Friday, December 30, 2011

More Schooling Might Raise IQ (HealthDay)

MONDAY, Dec. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Children who have more schooling may see their IQ improve, Norwegian researchers have found.

Although time spent in school has been linked with IQ, earlier studies did not rule out the possibility that people with higher IQs might simply be likelier to get more education than others, the researchers noted.

Now, however, "there is good evidence to support the notion that schooling does make you 'smarter' in some general relevant way as measured by IQ tests," said study author Taryn Galloway, a researcher at Statistics Norway in Oslo.

Findings from the large-scale study appear in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

IQ, or intelligence quotient, is a widely accepted measure of intelligence. The IQ score comes from several combined, standardized tests.

In 1955, Norway began extending compulsory middle school education by two years. Galloway and her colleague Christian Brinch, from the department of economics at the University of Oslo, analyzed how this additional schooling might affect IQ.

Using data on men born between 1950 and 1958, the researchers looked at the level of schooling by age 30. They also looked at IQ scores of the men when they were 19.

"The size of the effect was quite large," she said. Comparing IQ scores before and after the education reform, the average increased by 0.6 points, which correlated with an increase in IQ of 3.7 points for an addition year of schooling, Galloway said.

"We are only able to study men, because we use data on IQ from the Norwegian military's draft assessment, which basically all men undergo around the age of 19. Women are not included in the draft," she explained.

Education has lasting effects on cognitive skills, such as those broadly measured by IQ tests, Galloway said.

"Cognitive skills are, in turn, related to a large range of social and economic outcomes. A large part of the relevance of the study derives from the fact that there has been some controversy related to the question of whether education has an independent effect on IQ or whether people with higher IQs simply choose, or are better able, to attain higher levels of education," Galloway said.

By looking at a reform which increased mandatory schooling and prevented people from dropping out of school after the 7th grade, it is fairly certain that the effects seen are an effect of schooling on IQ, not vice versa, she explained.

"One subtle point of our findings is that we use IQ measures at roughly age 19, which is three to four years after the additional education generally was received. Thus, we are not simply picking up a short-lived effect that peters out shortly after people leave school," Galloway said.

The findings suggest that education as late as the middle teenage years may have a sizeable effect on IQ, but do not challenge the well-documented importance of early childhood experiences on cognitive development, according to the authors.

Robert Sternberg, a professor of psychology and provost at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, said that "these results -- that schooling has a substantial effect on IQ -- replicate those of other, perhaps not quite as well-controlled, studies."

"I am aware of no serious studies that show the opposite result," he added.

He said the results are also consistent with the huge literature on the so-called Flynn effect showing that IQs are modifiable across as well as within generations and have been rising since the beginning of the 20th century.

"The results of this study are problematical for the chorus of psychologists and educators still locked in century-old thinking that IQ is genetic, stable and non-modifiable," Sternberg said. "As, for these individuals, the belief in the stability of IQ is more a matter of religious faith than of scientific inference, I doubt they will be persuaded."

More information

For more about IQ, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111227/hl_hsn/moreschoolingmightraiseiq

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Anglican archbishop: Bonds, trust broken in UK (AP)

LONDON ? The summer riots in Britain and the financial crisis have broken bonds and abused trust in British society, the Archbishop of Canterbury said in his Christmas Day sermon.

Archbishop Rowan Williams appealed to those congregated at Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday to learn lessons about "mutual obligation" from the events of the past year.

Citing the four days of U.K. riots and the current European debt crisis, the Archbishop said "the most pressing question" now facing Britain is "who and where we are as a society."

"Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost," he said. "Whether it is an urban rioter mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today's financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark."

Williams, leader of the world's Anglicans, also quoted from the Book of Common Prayer in his sermon to say that if offenses are against one's neighbors, one should be ready to make restitution.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111225/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_anglicans

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Monday, December 26, 2011

Star players shine as NBA makes Christmas return (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Derrick Rose all shined as the NBA tipped off in style on Christmas Day with some sparkling action putting aside memories of the five month long lockout.

The Miami Heat immediately showed why they are title favorites by beating last season's champions the Dallas Mavericks, while the New York Knicks enjoyed a surprise victory over the Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden and the Chicago Bulls produced a great comeback to beat the Los Angeles Lakers.

The games were part of a five-game opening day to the delayed and reduced 66-game regular season after the dispute between players and owners over a new collective contract ended earlier this month.

When they finally reached a new collective bargaining agreement, that was ratified on December 8, the teams had just 17 days to get their rosters filled, hold brief training camps, complete a couple of warm-ups and get ready for Sunday's openers.

The opening day quickly gave fans a taste of what was at risk with some great displays from top performers.

The Heat ruined the Mavericks' championship celebrations with a resounding 105-94 victory led by standout performances from James and team-mate Dwyane Wade in Dallas.

The Heat had to wait in their locker room as the Mavericks raised their championship banner minutes before the start of the game as Dallas players, wearing "2011 NBA Champions" on the back of their tracksuits, celebrated.

But when the game got underway, finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki and team-mates Jason Kidd and Jason Terry were swept aside by an impressive Heat,

Miami were 97-65 up after three quarters, before allowing Dallas, who never led, to make the score respectable in the fourth.

James scored 37 points and had 10 rebounds and six assists while Dwyane Wade contributed 26 points with eight rebounds and six assists, as the Heat's two biggest names offered an early reminder of their quality.

