Tiger Woods hits to the sixth green during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Tiger Woods hits to the sixth green during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Tiger Woods, lower left, waits to approach the third green during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Tiger Woods looks over his putt on the seventh hole during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Keegan Bradley watches his tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Phil Mickelson, left, talks with his caddie Jim Mackay on the fourth tee during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
AKRON, Ohio (AP) ? Tiger Woods played safe and smart with a big lead, parring 16 holes in an even-par 70 Sunday to coast to a seven-shot victory at the Bridgestone Invitational for his eighth win at the event ? matching the PGA Tour record he shares for victories in a single tournament.
After a second-round 61 in which he flirted with 59, Woods ended up at 15-under 265 to easily beat defending champ Keegan Bradley and Henrik Stenson.
Woods' mastery at Firestone Country Club allowed him to again match Sam Snead's PGA Tour record for wins in an event. Snead won the Greater Greensboro Open eight times. Earlier this year, Woods won at Bay Hill for the eighth time.
As if he weren't already the favorite next week in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill, the lopsided victory reinforced it.
No one ever got within six shots all day of the world's No. 1.
What we have to offer is unique; you will be joining a truly Agile team Embedded within the business; this is an opportunity to establish a close relationship with our product owners and users and make a real difference in a fast-paced pure-play retail environment.
Our leading edge infrastructure allows us to deliver value to our business every iteration, which means you will immediately be able to contribute and make an positive impact to our business.
Our success means we are looking for the best software developers to take our platform and product forward. In return you will be exposed to the latest technologies, frameworks & methodologies in application development.
NET-A-PORTER launched in June 2000 and has since successfully established itself as the world?s premier luxury online fashion retailer.?? With its acclaimed editorial format, express worldwide shipping to 170 countries, luxurious packaging and easy returns, NET-A-PORTER offers an unparalleled shopping experience.? NET-A-PORTER is the flagship brand from the NET-A-PORTER group which comprises theOutnet , the most fashionable fashion outlet, and MRPORTER , the global men?s style destination.
The Role:?
Work closely with other team members and the Business Analysis, Project
Management, QA and Technical Operations teams
Develop a good understanding of business requirements
Write technical specs
Ensure that work is well-planned, estimated, implemented, tested, and documented
Build high quality web applications
Provide 3rd line support of production systems (in-hours)
Identify and help plan improvements to systems
Review other team member?s work
Mentor junior members of the team
Keep up with industry trends and experiment with new tools, technologies & development methods with a view to adopting best practices that fit the business
Required Skills & Experience:?
Able to investigate & trouble-shoot technical issues
Able to rapidly and effectively context-switch
Operating Systems: Linux & Windows
Server Side development in Perl
SQL/RDBMS
HTML, CSS & Javascript
Version control systems
Desirable Skills & Experience:
Experience of any of the following will be useful but training will be provided to the right candidate.?
Able to build high-quality web applications
Able to develop web-based web-based user interfaces (HTML, CSS) & APIs (JSON & XML)
Knowledge of CPAN modules and frameworks, particularly:
DBI, DBIx:Class, Catalyst, Template Toolkit and Moose
Experience building and testing high-availability applications
Understanding of:?
Perl & Linux conventions
Message queues (ideally ActiveMQ)
Perl testing frameworks
Refactoring
SQL (ideally Postgres/MySQL)
Version Control Systems (SVN, SVK, P4, VSS, Git etc)
Apache/FCGI & MOD Perl
Exposure to:?
AJAX & Javascript, & JS frameworks (jQuery, YUI)
Agile development methodologies
Some knowledge of Java would be useful
We are looking for candidates that:?
Are passionate about software development
Are good communicators with good writing skills
Have a healthy dose of common sense and initiative
The project has been subject to days of delays because of high-profile protests designed to halt delivery of trucks and equipment to the plant.
Today a Cuadrilla spokesman said: ?We started test drilling at 11.15am, and we will do a 3,000ft vertical well. We will be there for two to three months.?
Campaigners fear the project at Lower Stumble, near Balcombe, West Sussex, could lead Cuadrilla to go on to conduct hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The controversial method of fracking involves high pressure liquid being pumped deep underground to split shale rock and release gas supplies.
Opponents of fracking have highlighted concerns about potential water contamination and environmental damage, as well as small-scale earthquakes.
Police have had to throw up a daily security operation around the test site?s entrance as dozens of anti-fracking protesters have turned out to halt deliveries.
