Thursday, January 31, 2013

Pale Blue Blobs Invade, Freeze, Then Vanish

It's a lake, yes. But it's also a bomb. Those pale blue blobs, stacked like floating pancakes down at the bottom of this photograph? They're astonishingly beautiful, yes, but they can be dangerous.

Courtesy of Emmanuel Coupe Kalomiris

They are gas bubbles, little hiccups of methane that look magical when they're trapped in winter ice, but come the spring, those bubbles will loosen, get free, and like an armada of deep-water flying saucers, they will make their way to the surface. When the ice breaks they will pop and fizz into the air ? and disappear.

Except they don't really disappear. Once they hit air, methane bubbles make trouble. How much trouble depends on how many bubbles get released all over the planet. In this one lake, there are thousands, tens of thousands of them, as you can see. But in the oceans, they are bigger ? much bigger.

Where Does Methane Come From?

Methane gas comes from leaves (and trees and grass even dead animals) dropping into the water, where they sink to the bottom and get munched on by bacteria that poop out methane, producing that familiar "marsh gas" smell. Some gas is much older, squeezed out of ancient oceans or from deep down near the Earth's mantle. When that older methane rises to the surface and bumps into freezing lake or ocean water, it fuses into a hard white substance called methane hydrate, a white, pasty rock. As long as it's frozen at the lake bottom, the gas is trapped, but when it warms, the gas fizzles out of the rock or mud, forming these lava lamp clumps that float up in six, seven, ten foot columns, like this ...

Courtesy of Emmanuel Coupe Kalomiris

When those bubbles reach the surface, what happens? Nothing you can see, but when Katey Walter Anthony, an ecology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, takes her students to Alaskan lakes, she pours a little hot water on the ice to melt a hole, then she takes ? I think it's a butane lighter, I'm not sure, and in this video you'll see her flicking something, and then ... whoosh! Parents shouldn't look. But it's pretty crazy ...

There are thousands more lakes in Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. Temperatures in the arctic have been warming much faster than temperatures closer to the equator, which means the permafrost below is melting and producing more methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas; when it gets into the atmosphere it captures some of the sunshine bouncing off the Earth, traps that heat and warms us up. Too much methane in the sky means we get warmer, faster ? not a good thing.

But bubbly as the lakes are, they may not be our biggest problem.

Courtesy of Emmanuel Coupe Kalomiris

Look at any one of these flat little lake-trapped pancakes, and now imagine one 3,000 feet wide ? more than a half a mile across. Gargantuan methane bubbles do exist. Not in lakes, but in the Arctic Ocean. No one had ever seen them that big, or measured them until a couple of summers ago a Russian researcher Igor Semiletov and his wife Nadia, working with an American team, found more than a hundred of them in a small section of the arctic sea off Siberia.

Gargantuan Bubbles Found Off Siberia

"These are methane fields on a scale not seen before," he reported. "In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column." he said.

National Oceanography Centre

Multiply these findings across the arctic and we've got an obvious problem. If all that extra methane keeps escaping, it will extra-warm the air, which will extra-warm the oceans, which will extra-melt the sea beds, which will extra-release more methane, which will warm the air even more, and then we're in a pickle. But since we've only recently found these oversized ocean plumes we don't know if they're really extra bubbles ? or ordinary. Are they a global warming phenomenon? Or have they been burping for thousands of years? Natalai Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Alaska's International Arctic Research Center, thinks they may be new, or newish.

"The concentration of atmospheric methane," she told The [London] Independent, "increased up to three times in the past two centuries from 0.7 parts per million to 1.7 ppm, and in the Arctic to 1.9 ppm. That's a huge increase, between two and three times, and this has never happened in the history of the planet," she says. Scientist Igor Dmitrenko, seconded by New York Times blogger Andy Revkin, aren't so sure. The evidence, they say, suggests these bubbles have been around for 6,000 years. Nobody really knows.

So, yes, we've got something new to worry about. Methane doesn't stay in the sky as long as CO2, but when it up there, it's a potent greenhouse gas. (It's also a cleaner, cheaper fuel than coal, so it has its fans ? not to mention its extraordinary beauty when frozen).

Courtesy of Emmanuel Coupe Kalomiris

No pollutant has ever looked so lovely. If I were a gorgeous lump of coal, a glistening oil drop, or a classy lump of tar, one glance of Emmanuel Coupe Kalomiris' gorgeous photos and I'd hide under my pillow. Methane's scary, but when it's frozen ? it's so hot.

I asked photographer Emmanuel Coupe Kalomiris (who generously lent us his bubble pictures) what it was like to go to Lake Abraham in Alberta. He says it's very dry there, it hardly ever snows ? that's why he got such clear shots of the lake water. He used crampons to keep from falling. "It is very slippery, as you can imagine," he wrote me, and ice thickness varies. In most places the ice was 2, 4, even 10 inches thick, but there were also cracks and fissures and you don't want to get too close to those. Photographers from all over go to Lake Abraham to shoot the bubbles and a bunch of their best pictures ? Coupe's included ? are collected here.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/01/30/170661670/pale-blue-blobs-invade-freeze-then-vanish?ft=1&f=1007

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App Sales Work: Five-Day iPhone App Price Drops Boost Downloads By 1,665%; On iPad, By 871%; Revenue Growth By Day 3

distimo-appsApp store analytics firm Distimo released a new report today which examines the effect that price changes, and specifically price drops, have on iOS app sales. When the price drops for iPhone apps, on average, cumulative downloads grow by 1,665 percent for five days following the decrease. Not surprisingly, a price drop is more effective on the iPhone App Store than it is on the iPad App Store, as the iPad is still often a luxury device or work tablet, where users are comfortable with paying for quality apps.?On iPad, price drops increase downloads by 871 percent on average after five days, the report found.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/H8ZdAFdDt8E/

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PPA approved for California?s first large-scale solar plant with energy storage

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Source: http://www.pv-tech.org/news/cpuc_approves_amended_ppa_for_californias_first_large_scale_solar_plant_wit?utm_source=pvtech-feeds&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news-rss-feed

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'Jeopardy'-winning super computer headed to college

Watson, the supercomputer famous for beating the world's best human "Jeopardy!" champions, is going to college.