Last season's league MVP, Rose, crowned a superb comeback from the Bulls with a one-handed running shot over Pau Gasol to win the game 88-87 with 4.8 seconds remaining.

Kobe Bryant's last gasp attempt to steal it back for the Lakers was dashed as his shot at the buzzer was blocked by Luol Deng.

Rose scored 22 points with Deng making 21 as the Bulls overturned a six-point lead in the final two minutes while the Lakers missed four free throws in the final 1:40.

Bryant scored 28 points for the Lakers but will be disappointed to have started the season with a home loss.

Carmelo Anthony was the top performer for New York, scoring 37 points as the Knicks enjoyed a 106-104 victory over the Celtics.

The Knicks were fastest out of the blocks taking a 34-23 lead at the end of the first quarter and leaving Celtics head

coach Doc Rivers fuming at his team, telling them they were "playing soft."

Boston trailed 62-52 at half-time but piled on 35 points in the third quarter to lead by eight heading into the last period.

The Celtics had won their last eight games against the Knicks but New York fought back this and Anthony's two free throws with 16.3 seconds left proved to be the game winners as Boston failed to score again as Marquis Daniels missed a three pointer then Kevin Garnett missed a 16 footer at the buzzer.

Rajon Rondo was the top scorer for Boston with 31 points while Anthony scored 17 points in the last quarter for New York.

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111226/sp_nm/us_nba

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

Ron Paul could become spoiler or kingmaker (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/177753598?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Instant view: Housing starts hit 1-1/2 year high in November (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? U.S. housing starts surged to a 1-1/2 year high in November and permits for future construction were the highest since March 2010 as demand for rental apartments rose, offering hope for the weak housing market.

COMMENTS:

PETER CARDILLO, CHIEF MARKET ECONOMIST AT ROCKWELL GLOBAL CAPITAL, NEW YORK

"This is good news. It should add to this morning's strength in equities, and also add to the good news out of Europe. The economy continues to show strength moving into the new year and we could look forward to growth exceeding market expectations. But of course, everything is subject to what is going on in Europe."

SEAN INCREMONA, ECONOMIST, 4CAST LTD, NEW YORK

"There was some pretty impressive upside here, both in the starts and in the permits. In the breakdown it does look like there was a pretty substantial boost from multiples, which tend to be more volatile but they have sustained improvement in their trend while singles are also pointing at underlying improvement in home building. It is positive for the housing market, which is picking up from rather subdued levels. Demand is coming off the lows, so that is healthy."

NATHAN SNYDER, PORTFOLIO MANAGER AT SNOW CAPITAL MANAGEMENT IN SEWICKLEY, PENNSYLVANIA

"The housing stuff seems like it's bottoming which is obviously the first step to recovery. How long it bottoms will be anybody's guess, but we needed it to bottom. If you look at inventories as they reported, they look low but they are they are extraordinarily low if we ever get back to a household formation level that resembles anything like the past.

"So this is something that is a chicken and the egg issue, obviously construction drives employment, employment drives housing. And there is a virtuous cycle there if we can ever reach a bottom and start building off of that. The main hope is that we are at least near that bottom, but the bottom could last a while. So it could start to turn up in the next six months or eighteen months but the next leg is up, not down, from here."

VIMOMBI NSHOM, ECONOMIST, IFR ECONOMICS, A UNIT OF THOMSON REUTERS

"New housing construction activity ascended to an annualized rate of 685k homes started in November, a jump of 9.3% from October. This is starts' third straight reading that reports better than expected performance (a trend in most economic indicators lately). Starts not only surpassed market consensus of 635k, but building permits, also forecasted to come in at 635k, also rose above expectations to an annualized rate of 681k permits. Unlike starts, permits had been expected to fall from October's issuance of 644k permits (originally 653k). Since November 2010, starts increased by 24.3% and permits by 20.7%--,both posting their highest annual change since April 2010, at the tail end of the tax credit program. Multi-unit starts dominated December's performance, as these types of residences rose by 25.3% to 238k. This comes after having fallen by 15.2% in October. Annually, 5+ units have risen by 180.5%, a record on series dated back to 1959. Single-family home construction rose for the second month, this time by 2.3% to 447k. Permits, which have been up for two months (last month by 9.3%), rose by 5.7% in November. Both single-family and multi-units supported the advance with gains of 1.6% and 13.9% respectively. Both types of residences have also been up for two consecutive months, with multi-units leading the charge."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111220/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_housing_starts

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

McQueary says he didn't called police on Sandusky

AAA??Dec. 16, 2011?11:05 AM ET
McQueary says he didn't called police on Sandusky
MARK SCOLFOROMARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press
MARYCLAIRE DALEMARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press?THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES?