More than 30 people have been arrested since last Friday, mainly on suspicion of obstructing deliveries, including Natalie Hynde, 30, the daughter of the Kinks? Ray Davies and the Pretenders? Chrissie Hynde.
Natalie Hynde?s boyfriend, veteran eco campaigner Simon ?Sitting Bull? Medhurst, 55, was also held after the pair superglued their hands together around the gate for around two hours.
Well, the season of Android 4.2 updates to Samsung?s huge lineup of devices seems to finally be here, as just a day after the update started rolling out to the Galaxy S II Plus in Germany, Samsung is now treating the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (3G variant) to the newer (but not the latest anymore) flavour of Jelly Bean. The rollout has begun in France, with the build number P3100XXDMG6.
Android 4.2.2 brings a number of small but useful changes, such as a dedicated notifications panel in the status bar, lockscreen widgets,?multiple user accounts, better accessibility, Daydreams screensaver mode, and also new widgets and launcher from the Galaxy S4. Expect to see improvements in performance and battery life as well.
It?s quite odd to see mid-range devices getting preference for the Android 4.2 update, though that does show Samsung isn?t giving as much special preference to their high-end device owners, and it confirms again and again that devices like the Galaxy S III and Note II will directly get updated to Android 4.3.
The update can be grabbed from Kies or via an over-the-air update on the device itself (Settings ? About tablet ? Software update), and you can also download the firmware from our firmware page to manually update (manual update can be done on any unlocked Tab 2 7.0 from any country, but outside France you may have to wipe data to make it boot up).
Joe Gray of OHSU?s Knight Cancer Institute will use a $225,000 grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to investigate novel methods of controlling and combating metastatic breast cancer.
Oregon Health & Science University will receive a $225,000 grant from the Susan G. Komen Oregon and Southwest Washington chapter for breast cancer research.
The grant goes to Joe Gray of OHSU?s Knight Cancer Institute. He will investigate novel methods of controlling and combating metastatic breast cancer.
Gray will explore how to target a tumor?s micro-environment, lessening its ability to escape treatment and how to exploit the inherent genomic instability of basal breast cancers, such as triple negative.
Komen?s investment in Oregon and Southwest Washington totals nearly $29 million, including $11.3 million for research and $17.4 million for screening, education and survivor support for women and their families.
Elizabeth Hayes covers health care for the Business Journal.
NSA Director Keith Alexander lied and condescended to his audience when he delivered the keynote address this week at a computer security conference in Las Vegas, Ted Rall, a political cartoonist who lampooned Alexander?s remarks, told RT.
Alexander?s speech, while purporting to disclose new information about the vast NSA surveillance programme, was met with jeers and interrupted by hecklers. The remarks have been met with equal scorn in editorial cartoons, with one of Rall?s most recent works depicting NSA leaders formulating a new plan to identify who is a terrorist. ?
RT:?What exactly about Keith Alexander?s statements inspired you to draw this cartoon??
Ted Rall: Well, It?s the sophistry of it all and the fact that he had the gall to go and present it to a group of tech-savvy young people ? hackers and people who are great programmers and know what they are talking about. If I rob a bank and steal a hundred million dollars and I don?t spend all that much of the money it doesn?t mean that I didn?t rob the bank and it doesn?t mean that the money is still in the bank. That?s kind of the argument that the NSA is making.?
They?re claiming that because they collect everything but they only look at a little bit of it that somehow is supposed to make us feel better.?
RT:You use the bank reference to talk about the ethics of this. The American Constitution prohibits spying on Americans. How is Alexander basically using this to justify what they?ve done?
TR: What they have done has no legal basis whatsoever. Ever since 9/11 the US government has been dreaming up a series of pseudo-legalistic, extra-Constitutional systems that purport to validate what they want to do anyway. But if you scratch the surface all they say is the FISA court has approved this and that.?
Well, who is the FISA court? We don?t even know, they?re secret and until very recently were secret. It?s only because of Mr. Snowden that we have even seen one of them. It turns out, in an article in the New York Times, that all the judges were appointed by one right-wing Supreme Court justice, John Roberts.
There?s no accountability here whatsoever, but it?s the veneer of legality that we have. If we follow the letter of the law, if we follow the spirit of the law, if we follow what the NSA?s charter says, the NSA simply isn?t allowed to engage in spying on Americans. Period. It?s very simple. It?s very straightforward. And the administration is trying to obfuscate that and that?s why General Alexander got laughed at.?
