realtor, but it doesn?t mean that you are instructed to have any time whenever you want to advance the real estate market place. Wanting to assist everyone is frequent. You?re a Real Estate Agent, like Mr Hizajuwyx , and you wish to be able to be many people as is possible, and that?s good, but you wish to market to one particular specific team at a time. Once you cast a wider advertising and marketing net, you get diluting the message. The market industry value of the property is another subject entirely. This is actually the number that?ll be used to determine the value of the house in question. This can be determined by picking out the size of your house as well as the great deal, the number of bed rooms, the amount of lavatories as well as the market value of the adjoining properties. This market value of a home is a number that may be always transforming. This is due to several components such as the wellness of the economic system and present big island real estate for sale in the area. Hualalai lies just 10 mins north in the Kona International Airport. That place is a destination for senior citizens as well as individuals who want to are now living in a tropical somewhere warm. There are superb views in the local plant life, private beach and a five stone hotel for the property. Besides many different clubs and actions, you can select town households, condos and single houses in this private group.

Source: http://vegasvalleyletip.com/2012/06/bulgaria-real-estate-understanding-commercial-real-estate-contingencies/

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3DS Mod - A HowTo Guidebook For Concrete Repair

Concrete is a great surface for sidewalks, driveways, and patios; nonetheless, most homeowners know all to well the issues which ring it. Overtime, everyone is expected to find gaps, splits, chips, and aspects of broken concrete. The causes of these difficulties most commonly include average wear and tear; nonetheless, bad weather can be to blame too. Whatever the problem with a cement surface, treatments are essential for safety causes. For most homeowners, the initial choice is to hire a expert contractor, yet this is often a big and expensive hassle. Instead, you can easily take time to familiarize yourself with homemade concrete repair; youre amazed how much time and money you conserve.

Do-it-yourself cement set is a reasonably simple task to understand and its cheap. For a conventional sized pavement, driveway, or patio, you will be lookin at a condition which can be completed inside one weekend. The contents needed for treatments are easy to discover at regional home improvement and hardware stores. When buying the provides oneself, you prevent the markups usually charged by technicians and you eliminate expensive work fees. Small treatments, like as a easy break or maybe a little nick, wont require much money.

For those above revealed little treatments, just a limited quantity of provides are essential. All you need is water and concrete. For cement break treatments, just moisten the region and then apply grout to the affected region concrete crack repair . The final step is to allow it dry completely; do not touch or walk on the region while drying. The end happen is a little, easy repair which just took about an hours worth of your time at a surprisingly affordable expense.

Examples of bigger treatments include large splits, gaps, and big chips; of these, you need to smooth the region initial and eliminate any aged concrete and fill the region to provide you with a leveled surface to benefit. For this sort of project, you will want gravel and hand-tools, that are found at hardware or home improvement stores. Once youve a leveled surface to benefit, the steps are very matching to little treatments. Start by getting the region moist and then apply concrete on it. The surface ought to be smooth and then permitted to dry; throughout this time it should not be exposed to any foot traffic.

If left untreated you may get a serious problem; these are best treated by fixing gaps and then creating an overlay or maybe a new surface mixture for the entire cement region. With a large region to repair, the first thought can be to call on a contractor; dont do it considering you can easily nevertheless protect time and money performing the treatments oneself. Once you get to work, you may observe simple a cement repair is. In as little as 1 weekend, there are an attractive patio, pavement, or driveway.

Tags: cement crack repair, concrete crack repair

Source: http://3dsmod.net/index.php/2012/06/a-howto-guidebook-for-concrete-repair-25/

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Friday, June 29, 2012

Bone-eating worms drill with acid

Deep sea worms use acid to eat the bones of seabed skeletons, according to US scientists.

The so-called "zombie worms" of the Osedax family are known to bore into bones and remove nutrients.

Fresh analysis of the root-like tissues the worms use to attach to bones has identified acid-secreting enzymes.

Until now scientists did not understand how the tiny creatures fed on bone, as they lack the body parts needed to "drill" physically.

Dr Sigrid Katz from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego will present the team's research at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual conference.