IBM is announcing Wednesday that it will provide a Watson system to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first time the computer is being sent to a university. Just like the flesh-and-blood students who will work on it, Watson is leaving home to sharpen its skills. Course work will include English and math.

"It's a big step for us," said Michael Henesey, IBM's vice president of business development. "We consider it absolutely strategic technology for IBM in the future. And we want to evolve it, of course, thoughtfully, but also in collaboration with the best and brightest in academia."

Watson is a cognitive system that can process massive amounts of data, including natural language. To beat "Jeopardy!" champions in 2011, it was fed the contents of encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, news dispatches and movie scripts. For its medical work, it takes in medical textbooks and journals. After it takes in data, Watson can provide information like a "Jeopardy!" answer, a medical diagnosis or an estimate of financial risk.

IBM, which provided a grant to RPI to operate Watson for three years, sees it as a way to help it boost the computer's cognitive capabilities.

Artificial intelligence researchers at RPI want to do things like improve Watson's mathematical ability and help it quickly figure out the meaning of new or made-up words. They want to improve its ability to handle the torrent of images, videos and emails on the Web, the sort of unstructured information that is overwhelmingly fueling the data boom.

For Selmer Bringsjord, who heads RPI's department of cognitive science, getting a crack at Watson is like a car aficionado being tossed the keys to a souped-up Lamborghini. Bringsjord said he and his graduate students could potentially focus on providing Watson with a deeper understanding of the structure of sentences and how dialogues unfold.

"If I can make a tiny, tiny contribution in that direction, given how historic the system is, I'd be very happy and I think my graduate students would be as well," Bringsjord said.

The original Watson remains at IBM's Research Headquarters in Westchester County, about 100 miles south of the school. RPI has hardware fully dedicated to running the system's software at its supercomputing center in the Rensselaer Tech Park near the school. RPI's version of Watson has 15 terabytes of memory, enough to store a massive library. It will allow 20 users to access the system at once.

IBM has worked collaboratively with other outside institutions on Watson, such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, New York-based Citigroup Inc. and the Cleveland Clinic. But this is the first time hardware fully dedicated to running the Watson software is being installed at a college.

Officials with IBM and RPI say Watson's college tenure also will prepare RPI students for jobs in cognitive science and "big data," a field where demand is quickly outpacing supply. John Kolb, RPI's chief information officer, said he would like the next generation of the school's technology graduates "to help IBM take Watson to the next level."

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50641571/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

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Karol?na Kurkov?: Why I Chose Natural Childbirth

"Of course we had the midwife, we had the doula, but that's something we really did a lot of research on and we wanted to do," Kurkov?, 28, tells Access Hollywood Live.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/igLDNj-1UyE/

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Kate Major, Michael Lohan Welcome Baby Son!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/01/kate-major-michael-lohan-welcome-baby-son/

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Tuberculosis may lurk in bone marrow stem cells of infected patients

Jan. 30, 2013 ? Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that kills nearly 2 million people worldwide each year. Although antibiotics exist that can ameliorate the symptoms, the courses of therapy last for months and don't completely eradicate the disease, which frequently recurs years or decades after the initial treatment.

Now, in a classic case of bench-to-bedside research, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a possible reason for the disease's resistance: The ability of the tuberculosis bacteria to infiltrate and settle down in a particular class of stem cell in the bone marrow. By doing so, the bacteria take advantage of the body's own mechanisms of self-renewal.

"Cancer scientists have noted that self-renewing stem cells like these in the bone marrow have properties -- such as natural drug resistance, infrequent division and a privileged immune status -- that make them resistant to many types of treatment," said Dean Felsher, MD, PhD, professor of oncology and of pathology. "Now it turns out that this ancient organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, figured out a long time ago that, for the same reasons, these cells are ideal hosts to invade and in which to hide."

Not only did the scientists find genetic material from the bacteria inside the stem cells, they were also able to isolate active bacteria from the cells of human patients with tuberculosis who had undergone extensive treatment for the disease. The findings raise the possibility that other infectious agents may employ similar "wolf-in-stem-cell-clothing" tactics. And, although any new human treatments are likely to still be years away, they suggest a new possible target in the fight against tuberculosis, which infects nearly 2.2 billion people worldwide.

"We now need to learn how the bacteria find and infect this tiny population of stem cells, and what triggers it to reactivate years or decades after successful treatment of the disease," said postdoctoral scholar Bikul Das, MBBS, PhD.

Felsher is a co-senior author of the study, which was published online Jan. 30 in Science Translational Medicine. Das is the lead author. The research was conducted in collaboration with scientists from the Forsyth Institute in Cambridge, Mass.; the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto; and several research groups in India.

The research focuses on a subset of stem cells in the bone marrow called mesenchymal stem cells. These cells are multipotent, meaning they can become several different types of specialized cells, including bone, fat and cartilage. Although the mesenchymal stem cells are most often found in the bone marrow, they are known to be able to migrate to sites in the lungs, where the tuberculosis bacteria thrive.