RT:You talked about the GCHQ and the kind of veneer of legality. Could the NSA be using the GCHQ as a kind of to get around this and say it?s the British who are spying??
TR: That might be part of it. I don?t think that?s really the main takeaway from the GCHQ story. What that really is, it goes back to the days of Tony Blair as George W. Bush?s poodle. It?s really interesting that America, the former British colony, now has turned the tables on England and - pretty much since World War Two ? put the UK in a subservient position in terms of politics.?
It?s really pathetic that what used to be a superpower is behaving in this way and accepting money from US taxpayers that US taxpayers, incidentally, can?t afford to pay. This NSA program is a $100 billion program and the United States, at the same time, is closing clinics, telling people on welfare that they can?t get any more help, being told we have to accept austerity, public parks are closing. But somehow there?s always money to spy on the public.?
RT:Obama has said that these programs are justified because they ensure the safety of American citizens. How do you balance this safety vs. privacy when it really comes down to it?
TR: To me there is no comparison whatsoever. Tens of thousands of Americans lose their lives on public roadways every year in car accidents but you don?t see us turning our airports or our vehicular systems upside down in order to stop those deaths.?
Between 12 and 15 Americans die worldwide every year from a terrorist threat ever year. Quite frankly there?s about as much threat from shark attacks and lightning strikes. Terrorism is not a serious threat to the United States of America and to devote a huge amount of our resources to preventing it is foolhardy.?
But I don?t think that?s what?s really going on. I think it?s a business, I think it?s the defense contractors who are well-connected in Washington and other corporations are raking in so much cash that that is what this is all about. It?s fear-mongering.
TOKYO (AP) ? Sony says it has swung back to profitability in the latest quarter, mainly because of a weak yen.
Net income for the April-June period was 3.5 billion yen ($35 million). Earnings also got a boost from improved smartphone and entertainment businesses. Sony had racked up a 24.6 billion yen loss the previous year.
The Japanese electronics and entertainment company said Thursday it got a nice perk from a favorable currency rate. A cheap yen helps boost the earnings of Japanese exporters, although Sony has been trying to reduce such vulnerabilities over recent years when the yen was high.
Sales jumped 13 percent to 1.71 trillion yen ($17 billion). But they would have slipped 3 percent on year if it were not for the declining yen, the Tokyo-based company said.
Heartbreak can take on a lot of physical forms. A box of unsent love letters. An engagement ring you never got to take out of your pocket. A luxury mattress your partner boned someone else on that you have to sleep on ever night which you're now selling for $150 on craigslist.
By Karolos Grohmann DORTMUND, Germany, April 24 (Reuters) - Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho could not understand how his well-drilled side let Robert Lewandowski score four goals in Borussia Dortmund's 4-1 win on Wednesday but vowed that his team could still reach the Champions League final. The nine-times European champions have a huge task on their hands in Tuesday's home second leg after Mourinho acknowledged they had been outplayed in the semi-final first leg in Germany. "I saw a team that was better than the other one, mentally and physically. The better team won today. ...
A massive explosion at 3 a.m. EDT on one of the two barges still ablaze in the Mobile River in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday, April 25, 2013. Three people were injured in the blast. Fire officials have pulled units back from fighting the fire due to the explosions and no immediate threat to lives. (AP Photo John David Mercer) Three people were hospitalized with burns. Information on their conditions was not immediately available.
A massive explosion at 3 a.m. EDT on one of the two barges still ablaze in the Mobile River in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday, April 25, 2013. Three people were injured in the blast. Fire officials have pulled units back from fighting the fire due to the explosions and no immediate threat to lives. (AP Photo John David Mercer) Three people were hospitalized with burns. Information on their conditions was not immediately available.
A massive explosion at 3a.m. EDT on one of the two barges still ablaze in the Mobile River in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday, April 25, 2013. Three people were injured in the blast. Fire officials have pulled units back from fighting the fire due to the explosions and no immediate threat to lives. (AP Photo John David Mercer) Three people were hospitalized with burns. Information on their conditions was not immediately available.
Fire burns aboard two fuel barges along Mobile River after explosions sent three workers to the hospital. Fire officials have pulled units back from fighting the fire due to the explosions and no immediate threat to lives. (AP Photo/Press Register, Glenn Baeske)
A massive explosion at 3 a.m. EDT on one of the two barges still ablaze in the Mobile River in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday, April 25, 2013. Three people were injured in the blast. Fire officials have pulled units back from fighting the fire due to the explosions and no immediate threat to lives. (AP Photo John David Mercer) Three people were hospitalized with burns. Information on their conditions was not immediately available.