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary, right, arrives at Dauphin County Court surrounded by heavy security Friday, Dec 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. McQueary declined to speak to reporters Friday as he entered the courthouse in Harrisburg for the hearing for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, who are set to appear for a preliminary hearing related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary, right, arrives at Dauphin County Court surrounded by heavy security Friday, Dec 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. McQueary declined to speak to reporters Friday as he entered the courthouse in Harrisburg for the hearing for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, who are set to appear for a preliminary hearing related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)

Former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, right, arrives for a preliminary hearing at Dauphin County Court, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. A judge is to determine after the hearing if there's enough evidence to send Schultz and former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley to trial on charges of failure to report abuse to authorities and lying to a grand jury related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)

Former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, right, arrives for a hearing at Dauphin County Court, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. A judge is to determine after the hearing if there's enough evidence to send Curley and former university Vice President Gary Schultz to trial on charges of failure to report abuse to authorities and lying to a grand jury related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)

FILE -- In a Nov. 7, 2011 file photo former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, left, and former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, right, enter a district judge's office for an arraignment in Harrisburg, Pa. Curley and Schultz have been charged with perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania?s child protective services law in connection with the investigation into allegations involving former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, the state attorney general?s office. (AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower/file)

(AP) ? Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary says he witnessed former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky molesting a boy but that he didn't call police because he was sure "the act was over."

McQueary took the stand Friday in a Pennsylvania courtroom against two school officials accused of lying to a grand jury about the child sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky.

Under cross-examination, McQueary answered a question that many observers had asked: Why didn't he call police on Sandusky?

He says it was because it was "delicate in nature" and that he tried to use his best judgment. He says he was "sure the act was over."

He says he later informally raised questions to people he worked with about why Sandusky was still allowed around the football program.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-16-Penn%20State-Abuse/id-c33e6c73191d4eae87651c92d9e44ced

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Adrian Peterson plans to play vs. Saints

By JON KRAWCZYNSKI

updated 6:31 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2011

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. - Spending three weeks on the sideline watching his Minnesota Vikings appears to be about all Adrian Peterson can take.

Peterson said on Thursday that he plans to play against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday despite being only about 85 percent healed from a sprained left ankle that has caused him to miss three straight games.

He wants to be there for his teammates, who have found a new way to lose seemingly every week to fall to 2-11; for his coaches, who have been receiving plenty of criticism during this massively disappointing season; and for all the fans who are counting on him to help them in their fantasy football leagues.

"It's very important, especially for my fantasy team owners," Peterson joked. "They've been giving me a hard time on Twitter. But just being out ... seeing my guys go out and fall short week after week and just wishing I was out there to help those guys compete."

Peterson suffered the high ankle sprain against the Oakland Raiders on Nov. 20. After making him the highest-paid running back in NFL history in the offseason, the Vikings didn't want to risk their investment by rushing Peterson back in a season in which the playoffs were not an option.

But Peterson never thought about taking the rest of the season off to make sure he's fully recovered.

"I love this game, so no matter if we were 2-11 or whatever, if I'm healthy I'm going to go out and play," Peterson said. "That's been my mindset from the beginning. Three weeks off, I'm going to be a part of it."

His teammates aren't the only ones eager to see him back. Peterson said fantasy owners have pestered him every week with questions on Twitter.

"Should we play you this week? Please!" Peterson said with a chuckle. "Some of the stuff I read on there is crazy."

Quarterback Christian Ponder's hip pointer has improved as well, so coach Leslie Frazier said the Vikings are expecting to have everyone available for the game against the Saints (10-3). Peterson will be evaluated again on Friday, but all signs are pointing to him returning to the field.

"The way he's moving around, some of the things that really concerned him a week ago at this time don't seem to concern him much, nor does it concern us," Frazier said. "So if he has another good day (Friday), we should be in the clear."

Frazier said the fact that Peterson still wants to play even though there is nothing left for the team to play for speaks volumes.

"A superstar like him, he's going to achieve what he wants to achieve," Frazier said. "The fact that he wants to get back and play with this football team speaks very highly of who he is as a person. He wants to finish this season with his teammates."

Peterson said he still feels some soreness when he cuts and plants, but not enough to prevent him from wanting to play.

"I'm like 85 percent," he said. "But I'll be able to take the pain and whatever it is that comes with it."

___

Follow Jon Krawczynski on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APkrawczynski

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Falcons take flight vs. Jags

Matt Ryan threw three touchdown passes, John Abraham had 3? sacks and the Atlanta Falcons clinched a fourth straight winning season with a 41-14 rout of the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday night.

PFT: Atlanta closing in on a magic number

PFT: Atlanta's passing game is starting to click, the defense is playing better and the postseason seems inevitable. But the Falcons still have some lingering issues ...

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45687218/ns/sports-nfl/

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Russian Scientist Discovers Giant Arctic Methane Plumes

Nothing I see in that article suggests that this is a new phenomenon...aside from the hyperbolic statements of the scientists.

The author is astonishingly remiss in not asking the obvious question: did this just start? It could be that such methane plumes have existed forever, we just never detected them. This is the EIGHTH such cruise/survey. They should be able to conclusively say "we checked this area in at least one or two previous instances and such seeps weren't observed", no?

It seems logical that there must have been plumes like this for a while, to prompt (and justify) such a large-scale survey.

Yet both the scientists and article author seem to gloss over the fact that "never seen before" != "never happened before".

In fact, Igor Semiletov's team has been conducting this survey annually for some time now. From the article:

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

And they have seen this phenomenon in prior years - just not on anything like the scale of methane release they observed this year. Again, from the article:

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said.