"Hematopoeitic cells, especially macrophages, have long been thought of as the primary intracellular niche for M. tuberculosis, even when the infection is present at a very low levels and the individual is asymptomatic," said Kevin Urdahl, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, the country's largest independent organization devoted to the study of infectious diseases. Urdahl was not involved in the research. "However, this study shows that the bacteria also has the capacity to reside within mesenchymal stem cells, and may even persist in these cells after drug treatment. Although further studies will be needed to establish the relative importance of this niche during latent infection, the immunoprivileged nature of the bone marrow and the ability of mesenchymal stem cells to express drug efflux pumps make this an intriguing possibility that could have important clinical implications."

Although tuberculosis is most commonly known as a disease of the lungs, it can infect many parts of the body, including the abdomen, bone, skin and brain. The respiratory form of the disease is spread through infectious particles aerosolized when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Many cell types have been found to harbor tuberculosis bacteria, but the location of the bacteria's primary (and highly successful dormant variant) hideout has remained unclear. However, Das noticed a clue during his years as a physician in India.

"Fifteen years ago, I was treating hundreds of tuberculosis cases," said Das. "At the time, we noticed we were finding tuberculosis bacteria in bone marrow biopsies that had been obtained from some of these patients for other reasons. This was a totally unexpected and accidental finding, but it gave me the idea that the bacteria could be infiltrating these cells."

To test his finding, Das, who came to Stanford as a postdoctoral scholar after completing a fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, exposed bone marrow stem cells from healthy human donors to the tuberculosis bacteria. He found that not only did the bacteria infect the cells, but that they were also able to persist inside the cells for at least two weeks as they were maintained in culture. Upon closer investigation, he found that the bacteria preferentially infect mesenchymal stem cells expressing a cell surface marker called CD271 and that the viability of the bacteria in the cells decreased if the stem cells were stimulated to specialize, or differentiate, into other cell types.

Das next turned to a mouse model of dormant tuberculosis devised and created by his colleagues in Cambridge. This model relies on a genetically modified strain of tuberculosis bacteria that can replicate only in the presence of a compound called streptomycin. In the absence of streptomycin, the bacteria remain dormant in the animal in a manner similar to that seen in treated human tuberculosis patients.

Together the researchers exposed laboratory mice to aerosolized particles of the modified bacteria. The mice became infected, and dormant bacteria were found in the CD271-expressing mesenchymal stem cells in the bone marrow of the animals six months after streptomycin withdrawal. When Das and his colleagues injected other mice with these tuberculosis-carrying stem cells, those animals went on to develop characteristic symptoms of the disease, including lung lesions called granulomas.

"These mesenchymal stem cells have never been implicated as a host for tuberculosis," said Felsher, "and they serve as a potential source for dormant disease. Moreover, these cells express drug-efflux pumps in their outer membranes that could make them resistant to anti-tuberculosis medications."

Finally, Das turned to collaborators in India to determine whether what happened in the mice reflected what happens in infected people. The researchers conducted a small clinical study in which bone marrow biopsies were collected from nine people who had undergone the complete course of anti-tuberculosis treatment and whose sputum, a mucus-like substance secreted into the airways of the respiratory tract, contained no detectable bacteria. In eight of the nine people, the researchers were able to detect bacterial DNA in the mesenchymal stem cells obtained from bone marrow; in two of these eight, they were able to isolate living bacteria.

"Not only is this strong evidence that the tuberculosis can remain dormant in stem cells, but it shows that the living bacteria could be recovered from these cells after a long period of time," said Das. "It's also very suggestive of how the reactivation could be triggered: These stem cells are known to migrate to sites of injury or inflammation and begin dividing. So, migrating stem cells harboring dormant bacteria might reactivate the disease in the lung. Interestingly, I and other physicians treating patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease -- which results in lung inflammation -- have seen a strong correlation between COPD and tubercular relapse. It is possible that the tuberculosis relapse in COPD might involve the stem-cell mediated reactivation of a dormant tuberculosis infection."

In the future the scientists plan to focus on investigating the cellular mechanisms used by the tuberculosis bacteria to infect and persist in the mesenchymal stem cells, and how reactivation occurs on a molecular level. They're also interested in the possibility that tuberculosis might not be the only microbial bad boy that's learned how to exploit the stem cells' properties as a perfect hiding place.

"This could possibly be a more general paradigm," said Felsher. "Other infectious agents might use stem cells in a similar manner. We'd like to further characterize whether and how these stem cells provide a protective niche for other infectious agents."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Krista Conger.

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


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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/eVLaEpKdB84/130130143622.htm

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Girl who performed at Obama inauguration shot dead

dnainfo.com

Hadiya Pendleton, 15, a student at King College Prep, was killed Tuesday at a Chicago park.

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

A 15-year-old girl who performed at President Obama's inauguration last week was shot dead Tuesday while hanging out with friends after school in bullet-scarred Chicago.

Hadiya Pendleton -- described by family as a ?walking angel? -- was standing under a canopy in?Vivian Gordon Harsh Park when a gunman ran down an alley, opened fire and fled in a white car, police said.

Pendleton was shot in the back but managed to run about a block before she collapsed, officer Laura Kubiak said. She died at the hospital.

A 16-year-old boy was wounded in the 2:20 p.m. incident. Police said Pendleton, who had no criminal record, was probably not the intended target.

?Never in a million years did I think I would get a call that my own baby had been gunned down,? Pendleton?s mother, Cleo Cowley, said through tears from her Chicago home.


?

She said she was at work Tuesday afternoon when she got an unexpected call from one of her daughter?s friends.

?She was screaming on the phone that Hadiya?s been shot, she?s been shot, and I just didn?t understand,? said Cowley.

Courtesy the Pendleton family

Photos of Hadiya Pendleton from her trip to Washington.

She and other relatives described the teen as a honor student, an insatiable reader who still found time to play volleyball and a twirl a baton in the school marching band.