Continue reading the main story

Worms' world:

  • Osedax are types of segmented worms (like earthworms and ragworms) in the Polychaeta group.
  • Polychaete worms are mainly marine-living and are more commonly known as bristle worms.
  • They can range in size from 1mm up to an astonishing 3m.
  • Some of the most recognisable of these worms are the Christmas tree worms, named for their conical, spiky resemblance.

Found at the bottom of the sea living on the fallen skeletons of whales and fish, the unusual group of worms have caused fascination since their "accidental" discovery in 2002 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).

The MBARI team provided the whale bones and specimens used by Dr Katz and her colleagues.

Scientists were perplexed when they only discovered females but further investigation revealed that the males remained in their microscopic larval stage, living inside the female worms.

The unusual group's name Osedax is Latin for "bone devourer", and the worms have no mouth, gut or anus yet are still able to remove nutrients from bones.

Previous studies have revealed that symbiotic bacteria inside the worms digest the fats and oils extracted, but the question of how the worms physically bore into the bones had been a mystery.

Close analysis of the worms failed to find any abrasive structures the worms could use to mechanically "drill" into bone.

This prompted Dr Katz and colleagues to investigate whether the worms had a chemical strategy for penetrating the bones.

By analysing the worms' tissues, the team found that acid-secreting enzymes were abundant in the root-like parts that attach to bones.

"The acid is secreted through the skin of the roots region," said Dr Katz.

"The skin cells in this region are very long cells and the upper end has lots of [microscopic protrusions, which] enlarge the surface multiple times, so lots of acid can be secreted," she explained.

Seventeen species of the worms have been recorded worldwide, including in the North Atlantic ocean off the coast of Sweden, and the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Japan and California.

Last year BBC Nature reported that traces of the worm have also been discovered in a fossil from the Mediterranean Sea.

Dr Katz said she hoped her discovery would help scientists to unravel the "mysterious lifestyle" of the worms.

"In the past 10 years we have learned a lot more about them, but there are also still a lot of questions to answer on their physiology and especially about nutrition, nutrient uptake and host-symbiont interactions," she told BBC Nature.

"The fact that we now know how they penetrate the bone is one step in understanding the functioning of this symbiosis."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/18594493

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Opel supervisory board approves turnaround plan

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/opel-supervisory-board-approves-turnaround-plan-132249745--finance.html

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Supreme Court Decision Protects My Health, And Yours

As a journalist and a health advocate, I have a professional interest in health care reform. But as the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act this week, I had a personal interest as well. Last fall, after three decades as a salaried employee with health benefits, I became a self-employed consultant with none. And this spring, after 56 years of perfect health, I learned that cancer had invaded my colon and my liver. Fortunately, my wife has an employer-sponsored plan that covers my treatment, but without health care reform, my treatment would hinge on her job status. Any change in her employment could have landed me in front of a death panel?not a fictional one manned by bureaucrats who ration our health care, but a real one made up of insurance companies that couldn?t or wouldn?t cover people with known health problems.

Many Americans live closer to the edge than I do, and each of them has a stake in this this week?s ruling. As the Institute of Medicine declared in a 2009 report, the continuing decline in access to health care is causing ?illness, suffering, and even death? among children and adults in this country. Yet polls consistently show that more Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act than support it?not because they?ve evaluated and rejected it but because they don?t understand it. There are plenty of reasons for that confusion; the law is complicated, opponents have misrepresented it, and the news media have focused on the politics rather than the substance. But as the bill?s chief architect and advocate, President Barack Obama bears equal blame for the tepid public response. Contrary to his persistent illusion, bold reforms don?t survive on merit alone. They have to be sold?and this one has scarcely been marketed.

As signed into law two years ago, the Affordable Care Act holds tangible advantages for most Americans. By 2014, it will create new health care options for 30 million people who now lack coverage, while improving quality and lowering costs for those who are insured. The act has already secured coverage for 3 million young adults by enabling them to stay on their parents? plans through age 25. Millions more children and adults will have new gateways to health care in 2014, thanks to new tax credits and an overdue revision of Medicaid?s eligibility rules. The new law also bars insurers from discriminating against people with ?pre-existing conditions??a group that includes roughly half of the non-elderly population?and freed 105 million policyholders from the lifetime caps on essential benefits. Before that rule took effect, some 20,000 patients were being dropped by their insurers every year, often while receiving critical care. The expansion of access may sound costly, and it is. But by bringing healthy people into the insurance pool, and improving the quality of care, it will save the average American household nearly $1,600 a year by 2019, according to an analysis by Families USA. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the act will shave $130 billion off the federal deficit by 2020.