Don't blame the scientist. Don't blame the journalist. Blame the reader, for not reading the story.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/qJsd7BLiN-0/russian-scientist-discovers-giant-arctic-methane-plumes

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Hands-On With WowWee?s AppGear AR Gaming Toys

scaledwm-4556WowWee, not content with creating singing Elvis heads, is branching out into AppGear Appcessories - apps that require AR-based accessories, allowing you to interact with real environments using an iPhone or iPod Touch. These games, arriving in stores in April, include a zombie game where you're the zombies fighting off upset homeowners (What a twist!) and an air battle game that actually uses tiny foam planes attached to the front of your phone to simulate flying in three-dimensional space. The games will cost $9.99 and include various collectable parts. For example, the zombie game, Zombie Burbz, includes four collectable figurines. Of of the figurines has a set of conductive pads on the bottom and, using the iPad's multi-touch screen, you control the action by moving the figurine across the virtual board.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/h1nGmKxjEaE/

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Stratolaunch plane could make space tourism affordable

Stratolaunch plane, an enormous aircraft, will be a flying launchpad for space flights. Could this Stratolaunch plane turn extraterrestrial tourism into an everyday affair?

The tycoons of cyberspace are looking to bankroll America's resurgence in outer space, reviving "Star Trek" dreams that first interested them in science.

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Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen made the latest step Tuesday, unveiling plans for a new commercial spaceship that, instead of blasting off a launch pad, would be carried high into the atmosphere by the widest plane ever built before it fires its rockets.

He joins Silicon Valley powerhouses Elon Musk of PayPal and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. in a new private space race that attempts to fill the gap left when the U.S. government ended the space shuttle program.

Musk, whose Space Exploration Technologies will send its Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station in February, will provide the capsule and booster rocket for Allen's venture, which is called Stratolaunch. Bezos is building a rival private spaceship.

Allen is working with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who collaborated with the tycoon in 2004 to win a $10 million prize for the first flight of a private spaceship that went into space but not orbit.

Allen says his enormous airplane and spaceship system will go to "the next big step: a private orbital space platform business."

The new system is "a radical change" in how people can get to space, and it will "keep America at the forefront of space exploration," Allen said.

Their plane will have a 380-foot (116-meter) wingspan ? longer than a football field and wider than the biggest aircraft ever, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

It will launch a space capsule equipped with a booster rocket, which will send the spacecraft into orbit. This method saves money by not using rocket fuel to get off the ground. The spaceship may hold as many as six people.

"When I was growing up, America's space program was the symbol of aspiration," said Allen, who mentioned his love of science fiction and early human spaceflights. "For me, the fascination with space never ended. I never stopped dreaming what might be possible."

For those attracted to difficult technical challenges, space is the ultimate challenge, Allen said.

"It's also the ultimate adventure. We all grew up devouring science fiction and watching Mercury and Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle. And now we are able to be involved in moving things to the next level," he said, adding that he admires people like Simonyi who have gone into space to experience it.

Allen is not alone in having such dreams, and the money to gamble on making them come true.

Bezos set up the secretive private space company Blue Origin, which has received $3.7 million in NASA start-up funds to develop a rocket to carry astronauts. Its August flight test ended in failure.

"Space was the inspiration that got people into high-tech ... at least individuals in their 40s and 50s," said Peter Diamandis, who created the space prize Allen won earlier and is a high-tech mogul-turned space business leader himself. "Now they're coming full circle."

Diamandis helped found a company that sends tourists to space for at least $25 million a ride, and seven of the eight rides involved high-tech executives living out their space dreams. One is a former Microsoft colleague of Allen's, Charles Simonyi, who paid at least $20 million apiece for two rides into orbit and attended Allen's Tuesday news conference, saying he wouldn't mind a third flight.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/FgwmquJ4gzY/Stratolaunch-plane-could-make-space-tourism-affordable

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Friday, December 16, 2011

Verizon Galaxy Nexus spills its guts, gets Ice Cream Sandwich all over the floor

What treasures lurk beneath the surface of the Verizon Galaxy Nexus? Well, erm, broadly the same ones that we saw when the HSPA+ version was torn down back in November. Big Red's version carries a smaller microSIM slot (it's also moved), presumably to cram in the Silicon Motion FCI FC8870 CDMA/EV-DO/LTE unit that's suddenly appeared on the motherboard. Check out the full teardown at the source link below, but be warned -- spilled Ice Cream Sandwiches always result in ant infestation.

Verizon Galaxy Nexus spills its guts, gets Ice Cream Sandwich all over the floor originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  sourceZDNet  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/16/verizon-galaxy-nexus-spills-its-guts-gets-ice-cream-sandwich-al/

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Santorum: The 'Cancer' of Radical Islam Must be Confronted ...

For the record, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is not an Islamaphobe (whatever that is). In fact, in a recent interview with the Des Moines Register, the GOP presidential candidate made a careful distinction between Muslims and radical jihadists, claiming that the former suffers the most at the hands of the latter.

The Pennsylvanian Republican continued in this vein and took a hard line against radical Islam. He called it a ?very dangerous thing? and said that the Islamic world, in conjunction with the U.S., needs ?to confront this cancer within,? reports the Register.

Here are edited excerpts of the interview:

Q: You don?t always temper your remarks by saying Islam is a peaceful religion, that it?s nonviolent. Is that something that you believe?

A: Well, I use the modifier radical Islam. I don?t say that all Muslims are radicals; clearly they are not. The folks who are most harmed by radical Islam are Muslims in that region of the world who are living like, for example, in Iran. We have a radical theocracy that is in charge of Iran, and the vast majority of the Iranians, almost all of which are Muslims, are being persecuted and killed by that regime and tortured by that regime and are oppressed by that regime.