?As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose,? the victim?s godfather, Damon Stewart, 36, who is a police officer, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

?I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.?

A sophomore at selective King College Prep High School, Pendleton had traveled to Washington to perform with the band at inaugural events.

?It was the highlight of her young 15-year-old life,? Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday at a Senate hearing on gun violence.

?Just a matter of days after the happiest day of her life, she?s gone.?

White House spokesman Jay Carney called the shooting a ?terrible tragedy? and said the Obamas were praying for Pendleton?s family.

Cousin Shatira Wilks said the inauguration trip was the talk of a family gathering around New Year?s, but the young majorette was even more excited about something else: plans to travel to Europe this spring with the band.

?She was an honor student all her life,? Wilks said. ?Honestly, she was a walking angel. She never once gave her mom any problems ever.?

Wilks said the teen doted on her 10-year-old brother, Junior, who is devastated.

?At Christmas this year, she was designated the elf and she handed out all the gifts,? she recalled.

?She loved rock music. She was always listening and playing to music,? Wilks said,. ?What you would usually catching her doing is texting on her phone, like all the teenagers.?

Pendleton last tweeted just before 1 a.m. on Tuesday. ?I?m tired,? she wrote.

Many of her classmates changed their Twitter handles to honor her and decried the violence that had claimed an innocent life.

?You are more than loved and missed,? one wrote. ?Your laugh smile and silly happy personality has made my day more times than I can remember. Nobody deserves this, especially not you.?

Friends of the young majorette described her as a bubbly, well-liked student.

?She was always smiling and laughing,? said Tyler Genovesi, 14. ?She was just a really nice person. ? There?s a lot of people crying in school today. It?s very sad. The band is playing for her right now.?

Pendleton's murder was one of three shooting deaths in the city on Tuesday. More than 40 people have been shot dead in Chicago since the beginning of the year. There were 506 homicides in the city last year, a 16 percent increase even as other large cities, like New York, saw murders drop.

?We are awash in guns,? Durbin said, noting that six times as many guns as confiscated in Chicago as in New York each year. We have guns everywhere and some believe the solution to this is more guns. I disagree.?

Cowley broke down sobbing when she was told that her daughter?s death had been mentioned in the Senate.

?Something does need to change,? she said. ?Where are the guns coming from? I don?t own a gun. My daughter was not violent. I never would have thought she would die like this.?

Related:

Tale of two cities: Homicides leap in Chicago, plummet in New York

?

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., talks about the surge in gun violence in Chicago, highlighting the tragic story of Hadiya Pendleton, a city honor student who was shot and killed after performing at President Obama's inauguration.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16771949-girl-who-performed-at-obamas-inauguration-shot-dead-in-chicago?lite

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The Sieve Hypothesis: Clever Study Suggests an Alternate Explanation for the Function of the Human Stomach

You have a stomach. I have a stomach. It is one of our few universals. Humans, mate, sing, talk, and raise their children in many different ways, but we?ve all got stomachs. The question is why.

Stomachs help to digest food; they get the process rolling, boiling and grinding by coating our food in slime, enzymes and acid. This is the textbook explanation and no one is saying it is wrong, but in one of my treasured meanders through the library, I recently stumbled upon a paper suggesting this explanation is incomplete, perhaps woefully so. Just as important to our survival may be the stomach?s role in separating, sieving one might say, bacteria that are good for our guts from those that are bad; separating the microbial wheat from the chaff. The study I found was led by Dr. Orla-Jensen, a retired professor from the Royal Danish Technical College. Orla-Jensen tested this new idea about the stomach by comparing the gut bacteria of young people, healthy older people and older people suffering from dementia. What Orla-Jensen found is potentially a major piece in the puzzle of the ecology of our bodies.

Image 1. A diagram of the human stomach. The stomach may act as a sieve, allowing only some kinds of microbes through to the small intestines.

Orla-Jensen and colleagues began by positing, or perhaps assuming is the better word, that a key function of the stomach is to kill bad bacteria with acid. The acid, they argue, serves as a sieve. It stops bad bacteria, particularly the most opportunistic of pathogens, but it does not stop all bacteria. It lets those beneficial bacteria that have adaptations for dealing with stomach acid?adaptations honed over many thousands of generations?on down the gastrointestinal road. In their model, if the stomach fails to kill bad bacteria, pathogens dominate the intestines. They do so in place of the beneficial microbes that help our bodies to digest food and produce nutrients. And when they do death or at least the failure to thrive are nearly inevitable.

Orla-Jensen and colleagues knew from earlier work that the pH of the human stomach increases with age; the stomach becomes less acidic. This effect is most acute in individuals over seventy years of age. In these older individuals Orla-Jensen predicted that the stomach?s effectiveness as a killer of bad microbes might be compromised. In age, the intestines, recipients of everything that leaves the stomach, living or dead, might become dominated by pathogenic species such as the weedy and deadly Clostridium dificile or by oral species, that while beneficial in the mouth can become a pathogen in the gut. It was a simple enough prediction, but perhaps too simple. The biota of the gut is incredibly complex. It can contain thousands of species and is influenced by many, many factors. Could the stomach?s pH really matter enough to make a measurable difference? As I read Orla-Jensen?s paper, I was skeptical, but I was curious enough to read through to the results. I sat down on the floor in the library and prepared to stay a while.

Image 2. Micrograph of Clostridium dificile. Image courtesy of CDC/ Lois S. Wiggs (PHIL #6260), 2004.

To test their hypothesis, Orla-Jensen and colleagues cultured bacteria they had collected from fecal samples of ninety human participants, one third of whom were between 30 and 40 years old and two thirds of whom were over seventy. They then compared the microbes found in the samples from these different age groups. Again, they would expect that in the older individuals that the bad bacteria and oral bacteria should be more common and, in their abundance, displace the good necessary bacteria, such as Bifidobacterium.