When asked, people tend to favor specific reforms such as barring discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. Yet surprisingly few associate these reforms with the Affordable Care Act. In January 2010, just before Obama signed the act into law, the Pew Research Center quizzed a national sample of adults on its basic provisions. Only 39 percent knew it would protect people with pre-existing health conditions. Only 33 percent knew it would help them switch jobs without losing their insurance. And just one in five (21 percent) realized it could reduce their out-of-pocket health care costs. Obama acknowledged his own failure to communicate at the time, saying, ?I take my share of the blame for not explaining [the act] more clearly to the American people.? But two years and countless news cycles later, the public has yet to be rallied to its own defense. In recent polls conducted by the Pew Research Center, the Kaiser Family Foundation and AP-GfK, opponents of the act still outnumber supporters by 5 to 14 percentage points. And with House Speaker John Boehner (not to mention presidential hopeful Mitt Romney) still promising to repeal health care reform, public opinion still matters.

How could a leader with Obamas rhetorical talents fall so flat on such a critical issue? The failure stems partly from his misplaced faith in the decency of his adversaries. As the Affordable Care Act was taking shape in 2009, Obama?s progressive base clamored for a single-payer system that would cover all Americans. The President ditched that idea, along with a more modest ?public option? that would give people an alternative to the private insurance market. Instead he adopted a longstanding Republican idea: the so-called individual mandate. To expand the health system?s financial base without swelling the public sector, the mandate simply requires everyone to get some form of insurance. ?Many [states] require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance,? the conservative Heritage Foundation argued in a seminal 1989 pitch for the idea. ?But neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement.?

As passed by Congress and enacted two years ago, the Affordable Care Act included that requirement. But instead of lining up behind their own idea, Republican lawmakers set about demonizing it as a government attack on consumer freedom. Meanwhile, attorneys in conservative states filed a barrage of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. It was the President?s moment to rally the country with a story about basic human needs and his determination to see them fulfilled. But the man who won the presidency by winning our hearts held back, assuming that reason would prevail, and his opponents gladly supplied a new story line. Instead of a narrative about the desperate struggles of ordinary Americans, the public got one about Barack Obama as a radical ideologue scheming to force his views on a freedom-loving country.

The White House has learned from the experience and is speaking out belatedly on the benefits of the health care reform. Now that the court has upheld the health care reform law, the President and his allies have a new chance to forge a national consensus?not through government pronouncements but through the kind of mass mobilization that swept him into office four years ago. No one did more to defeat the Clinton administration?s 1993 health care proposal than ?Harry and Louise,? the fictional suburban couple victimized by government bureaucrats in television skits produced by the insurance industry. By 2008, the actors in those ads had seen enough to switch sides and produce a new set of spots urging the next president, Democrat or Republican, to place health care reform at the top of his agenda. (?Lisa?s husband just found out he has cancer,? Louise confides to Harry this time. ?He just joined a startup and he can?t afford a plan.?)

Obama heeded the call during his first year in office, but his allies have been outspent three-to-one by opponents since the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2009. This spring, his Health and Human Services department selected a PR firm to produce educational materials about the act, as the law itself requires. But the face of health care reform is still that of a demonized politician?Barack Obama himself?not that of a family bankrupted by medical bills or a child denied asthma treatment because the condition predates her insurance policy. Finally this spring, Obama?s election web site has started profiling people whose stories show in raw, personal terms what?s at stake for the country. If the president can use this week?s court ruling to reassert his own gifts as a storyteller?and his supporters can spark the kind of social-media uprising that helped elect him?health care reform may yet have a chance. His success, and our well-being, now depend on it.

Geoffrey Cowley has worked as a senior editor at Newsweek, an associate commissioner at the New York City Health Department and a media director at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He is now an independent journalist and public health consultant.

Supreme Court of the United States Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/UpstateNYer

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2f65644536e02fc2586e1b34242a7cf7

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