Fire burns aboard two fuel barges along the Mobile River after explosions sent three workers to the hospital Wednesday April 24, 2013. Fire officials have pulled units back from fighting the fire due to the explosions and no immediate threat to lives. (AP Photo John David Mercer)
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) ? A large fire that began with explosions aboard two fuel barges in Mobile, Ala., was rocked by a seventh explosion early Thursday and fire officials said they planned to let the fire, which has injured three, burn overnight.
Firefighters from Mobile and U.S. Coast Guard officials responded after 8:30 p.m. CDT Wednesday to a pair of explosions involving the gas barges in an area of the Mobile River east of downtown, authorities said.
As they were responding, a third explosion occurred around 9:30 p.m., Mobile Fire and Rescue spokesman Steve Huffman wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Additional explosions followed over the next few hours.
The Coast Guard said early Thursday that a one-nautical-mile safety zone had been established around one barge, which it said was "at the dock for cleaning."
Authorities said three people were transported to University of South Alabama Medical Center after suffering burn-related injuries. Huffman identified them as workers with Oil Recovery Co. The three were in critical condition early Thursday, according to hospital nursing administrator Danny Whatley.
Across the river, the Carnival Triumph, the cruise ship that became disabled in the Gulf of Mexico last February before it was towed to Mobile's port, was evacuated, said Alan Waugh, who lives at the Fort Conde Inn in downtown Mobile, across the river from the scene of the explosions. Waugh saw the blasts and said throngs of Carnival employees and others were clustered on streets leading toward the river as authorities evacuated the shipyard.
"It literally sounded like bombs going off around. The sky just lit up in orange and red," he said, "We could smell something in the air, we didn't know if it was gas or smoke." Waugh said he could feel the heat from the explosion and when he came back inside, his partner noticed he had what appeared to be black soot on his face.
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Carlos Vega said the initial blast took place in a ship channel near the George C. Wallace Tunnel ? which carries traffic from Interstate 10 under the Mobile River. The river runs south past Mobile and into Mobile Bay, which in turn flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Video from WALA-TV (http://bit.ly/15NEYJl) showed flames engulfing a large section of the barge, and a video that a bystander sent to AL.com (http://bit.ly/13vWz4G) showed the fiery explosions and billowing smoke over the river.
The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, Huffman and Vega said.
"Once (the fire) is out and safe, a full investigation will take place," Huffman wrote.
Mobile Fire Chief Steve Dean told AL.com he was confident the fire wouldn't spread to nearby industrial properties, including the shipyard where the Carnival cruise ship is docked.
Huffman said the ship is directly across the river from the incident ? about two football fields in length.
The barges are owned by Houston-based Kirby Inland Marine, company spokesman Greg Beuerman said. He said the barges were empty and being cleaned at the Oil Recovery Co. facility when the incident began. He said the barges had been carrying a liquid called natural gasoline ? which he said is neither liquefied natural gas or natural gas. He said the company has dispatched a team to work with investigators to determine what caused the fire.
The explosion comes two months after the 900-foot-long Carnival Triumph was towed to Mobile after becoming disabled on the Gulf during a cruise by an engine room fire, leaving thousands of passengers to endure cold food, unsanitary conditions and power outages for several days. The ship is still undergoing repairs there, with many workers living on board.
Carnival didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment late Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the cruise ship was dislodged from its mooring by a windstorm that also caused, in a separate incident, two shipyard workers to fall into Mobile Bay. While one worker was rescued, the other's body was pulled from the water more than a week later.
___
Associated Press writer Phillip Lucas in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Nikon's D3000 came out in 2009, and even back then it was a cheap DSLR. It's meant for beginners. In addition to the decidedly non-professional $500 price, the D3000 actually features educational menus to help a first time photographer learn the ropes. Still, it wasn't cheap, especially for tyros or students—if you're not sure you're gonna stick with the hobby, it's hard to spend what amounts to a rent payment. But flash forward to 2013, and Adorama is selling the D3000 for $210—a price even broke college students can afford. More »
Apr. 24, 2013 ? Who would have thought that two very different species, a small insect and a furry alpine mammal, would develop a shared food arrangement in the far North?
University of Alberta researchers were certainly surprised when they discovered the unusual response of pikas to patches of vegetation that had previously been grazed on by caterpillars from a species normally found in the high Arctic.