Q: A lot of people who are bent on doing the right thing are also very fearful of doing the wrong thing. Is that something that you worry about?

A: No, I?m not a risk-averse person. I really believe that you go out there and you do your best and you try your best to move whatever it is. Whether it is raising your children or coaching your Little League team, you believe, you try to measure the situation, gather all the information and then go out and make a difference. This country is not for the timid of heart.

Q: What do you think is going on in the party that someone like Donald Trump can hold so much influence?

A: Well, I don?t think it?s the party, I just think it?s the nature of the country. We?re a celebrity-driven culture, and he is a celebrity, and ? television does that to folks, and people want to hear and are interested in folks like Kim Kardashian for some unknown reason. Why? Because she?s a celebrity. I trust the Iowa caucus-goer they?re not going to be driven by celebrity politics.

Q: When you lost your Senate race in 2006, it was a bad year for Republicans to be sure, but you also lost by 18 points. What happened there?

A: Well, it was a horrible year in Pennsylvania. We lost the governorship by over 20 points. We lost the House of Representatives by historic margins. We had unfortunately two members of Congress in our congressional delegations who were involved in very sordid scandals, one that blew up two weeks before the election. We had a Democratic governor who was very popular and turned out a huge vote in the city of Philadelphia, which is where he?s from. So, it was pretty much a formula for disaster.

Q: You have often been an underdog in the races that you have had. I?m beginning to think personally you like being the underdog, up to a point. Are we past that point now?

A: Oh, no, I don?t think so. I think you realize that folks here in Iowa are still going through the process of making up their minds, and I feel very comfortable that they?re looking at someone who has worked hard here in Iowa, who has made himself available and accountable to the people of Iowa. I feel very good that the momentum is definitely in our favor.

?Santorum has been campaigning daily in Iowa since Thursday. He plans to keep barnstorming the state until he takes a break on Christmas Eve to be with his family,? reports the Register.

Given his social and fiscal stances, one may wonder why Sen. Santorum is consistently polling below Newt Gingrich, of all people.

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

Source: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/santorum-the-cancer-of-radical-islam-must-be-confronted/

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Sad Fliers' Crusade for Airplane Mode (The Atlantic Wire)

After last week's New York Times column?on the pointlessess of making fliers turns off gadgets during take-off and landing, angry technophiles have?started a White House petition to get the rules changed. After two full days and a tweet from The New York Times's Nick Bilton's to his 88,879 followers, the petition only has 364 signatures.

Related: iPad Sales Have Reached a Plateau

When Bilton wrote his takedown last week, it wasn't all that convincing. In the days following his post, a few bloggers piped up to agree with Bilton, but even The Atlantic's own national correspondent and pilot, James Fallows, who?admitted "the rule is pure theater," pointed out that Bilton doesn't really have a case. "[H]ere is the only, admittedly weak rationale behind the 'turn all equipment off' diktat," Fallows wrote. "If anything went wrong on a crowded airline flight, the flight crew would need everyone's full attention, now." And for that, he will keep his iPad off at the flight attendant's?request.

Related: All the Ways Apple Keeps Secrets (That We Know Of)

Fallows isn't alone. A slew of commenters on Bilton's follow-up blog post note the inanity of the entire request. Some?pointed?out that interference can actually occur. Others suggested that a few minutes without iPad access is really a ridiculous thing to complain about. And as The Wire's Adam Clark Estes noted, one can never be too certain when an iPhone might?explode.?

Related: Issa Wants to Know What Obama's Hiding on His iPad

Yet, a week later, the crusade lives on and doesn't really look like it's going anywhere. If the White House gets "enough support," it months of talk, national attention and a study that moved Europe to ban the cancerous things, the TSA still?mostly?uses them.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20111205/tc_atlantic/sadflierscrusadeairplanemode45765

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Oil above $101 as Iran tensions rise (AP)

Oil prices rose past $101 a barrel Monday amid growing tensions between Iran and Western powers, efforts in Europe to contain its debt crisis and signs the U.S. economy is improving.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for January delivery was up 51 cents to $101.47 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 76 cents to settle at $100.96 on Friday.

In London, Brent crude was up 73 cents at $110.67 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Tensions have been building for weeks over Iran's nuclear program. The country is the world's third-biggest oil exporter, shipping 2.2 million barrels of crude per day, and escalating sanctions or an armed conflict could threaten exports leaving the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. Senate voted on Friday to impose new sanctions on Iran's central bank, barring foreign financial institutions that do business with the bank from opening operations in the U.S.

On Sunday, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that the country's armed forces shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that violated Iranian airspace. The U.S. has not confirmed the report.

"The situation in Iran is unlikely to get better any time soon," Barclays Capital said in a report. "Retaliationary efforts from Iran are also feared given its influence over oil trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz."

Crude has jumped from $75 during the last two months amid signs the U.S. economy will likely avoid a recession. Investors were cheered by the Labor Department's November jobs report Friday that showed the economy added 120,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent from 9.0 percent.

Markets also remained hopeful that European leaders will agree on measures to counter the expanding government-debt crisis at a Friday summit in Brussels.

The high indebtedness of countries like Greece, Italy, Spain has raised speculation about the future of the euro currency and fueled fears about a financial collapse and its negative effects on oil demand.

In other Nymex trading, natural gas fell 2.3 cents to $3.561 per 1,000 cubic feet. Heating oil added 3.06 cents to $3.0206 a gallon and gasoline futures gained 1.62 cents to $2.6324 a gallon.