Remarkably, the authors? predictions from the sieve hypotheses held up. I have reproduced and slightly modified their main table below. Nine percent of the individuals over seventy had more than a million cells of the bad news?Clostridum bacteria per gram of feces; none of the thirty to forty-year-olds did. What was more, a third of the individuals over seventy had more than a billion cells per gram of feces of the oral bacteria, Streptococcus salivarius. Again, none of the thirty to forty-year-olds did. But were these pathogenic and oral bacteria doing well enough to actually compromise the success of good bacteria in the gut? Yes. While all of the thirty to forty year olds had at least a million cells of the good gut bacteria Bifidobacterium per gram of sample, less than half of the individuals over seventy did.

Interestingly, the guts of those individuals over seventy years of age who had dementia were in the worst shape. Nearly each and every one of their guts was dominated by Clostridium and oral bacteria. Other studies seem to lend support to these general findings, albeit from different angles. A study comparing healthy individuals and individuals with low stomach acidity found that those with low stomach acidity were less likely to have Bifidobacterium even though their total density of intestinal bacteria, particularly the pathogens, increased. Another study found that individuals with low stomach acidity tend to be more likely to suffer from diarrhea, as would be expected if their guts were being taken over by pathogens.

The ?differences seen here as a function of age are much more pronounced than those seen in another study, recently published in the journal Nature. The Nature article compares the gut microbes of more than ?five hundred individuals of different ages and ethnicities. In the Nature study the authors found little effect of age on gut microbes after the first few years of life (during which there was a large effect as newborns slowly acquired adult microbes). However, the Nature study only considered four individuals over seventy years of age (they also did not specifically look for shifts in beneficial versus problematic species, perhaps they will in the future). Orla-Jensen?s work suggests that it is precisely the very old individuals in whom the differences begin to be pronounced. ?Sometimes it takes the perspective of many studies and time to see the full picture.?This is probably where I should point out that the Orla-Jensen study I?m discussing was published in 1948. Interesting ideas can get lost in unread scientific articles; many, perhaps most, are. Orla-Jensen?s paper has only rarely been cited and never in the context of the discussion of the function of the stomach or even in the context of aging and the microbial wilderness of our bodies.

Table 1. Reproduced (with updates) from Orla-Jensen et al., 1948. Sample size for each group = 30 individuals. The author of this paper, Prof. Orla-Jensen was 77 at the time of the publication of this paper in 1948 and so had a personal interest in these results. One wonders if he sampled himself.

Percent of individuals with > than 1 billion cells of each bacteria per gram of feces, or, in parentheses, percent of individuals with > 1 million cells per gram.
Volunteers Mutualist Bifidobacterium Pathogen Clostridium Oral bacteria, Streptococcus salivarius
Aged 30-40 (Healthy) 57? (100) 0 0
> 70 years (Healthy) 25 (44) 9 31
> 70 years (w/ Dementia) 7 (9) 48 35

More than sixty-five years later it is now up to us to figure out what other predictions the sieve hypothesis might make <sup>2/<sup>. Perhaps the most obvious prediction is that as one travels the body, from the skin to the mouth, to the stomach and on into the intestines, that one should encounter, at each step, diminishing subsets of microbial lineages. Is this true? It seems hard to believe. After all, a huge number of studies have proudly announced the great diversity of microbes in the gut, a terrible diversity. Let?s look.

The best study I know of included samples from skin, mouth and gut, and considered which taxa of microbes were found in the different habitats. The diversity of major lineages drops by half as you go from the mouth to the stomach AND the lineages present in the gut, particularly the colon, are a subset of those in the stomach which are a subset of those in the mouth (see Figure 2). This matches what the sieve hypothesis would predict, but it is not enough.

If the sieve hypothesis holds, there must be additional predictions. I have not thought this through terribly well, but I think I would probably expect differences in the stomachs of animals eating different foods. Animals that eat foods that are more likely to include pathogens ought to have filters that are more finely tuned to weeding out bad microbes; they ought, I think, to err on the side of killing too many. This does appear to be the case for some vultures. The stomach of the white-backed vulture has a pH of 1! Conversely it seems plausible to predict that animals that eat diets less likely to lead them to pathogens, fruit eaters for example, should be expected to relax the sieve, open it up a little to make sure that many good microbes make it through. ?I don?t know that it has been tested. There must be more predictions for the differences one expects among species.

Image 3. White backed vultures feeding on a wildebeest. These vultures need to very actively fight the pathogens in the dead meat on which they indulge. One way they do so is by having very, very, acidic stomachs. Photo by?Magnus Kjaergaard.

Modern living also presents us with another testable prediction about the stomach and its effects on microbes. Bariatric surgery is an ever more common medical intervention in which the size of a patient?s stomach is reduced so as to reduce the amount of food he or she can eat in one sitting. The surgery also has the consequence, however, of increasing the pH in the stomachs of those who have the surgery, making their stomachs less acidic. If the sieve hypothesis is right, these individuals ought to have gut bacteria that look more like those of seventy years old than those of thirty year olds. They do. Recently a study has found that good Bifidobacterium species become more rare after bariatric surgery while oral bacteria (in this case Prevotella) and? E. coli, which can be a pathogen, become more common. These results seem to be what the sieve hypothesis would predict.

I am sure there are more predictions. I?ll leave you to them. The good news is that if there are more predictions now is a great time to look, to test them. The microbes of our body are hip, as sexy as a field of study that often involves the word fecal can be (see Image 4 or check out your own sexy fecal bugs at American Gut). New data are published every day. If we can develop good predictions they can be tested. We might finally figure out what the stomach does, or rather the complex mix of its roles, its churning melange of duties. No one denies that the stomach helps to break down proteins, it just might not be its most important job.