U of A biology researcher Isabel C. Barrio analyzed how two herbivores, caterpillars and pikas, competed for scarce vegetation in alpine areas of the southwest Yukon. The caterpillars come out of their winter cocoons and start consuming vegetation soon after the snow melts in June. Weeks later, the pika starts gathering and storing food in its winter den. For the experiment, Barrio altered the numbers of caterpillars grazing on small plots of land surrounding pika dens.
"What we found was that the pikas preferred the patches first grazed on by caterpillars," said Barrio. "We think the caterpillar's waste acted as a natural fertilizer, making the vegetation richer and more attractive to the pika."
U of A biology professor David Hik, who supervised the research, says the results are the opposite of what the team expected to find.
"Normally you'd expect that increased grazing by the caterpillars would have a negative effect on the pika," said Hik. "But the very territorial little pika actually preferred the vegetation first consumed by the caterpillars."
The researchers say it's highly unusual that two distant herbivore species -- an insect in its larval stage and a mammal -- react positively to one another when it comes to the all-consuming survival issue of finding food.
These caterpillars stay in their crawling larval stage for up to 14 years, sheltering in a cocoon during the long winters before finally becoming Arctic woolly bear moths for the final 24 hours of their lives.
The pika does not hibernate and gathers a food supply in its den. Its food-gathering territory surrounds the den and covers an area of around 700 square metres.
The researchers say they'll continue their work on the caterpillar-pika relationship to explore the long-term implications for increased insect populations and competition for scarce food resources in northern mountain environments.
Barrio was the lead author on the collaborative research project, which was published April 24 in the journal Biology Letters.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alberta, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. The original article was written by Brian Murphy.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
I. C. Barrio, D. S. Hik, K. Peck, C. G. Bueno. After the frass: foraging pikas select patches previously grazed by caterpillars. Biology Letters, 2013; 9 (3): 20130090 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.0090
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
There are very few platforms that have something that you use on a daily basis, let alone on a minute-by-minute basis. Team communication platform service, Convo, is one of those for us at TechCrunch. Today, the company has released an update for its essential iOS app, which is something that we use here quite often to communicate about everything you can think of. Since using the service, our team has generated more than 100,000 interactions, averaging 1,200 of them a day, with 95 percent of our team present on the platform on those days. Its desktop version is in real time, acting like a threaded IRC chat. The service overall isn’t without its faults, but it’s difficult to build team and enterprise software that can make everyone happy. One of the top complaints that we had was about its iOS app, which was lacking proper iPhone 5 and retina support, along with some general usability issues. Today’s app udpate is all about speed, commenting and a slicker design that will help you get through all of the threaded discussions your team is having since you checked in last. The feed This is the most important part of Convo, especially when you’re on the go. In today’s update, you’re able to scan and refresh the main feed quickly, and when you tap on the comments for any given thread, they slide over from the right. This is a huge improvement from the previous version, which loaded the thread into a new page: That update alone will save time, as you can jump back and forth between threads that you’re participating in and make decisions on whether to get involved in one quicker. Additionally, you’ll be able to “Like” things, which is a passive way of saying that you’ve seen something or agree with something, depending on how your team uses it. Images are also clearer thanks to the retina support and complete overhaul of how they’re displayed. Depending on how you use the service, images could play a huge role in the conversation that you’re having. If it’s about a piece of artwork for your app, seeing images at the highest resolution possible is the only way that you’ll be able to make a decision on whether to use them or feedback that you might have for your designer. Cleanup and sharing In addition to the feed overhaul, Convo has been
When Logitech announced keyboard folios for the iPad and iPad Mini less than a month ago, it thought it had all bases covered: keyboard, stand, cover. One important group of people weren't considered in the design brief, however: so-called spillers, those with an uncanny ability to bring gadgets and beverages together. It's no wonder, then, that Logitech has been quick to come up with the FabricSkin keyboard folio to cater for this demographic. In addition to the "liquid-repellent FabricSkin surface" that coats the folio, there are a couple of new color schemes to choose from, and the Bluetooth keyboard is now without openings, similar to the Surface Touch Cover, so fluid can't work its way in between the keys. You'll be paying a premium for that peace of mind, though, as the FabricSkin folio for the iPad 2 and up (no iPad Mini version), set to launch in May, is now available to pre-order from Logitech for $149 (or £129) -- $50 more than the standard cover. Still, if there's a good chance you'd hydrate a normal folio eventually, the FabricSkin model is almost like getting a replacement at half price. We'll drink to that.