___

Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices

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Thousands Occupy Russian Square in Public Protest of Putin (Time.com)

On Monday night, Dec. 5, Moscow saw the biggest protest against Vladimir Putin since he rose to power 12 years ago. Between 5,000 and 7,000 people showed up, packing a square in the center of the capital, hanging from lampposts in the rain, blocking traffic on surrounding streets and chanting for Putin's arrest. They were furious at the elections this past weekend that let his party hang on to its majority in parliament, and unlike the much smaller protests Moscow sees from time to time, this one was not populated by communist grannies or flare-waving nationalists. This was Russia's Internet generation, the yuppies and the college students, whose anger has finally spilled from the blogosphere onto the streets of the capital.

It did not come from out of nowhere. Ripples of frustration ahead of the elections had been suggesting a political sea change for months. At least since Putin announced in late September that he would return for a third term as President next year, his approval ratings have slipped dramatically, spawning a wave of online parodies of him as an aging autocrat. In November, that frustration saw its first mass expression, when he was openly booed by a stadium of fans at a mixed-martial-arts event. The ratings of his United Russia Party have meanwhile gone into free fall, and on Sunday, Dec. 4, when Russians went to the polls to elect a new parliament, United Russia lost a quarter of its seats and failed to get even half of the popular vote. (See an analysis of Putin's dwindling popularity.)

Allegations of massive voter fraud, widely reported by observers and the opposition, were among the reasons for Monday's protest. But they made up a small portion of the grievances chanted in the square (and, for that matter, in simultaneous demonstrations in St. Petersburg, Putin's hometown). To understand the wider animosity toward Putin's rule as well as the reason so many people showed up, it helps to look at a middle-class Moscow suburb about 30 miles (50 km) east of the capital. It is a typically dingy place that has seen typically little in the way of public works since United Russia took power there a few years ago. The locals complain endlessly of corruption in the town government, but there were never any public outbursts of dissent until around midnight on Thursday, a few days ahead of the elections, when two men cut through a padlock, scrambled onto the roof of an apartment tower and hung a giant banner off the side of it. That had never happened there before.

In letters more than a meter tall, the banner sardonically told the locals to "Vote for the party of crooks and thieves." Virtually every Russian would understand this as a reference to the United Russia Party, which has struggled to shake the nickname since it was coined a year ago by anticorruption blogger Alexei Navalny. In a wink at the local bureaucrats, the men who hung the banner signed it with the words, "Sincerely, your alcoholic mayor." The most striking thing about the vandals was not their wit but the fact that neither of them had ever belonged to any political parties or movements. Both of them are average family men in their early 30s -- one an IT engineer, another a local business owner -- and they weren't even politically active until this election cycle.

"I guess I just got tired of whining about Putin on my blog," says Sergei, 31, the IT engineer. "I felt like I had to actually do something, something real." (The two asked TIME not to print their real names, for fear they would be prosecuted; TIME chose not to print the name of their town.) By Saturday night, the eve of the elections, their banner had been removed; instead of paying $400 to reprint it, they went around posting flyers critical of United Russia on all the local apartment blocks. In the context of Russia's docile political culture, the sight seemed bizarre: two full-grown men, risking arrest and humiliation, scampering about in the middle of the night to fulfill some abstract political urge. But one of the flyers helped explain. It showed a picture of an infant above the following caption: "One day, your child will ask you, Papa, what were you doing when the crooks and thieves were robbing our country blind?" See photos of President Obama's trip to Russia.

The flyers were not their handiwork; they had been printed from a Russian website called RosAgit, a kind of free design studio for antigovernment propaganda, and one of many new sites to spring up from Navalny's peculiar brand of Internet activism. Most of his online projects have the same basic mission -- to empower Russia's enormous community of Internet users to engage in real-world activism. One of them, perhaps the most clever, was the site RosYama, which is short for "Russian pothole." It tries to channel a common frustration -- the dismal state of Russia's roads -- by inviting users to post pictures of potholes and log their location on a map. The site then automatically generates an official complaint to the local traffic police, who are legally obligated to respond. If they fail to do so, the site generates a complaint against the police to the prosecutor. The idea is not just to overload Russia's creaking bureaucracy but also to get people to take that step from griping to action. "I don't agree with everything Navalny does," says Alexander, 30, the business owner who posted the banner. "But he has sort of shown us the way."

And Navalny's audience is growing. As of November 2011, Russia has more Internet users than any other country in Europe, and the country's blogosphere, with about 5 million blogs and 30 million monthly readers, has become the last truly free space for political discourse in Russia's tightly controlled media. As became clear on Monday, it has also shaped a generation that is as disaffected as it is politically aware. "So this is what they look like," said Oleg Orlov, an old Soviet dissident and the head of Russia's leading human-rights organization, when I ran into him at the protest. "I've never seem them at rallies before, at least not in such enormous numbers. It's incredible," he said. From the stage erected on the square, the activists tried to focus on that new phenomenon. "The revolution is not made, and the constitution is not defended, on Facebook and Twitter," said Roman Dobrokhotov, a political activist and blogger. "It is made here on the streets." In response, the crowd began cheering, "Russia without Putin!" See more international news in Global Spin.