Image 4. Microbiologist Jonathan Eisen wearing his microbiome. Image courtesy of Jonathan Eisen.

Meanwhile, there is an interesting coda to this story. In addition to considering the difference between old and young individuals, Orla-Jensen, as you might remember, considered the difference between healthy individuals over seventy and individuals over seventy with dementia. The individuals with dementia had even more pathogens and oral microbes in their guts than did the healthy seventy-year-olds. This is interesting, but what is the cause and what is the effect here? Could a poorly functioning stomach lead to a pathogen heavy microbe community in the gut and could that gut community in turn lead to dementia??Could our minds really fail because our stomachs do? A few recent studies have begun to explore the possibility that dementia might result from infection, but it is WAY too soon to say anything conclusive. One is left to imagine the mechanism behind such a decline. I have some ideas, but I?ll need to think them over some more. Meanwhile, you can offer your hypotheses too, and I?ll go back to the library and see what other gems I can find, old studies that are as revolutionary as the new ones you read about in the press, studies that whether right or wrong confirm just how little we know and how slow and circular progress can be.

Footnotes (more to be added)

1- They did not sequence the genes of these microbes?now a common technique?and so their results represent just part of what was going on in the sampled guts, a few kinds of common trees in a diverse forest, and yet it was probably a reasonable measure of those trees.

2- Which, I will confess, I?ve named here. Orla-Jensen and colleagues thought the idea so obvious as to not even deserve a name.

?

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=1f6f2e50c76a507a8564225303514e60

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Australian PM announces Sept. 14 elections

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Prime Minister Julia Gillard surprised Australians on Wednesday by announcing that elections will be held Sept. 14, in a country where governments have traditionally given the opposition little more than a month's notice to keep a strategic advantage.

In a speech to the National Press Gallery, Gillard said she wanted to create an environment in which voters could more easily focus on national issues by removing uncertainty around the timing.

"I can act so Australia's parliament and government serves their full three-year term, so it is clear and certain when the election will be held," Gillard said.

Opinion polls suggest the conservative opposition coalition led by Tony Abbott is likely to win convincingly.

Gillard's center-left Labor Party narrowly scraped through the last elections in 2010 to form a minority government with the support of independent legislators and a lawmaker from the minor Greens party.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-29-Australia-Election%20Date/id-df1ac11ff9294d77a461aed0d95fc3f1

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Relocating to Schuylkill County - Schuylkill Real Estate

Here are a few great resources to check out before you move:

Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce

http://schuylkillchamber.com/

The Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce has been serving Schuylkill County and its members since 1918. The chamber is dedicated to serving its members and affiliates with value-added program and services, and improving the quality of life and economic vitality of our county.

Whether you are relocating, visiting or looking for a business referral, the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce is your one-stop-resource.

Schuylkill County

www.co.schuylkill.pa.us

This is the county government webpage, which links to its departments, the Parcel Locator (to search properties in the county), and more.

Some communities have their own web pages, too. The larger communities in Schuylkill County include:
(Population figures as of 2000 US Census)
TAMAQUA?- Population 7,147 ? Gateway to the Anthracite region
SHENANDOAH?- Population 5,624 ? Home of the Dorsey brothers and the Miners Memorial
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN?- Population 5,548 ? A progressive community with no local real estate tax
MAHANOY CITY?- Population 4,647 ? Birthplace of cable TV and the historic Kaier Brewery

MINERSVILLE ? Population 4,552 ? Noted for its beautiful churches & mining heritage
FRACKVILLE?- Population 4,361 ? Crossroad of Schuylkill County -I-81 & State Route 61
ASHLAND?- Population 3,283 ? Home of the Pioneer Tunnel and the Mother?s Memorial Monument
ORWIGSBURG?- Population 3,106 ? A community that blends country living with modern homes

?

Source: http://www.schuylkillrealestate.com/2013/01/27/relocating-to-schuylkill-county/

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Monday, January 28, 2013

Home Based Business Idea Competition: Win $5000! - Internet Radio

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    On his show, Comedian Rodney Perry covers arts and entertainment, everything from comedy and politics to music and acting, with his signature comedic slant.

  • MashUp Radio is a 30-minute podcast that discusses the fusion of technology, life, culture and science. Host Peter Biddle, engineer and executive for Intel?s Atom Software, dishes up a thought-provoking discussion.

  • Joy Keys provides her listeners with insight to improve their lives mentally, physically, monetarily and emotionally. Past guests on the show have included Meshell Nedegeocello, Blair Underwood, in addition to an impressive list of CEOs, humanitarians and authors.

  • Host Barry Moltz gets small businesses unstuck. He has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years. This is a business radio show where he shares all the craziness of small business. It?s that craziness that actually makes it exciting, interesting and totally unpredictable.

  • The Bottom Line Sports Show is hosted by former NBA stars Penny Hardaway, Charles Oakley, Mateen Cleaves. Tune in to get the inside scoop on what's happening in sports today.

  • Deepak Chopra Radio provides an online forum for compelling and thought provoking conversations on success, love, sexuality and relationships, well-being and spirituality.

  • Hits Radio covers basketball, sports culture and entertainment with past guests including Jason Kidd, Robin Lundberg and Chris Herren.

  • Listeners get an earful on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds. Whether it?s the current political cocktail or the latest must-read award-winning book, Halli tackles all topics and likes to stir ? and sometimes shakes ? things up.

  • Official Internet radio show of forthcoming epic paranormal investigation book by Eric Olsen and "Haunted Housewife" Theresa Argie.