But the obvious hero of Monday's protest was Navalny. Through his hugely popular blog, he had called on many of his fans to attend, and when he took the microphone, he had a simple message for the hipster demographic. "They can laugh and call us microbloggers," he said. "They can call us the hamsters of the Internet. Fine. I am an Internet hamster ... But I know they are afraid of us." The riot police did look afraid. It was one of the few times in recent memory when they were faced with a crowd too large for them to fully control. As the rally ended, the crowd surged toward them, attempting to march on the Kremlin, and the police were forced to use their truncheons to push them back. About 300 protesters were arrested.

As the rest dispersed, I found Alexander, who had driven down from his suburban home to attend. Beaming and chain-smoking cigarettes, he told me the election results in his hometown had given United Russia a mere 17%, half as much as the Communist Party. Careful not to sound presumptuous, he added, "Maybe it had to do with our banner. I don't know. But it's our little victory." Then he looked back toward the crowd and asked, "Did you see where Navalny went?" By then, he had also been arrested.

Who should be TIME's Person of the Year 2011? Vote for your choice here.

View this article on Time.com

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111205/wl_time/08599210156900

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Monday, December 5, 2011

Enbridge sees native support for Gateway pipeline (Reuters)

TORONTO (Reuters) ? Enbridge Inc expects to win support for its C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion) Northern Gateway oil pipeline from a majority of native communities along the proposed route based on current negotiations, an executive said on Friday.

The company has signed deals with some aboriginal groups for an overall 10 percent equity stake in the project, which would carry oil sands-derived crude to the West Coast from Alberta, Enbridge Vice-President Janet Holder said during a conference call to discuss one agreement.

But she declined to say how many deals it has in hand, citing confidentiality agreements.

"Based upon current negotiations, we believe we have majority support from First Nations along the right-of-way," Holder said during a conference call with media to discuss one chief's decision to support the project, aimed at opening up Asian markets for Canadian oil producers.

The developments came one day after more than 60 aboriginal communities said they were uniting to oppose oil pipelines across the Pacific province of British Columbia as well as increased tanker traffic in coastal waters, citing fears of oil spills.

Also on Friday, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver told Reuters he believed deals could be reached with native Canadians that would allow a pipeline to the coast, but conceded it would not be easy.

The industry is banking on a new pipeline to the coast to move crude produced in the vast Alberta tar sands markets in Asia as a way to lessen its dependence on the United States, which is now virtually its only export customer.

Regulatory hearings into Northern Gateway are slated to start in January.

Elmer Derrick, a hereditary chief of the Gitxsan First Nation, broke ranks by making his support public on Friday. However, the proposed route does not cross Gitxsan territory. In addition, elected officials had not been party to the decision, he said.

The community, which has suffered deteriorating social conditions as its timber industry dried up, is looking forward to C$7 million that it will get from returns from its equity stake over the next several years, Derrick said.

"Over time, we have established a relationship of trust with Enbridge, we have examined and assessed this project, and we believe it can be built and operated safely," he said.

Derrick said that Thursday's announcement by the pipeline's opposition did not play a role in his decision to go public.

The pipeline would carry 525,000 barrels of crude a day to the port of Kitimat, British Columbia, where it would be loaded onto supertankers and shipped to Pacific Rim markets.

Ottawa and the oil industry intensified efforts to open up a route to Asia after Washington delayed its go-ahead decision for the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.

($1=$1.02 Canadian)

(Editing by Peter Galloway and Rob Wilson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/wl_canada_nm/canada_us_enbridge_northerngateway

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Clinton challenges Myanmar to expand reforms (AP)

YANGON, Myanmar ? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday shared dinner with Myanmar's most famous former political prisoner and challenged the nation's leaders to expand upon recent reforms, end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea.

"We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released," Clinton told reporters during the first visit to this long-isolated nation by the top U.S. diplomat in more than 50 years. "One political prisoner is one too many in our view."

Clinton made her comments before her private dinner with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released last year after two decades of on-and-off imprisonment and has said she will run in upcoming elections. Clinton and Suu Kyi were to meet more formally on Friday.

Meeting earlier Thursday with President Thein Sein and other senior government officials in the capital of Naypyidaw, Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps the country has already taken but made clear that more must be done. She said the U.S. was not ready to lift sanctions on the country.

Clinton hand-delivered letters from President Barack Obama to Thein Sein and Suu Kyi in which Obama expressed hope that relations could further improve.

"I came to assess whether the time is right for a new chapter in our shared history," Clinton said, adding that the U.S. was ready to further improve relations with the civilian government in the Southeast Asian nation ? also known as Burma ? but only if it stays on the path of democratization.

In a series of modest first steps, she announced that Washington would allow Myanmar's participation in a U.S.-backed grouping of Mekong River countries; no longer block enhanced cooperation between the country and the International Monetary Fund; and support intensified U.N. health, microfinance and counternarcotics programs.

A senior U.S. official said Thein Sein had outlined his government's plans for reform in a 45-minute presentation in which he acknowledged that Myanmar lacked a recent tradition of democracy and openness. He asked for U.S. help in making the transition from military to full civilian rule, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private diplomatic exchange.

Clinton replied that she was visiting because the U.S. was "encouraged by the steps that you and your government have taken to provide for your people."

Yet, she also made clear that those steps must be consolidated and enlarged if the U.S. is to consider easing near-blanket economic sanctions that block almost all American commercial transactions with Myanmar. "While measures already taken may be unprecedented and certainly welcome, they are just a beginning," she told reporters.