  • Award-winning World Footprints is a leading voice in socially responsible travel and lifestyle. Hosts Ian & Tonya celebrate culture and heritage and bring a unique voice to the world of travel.

  • Football Reporters Online is a group of veteran football experts in the fields of coaching, scouting, talent evaluation, and writing/broadcasting/media placement. Combined, the group brings well over 100 years of expertise in sports.

  • Host John Martin interviews the nation's leading entrepreneurs and small biz experts to educate small business owners on how to be successful. Past guests have included Emeril Lagasse and Guy Kawasaki.

  • The Movie Geeks share their passion for the art through interviews with the stars of and creative minds behind your favorite flicks and pay tribute to big-screen legends. From James Cameron and Francis Ford Coppola to Ellen Burstyn and Robert Duvall, The Geeks have got'em all.

  • Sylvia Global presents global conversations pertaining to women, wealth, business, faith and philanthropy. Sylvia has interviewed an eclectic mix from CEOs and musicians to fashion designers and philanthropists including Randolph Duke and Ne-Yo.

  • Mr. Media host Bob Andelman goes one-on-one with the hottest, most influential minds from the worlds of film, TV, music, comedy, journalism and literature. That means A-listers like Kirk Douglas, Christian Slater, Kathy Ireland, Rick Fox, Chris Hansen and Jackie Collins.

  • Paula Begoun, best-selling author of Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, separates fact from fiction on achieving a radiant, youthful complexion at any age. She?s regularly joined by health and beauty experts who offer the latest on keeping your skin in tip-top shape.

  • Source: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nancygaskins/2013/01/31/show-me-the-money-1000-ways-to-earn-extra-cash-each-month

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    Battle of the Clans

    Battle of the Clans

    In a quiet town of Willow Falls lies an ongoing battle between Werewolf and Vampire. They are both building armies and growing stronger every day, the war for ultimate power of the whole territory is undeniable. But the question remains...who will win?

    Owner:

    Game Masters:

    This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Battle of the Clans?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

    Topic Tags:

    Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
    This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "Battle of the Clans"

    You may edit this first post as you see fit.

    User avatar
    Arabella13
    Member for 1 years



    Would I be able to be a vampire donor. Like a human that let's a vampire take their blood.
    Thanx!

    User avatar
    Iezobel
    Member for 1 years


    Yes you can! I'll make a spot reserved for you. I'm just editing and finishing up the RP so I should be done at least in a couple days but I was going to have blood donors as characters :P thanks for asking too

    User avatar
    Arabella13
    Member for 1 years



    Post a reply

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    France says it secures access to Timbuktu

    SEVARE, Mali (AP) ? Ground forces backed by French paratroopers and helicopters took control of the airport and roads leading to the fabled desert town of Timbuktu in an overnight operation, a French military official said Monday.

    The move marked the latest inroad by the two-week-old French mission to oust radical Islamists from the northern half of Mali, which they seized more than nine months ago.

    Col. Thierry Burkhard said Monday that the town's airport was taken without firing a shot.

    "There was an operation on Timbuktu last night that allowed us to control access to the town," he said Monday. "It's up to Malian forces to retake the town."

    The Timbuktu operation comes a day after the French announced they had seized the airport and a key bridge in a city east of Timbuktu, Gao, one of the other northern provincial capitals that had been under the grip of radical Islamists.

    The French and Malian forces so far have met little resistance from the Islamists, who seized northern Mali in the wake of a military coup in the distant capital of Bamako, in southern Mali.

    Timbuktu, which has entranced travelers for centuries with its inaccessible mystique, is some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) northeast of Bamako. During their rule, the militants have systematically destroyed UNESCO World Heritage sites in the ancient town.

    A spokesman for the al-Qaida-linked militants has said that the ancient tombs of Sufi saints were destroyed because they contravened Islam, encouraging Muslims to venerate saints instead of God.

    Among the tombs they destroyed is that of Sidi Mahmoudou, a saint who died in 955, according to the UNESCO website.

    Timbuktu, long a hub of Islamic learning, is also home to some 20,000 manuscripts, some dating back as far as the 12th century. Owners have succeeded in taking some of the manuscripts outside of Timbuktu, while others have been carefully hidden away from the Islamists.

    ___

    Hinnant reported from Paris.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/france-says-secures-access-timbuktu-092749561.html

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    Bradley Cooper As Lance Armstrong: JJ Abrams Confirms Actor Is In Talks For Biopic

    Bradley Cooper Lance Armstrong

    Bradley Cooper is reportedly in talks for the Lance Armstrong role.

    Bradley Cooper may just be getting exactly what he's wished for. Last week the "Silver Linings Playbook" actor told BBC News that he would be interested in playing Lance Armstrong in the upcoming biopic, and now, director JJ Abrams said that he has been speaking to Cooper about the part.

    "[Cooper] sent me an email and we've been talking," Abrams told ET.

    "I would be interested in [playing Armstrong]," Cooper told BBC News. "I think he's fascinating. What a fascinating character."

    Abrams is directing the film adaptation of Juliet Macur's upcoming "Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong."

    • Matthew McConaughey

      McConaughey has been on a career renaissance of late (the McConaissance, as he told HuffPost Entertainment), and this is the type of juicy leading role that could get him an Oscar. Since he's friends with Armstrong, however, maybe put the odds of this happening at Infinity-to-1.

    • Jake Gyllenhaal

      It almost happened once before ...

    • Jeremy Renner

      Squint and these two could play brothers.

    • Ryan Gosling

      Every movie benefits from more Gosling.

    • Sam Worthington

      In case Jeremy Renner is too expensive.

    • Joseph Gordon-Levitt

      Because he starred in "Premium Rush." (See, also: The bike behind him.)