"We're not at the point yet where we can consider lifting sanctions that we have in place because of our ongoing concerns about policies that have to be reversed," Clinton said. "But any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and will be matched."

She called for the release of political prisoners and an end to brutal ethnic violence that has ravaged the nation for decades. She also warned the country's leadership to break suspected illicit military, nuclear and ballistic missile cooperation with North Korea that may violate U.N. sanctions. "Better relations with the United States will only be possible if the entire government respects the international consensus against the spread of nuclear weapons ... and we support the government's stated intention to sever military ties with North Korea," she said.

In his presentation, Thein Sein vowed that Myanmar would uphold its U.N. obligations with respect to North Korea, according to the senior U.S. official. He also told Clinton that Myanmar was actively considering signing a new agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog that would allow unfettered inspections of atomic sites in the country, the official said.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, welcomed the U.S. package of rewards and said, "The incentives will help promote better relations and a better future for the country and I hope the government will expand its reform process."

Clinton rejected the idea that the U.S. outreach to Myanmar was partially motivated by the growing influence of China. "We are not viewing this in light of any competition with China," she said. "We are viewing it as an opportunity for us to re-engage here."

"We welcome positive constructive relations between China and her neighbors. We think that is in China's interest as well as in the neighborhood's interest," she said.

Recalling Obama's mention of "flickers of progress" in Myanmar when he announced that Clinton would visit the country, Clinton urged the leadership not to allow them to "be stamped out."

"It will be up to the leaders and the people to fan flickers of progress into flames of freedom that light the path toward a better future," she said. "That ? and nothing less ? is what it will take for us to turn a solitary visit into a lasting partnership."

Before dinner with Suu Kyi, Clinton toured the Shwedagon Pagoda, a 2,500-year-old Buddhist temple with a massive golden stupa.

Despite the historic nature of Clinton's visit, enthusiasm has been muted within Myanmar.

Chan Tun, a 91-year-old veteran politician and a retired ambassador to China, said: "This is a very critical visit because U.S. will understand Myanmar better through engagement. U.S. engagement will also help Myanmar's dependence on China."

But Clinton's presence has been overshadowed by the arrival Thursday of the prime minister of Belarus and his wife, to whom two large welcoming signs were erected at the airport and the road into the city. No such displays welcomed Clinton.

The Belarus Prime Minister made the front page of Thursday's edition of the government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper. Clinton's visit was mentioned in a two-paragraph story on page 2.

Still, some in Myanmar welcomed the attention from the U.S. "I watched the arrival of Ms. Clinton on Myanmar TV last night," 35-year-old taxi driver Thein Zaw said. "I am very happy that Ms. Clinton is visiting our country because America knows our small country, whether it is good or bad."

___

Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_re_as/as_clinton_myanmar

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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Zynga Sets Price Range For IPO At $8.50 To $10 Per Share, Will Raise Over $1B

zyngaSocial gaming giant Zynga has just filed its updated S-1 with pricing information ahead of its roadshow. The price range, according to the filing, will be between $8.50 and $10 per share. Offering 100 million shares, the company plans to raise over $1 billion. Zynga plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol 'ZNGA.' At the high end of the range, Zynga would be valued at around $7 billion.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kuCaU68hEAk/

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3D printer helps grow new bones

A 3D printer is being used to create "bone-like" material which researchers claim can be used to repair injuries.

The engineers say the substance can be added to damaged natural bone where it acts as a scaffold for new cells to grow.

It ultimately dissolves with "no apparent ill-effects", the team adds.

The researchers say doctors should be able to use the process to custom-order replacement bone tissue in a few years time.

Prof Susmita Bose helped carry out the work at Washington State University and co-authored a report in the Dental Materials journal.

"You can use the bone-like ceramic powder as a feed material and it can make whatever you draw on the computer," she says.

"It is mostly [suitable for] low load bearing applications. However, what we are trying to develop is the controlled degradation... of these scaffolds where as the scaffold dissolves in the body the bone tissue grows over it."

Binder

Prof Bose's team have spent four years developing the bone-like substance.

Their breakthrough came when they discovered a way to double the strength of the main ceramic powder - calcium phosphate - by adding silica and zinc oxide.

To create the scaffold shapes they customised a printer which had originally been designed to make three-dimensional metal objects.

It sprayed a plastic binder over the loose powder in layers half as thick as the width of a human hair.

The process was repeated layer by layer until completed, at which point the scaffold was dried, cleaned and then baked for two hours at 1250C (2282F).

Repairs

Tests carried on immature foetal bone cells in the laboratory found that new bone cells started growing over the scaffold within the first week of it being attached.

The team say they have also had promising results from tests involving live rabbits and rats.

"The way I envision it is that 10 to 20 years down the line, physicians and surgeons should be able to use these bone scaffolds along with some bone growth factors, whether it is for jaw bone fixation or spinal fusion fixation," says Dr Bose.

This is not the first time that orthopaedic experts have investigated the use of 3D printers.

Earlier this year a surgical trainee at Scotland's Monklands hospital detailed a technique to produce bone replicas using the technology.

Mark Frame suggested using a CAT scanner to produce images of damaged bones.

He said the data could then be fed into a 3D printer to create a model to help doctors plan their surgery.

He said the process cost about a tenth of traditional techniques.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/technology-15963467

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