    • Tom Cruise

      Both Cruise and Armstrong weathered career low points opposite Oprah Winfrey.

    • Jared Leto

      Remember when Leto played Steve Prefontaine? He just needs to grow his eyebrows back.

    • Damian Lewis

      Because Lewis is used to playing guys everyone hates.

    • Christian Bale

      Bale won an Oscar for playing a drug addict in "The Fighter"; imagine what he could do with Armstrong's sordid PED history.

    • Kevin Bacon

      Kevin Bacon can put his "Quicksilver" skills to good use!

    • Rob Lowe

      Picture him with a buzz cut. They kind of look alike?

    • Daniel Day-Lewis

      Day-Lewis is so versatile, he could play Armstrong <em>and</em> the bike.

    "; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

    Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/27/bradley-cooper-as-lance-armstrong-jj-abrams-actor-biopic_n_2561968.html

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    Clegg slams EU vote, polls show boost for PM

    LONDON (Reuters) - Nick Clegg, leader of the junior party in the ruling coalition, denounced David Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum on quitting the European Union, as polls on Sunday indicated the prime minister's move may gain him votes.

    "It is not in the national interest when we have this fragile recovery," said Clegg, whose Lib Dems strongly favour closer EU ties, in contrast to many members of Cameron's Conservative party. "I don't think it helps at all."

    He dismissed as "implausible" Cameron's plan to take back powers from Brussels before a referendum on a new treaty by 2017 that would let voters take Britain out. EU leaders have shown little wish to grant Cameron concessions and Clegg said EU talks would distract ministers from efforts to revive the economy.

    Cameron, he told the BBC, would damage economic growth if he spent "years flying around from one European capital to the next, fiddling around with the terms of Britain's membership".

    The Lib Dems are languishing in the polls and are unlikely to leave the coalition before an election in 2015, but the EU issue has added to strains. Cameron, who says he wants Britain to stay in the EU, last week promised a referendum if he is re-elected. It is less clear what may happen if treaties remain unchanged.

    The first opinion polls published since he made his pledge of an "in-out" vote, however, showed that the prime minister may be succeeding in reversing a drift from the Conservatives to a party which campaigns for Britain to leave the European Union.

    A Survation poll in the Mail on Sunday, which showed Labour unchanged and in the lead on 38 percent, put the Conservatives on 31 percent, up two points, while the UK Independence Party was down by the same margin, on 14 percent. UKIP's surge from just 3 percent in the 2010 election has raised the prospect of a split on the right that could condemn Cameron to defeat.

    Another poll, by ComRes in the Independent on Sunday, showed an even more marked "Brussels bounce" for the prime minister, with the Conservatives gaining five points from last month to 33 percent and UKIP losing four points to be on 10 percent. Again, ComRes put Labour in the lead, down a point on 39 percent.

    Cameron's European move worries the United States and EU allies, which want Britain to stay in the bloc. Many business leaders say it creates dangerous uncertainty.

    Many Conservatives, whose party toppled previous premiers over European policy, welcomed a referendum after 2015. However, without improvement in an economy which shrank by 0.3 percent in the last quarter, Cameron's re-election is far from certain.

    (Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clegg-slams-eu-vote-polls-show-boost-pm-141145590--business.html

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    Saturday, January 26, 2013

    Baby on the Way for Michael Buble

    The singer-songwriter and wife Luisana Lopilato are expecting their first child, they announced in a video message Thursday.

    Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/jw_5w5erT28/

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    depict cadillac: Education & Reference 2020: The K-12 Implosion ...

    Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

    Source: http://undalorvitre.blogspot.com/2013/01/depict-cadillac-education-reference.html

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    Winter's big chill means fewer summer bugs

    Robert F. Bukaty / AP

    With the temperature at 6 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, steam vapors from the Sappi paper mill dissipate into the early morning sky in Westbrook, Maine, on Thursday.

    By John Roach, NBC News

    As the bitter cold in the northeastern United States keeps even hardy New Hampshire skiers off the slopes, there?s at least one potential upside to the cold snap: fewer mosquitoes come summer, according to an entomologist riding out the cold in upstate New York.

    "Most arthropods have the ability to super-cool themselves in order to survive extreme cold winters in the ranges they?ve become adapted to. However, if unusually cold temperatures strike, it could be below their threshold of tolerance," Cornell University's?Laura Harrington?explained via email to NBC News.


    And it is cold. Unusually so. New Hampshire?s Wildcat Mountain ski resort was closed Wednesday and Thursday, with the wind-chill factor reaching 48 degrees below zero Fahrenheit on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.

    Harrington said most insects produce "antifreeze proteins and other compounds to protect their cells from freezing and dying." If it gets too cold, though, this natural antifreeze could cease to function properly.

    "The concentration of the antifreeze proteins or the extent of the expression could be inadequate," she explained. "We have examples of moderate overwintering capacity that suggests that the evolved level of expression of these proteins is important."

    Despite the cold, the drop in temperature is consistent with the type of extreme weather expected with global climate change, according to NASA scientists. As a result, it?s possible these cold snaps might become even more frequent in the future.

    If so, will that mean fewer mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects will survive the winters? It?s possible, at least in the short term, Harrington noted. "But as they evolve and adapt, they could overcome this."

    It's also possible the cold snaps could adversely impact the?predators of mosquitoes, such as birds, bats, dragonflies and frogs. If they get hit harder than the mosquitoes, it could lead to a rise in vector populations.

    "Until we have a better understanding of the complexities of climate change impacts on vectors," Harrington said, "it is hard to predict."

    John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, check out his website.

    Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/24/16684974-the-bright-side-of-this-winters-big-chill-fewer-mosquitoes-this-summer?lite

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