Existing phones using the components face no sales ban
The full details have emerged about yesterday's actions in the Netherlands, where a court was said to have handed down a preliminary injunction against the HTC One on behalf of Nokia. According to the district court filing, the courts have imposed a 10-month ban on ST Microelectronics selling any of the dual-membrane microphone pieces that were designed and co-developed by Nokia. Apparently, some miscommunication led ST Micro to believe that the exclusivity agreement for Nokia was only six months, when it was actually 12. As a penalty the terms were extended a further six months, during which time ST Micro is not allowed to sell the parts to anyone other than Nokia.
We don't make this up, we just report it.
The courts found HTC "blameless", as they could not know the details of a confidential agreement between Nokia and ST Micro, and they face no penalties. Nor are their products banned in the Netherlands or anywhere else. They will not be allowed to source the components from ST Micro for six months, though -- which could easily lead to supply issues and expensive re-engineering for future HTC One shipments. HTC has issued a statement saying in part that they "do not expect this decision to have any immediate impact on our handset sales." But they certainly can't be happy.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? The overuse of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture can wreak havoc on waterways, health and the environment.
An international team of scientists aims to lessen the reliance on these fertilizers by helping beans and similar plants boost their nitrogen production, even in areas with traditionally poor soil quality.
Researchers from the Center of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory report as an advance article April 5 for the Metallomics journal of The Royal Society of Chemistry on how to use X-ray analysis to map a path to increasing the amount of nitrogen that legumes deposit into the soil.
Cultivation of legumes, the plant family that includes peas, beans, alfalfa, soybeans, and peanuts, is one of the main ways farmers add natural nitrogen to agricultural fields. Rotating bean and corn crops to take advantage of the nitrogen beans deposit in the soil has long been a global farming tradition. Legumes use iron in the soil to carry out a complex chemical process called nitrogen fixation, which collects atmospheric nitrogen and converts it into organic forms that help the plant grow. When the plant dies, the excess nitrogen is released back into to the soil to help the next crop.
But often legumes are grown in areas with iron-depleted soil, which limits their nitrogen fixation. That's where research can lend a hand. The Argonne-UPM team has created the world's first model for how iron is transported in the plant's root nodule to trigger nitrogen fixation. This is the first step in modifying the plants to maximize iron use.
"The long-term goal is to help sustainable agriculture practices and further diminish the environmental damage from overuse of nitrogen fertilizers," said Manuel Gonzalez-Guerrero, lead author of the paper from UPM. "This can be done by maximizing the delivery of essential metal oligonutrients to nitrogen-fixing rhizobia."
The research team, which included Lydia Finney and Stefan Vogt from the APS, used high-energy X-rays from the 8-BM and 2-ID-E beamlines of the APS to track the distribution of minute iron amounts in the different developmental regions of rhizobia-containing roots. This is the first high-energy X-ray analysis of plant-microbe interactions.
X-rays, such as those from the APS, provided a high sensitivity to elements and a high spatial resolution not attainable by other means. Full details can be found in the paper Iron distribution through the developmental stages of Medicago truncatula nodules.
In future studies at the APS, Gonzalez-Guerrero hopes to identify and characterize the key biological proteins responsible for iron transportation. That would give researchers targets to manipulate and screen for new legume varieties with increased nitrogen-fixation capabilities and higher nutritional value.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Argonne National Laboratory. The original article was written by Tona Kunz.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Benjam?n Rodr?guez-Haas, Lydia Finney, Stefan Vogt, Pablo Gonz?lez-Melendi, Juan Imperial, Manuel Gonzalez-Guerrero. Iron distribution through the developmental stages of Medicago truncatula nodules. Metallomics, 2013; DOI: 10.1039/C3MT00060E
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Apr. 18, 2013 ? A new study with college roommates shows that a particular style of thinking that makes people vulnerable to depression can actually "rub off" on others, increasing their symptoms of depression six months later.
The research, from psychological scientists Gerald Haeffel and Jennifer Hames of the University of Notre Dame, is published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Studies show that people who respond negatively to stressful life events, interpreting the events as the result of factors they can't change and as a reflection of their own deficiency, are more vulnerable to depression. This "cognitive vulnerability" is such a potent risk factor for depression that it can be used to predict which individuals are likely to experience a depressive episode in the future, even if they've never had a depressive episode before.
Individual differences in this cognitive vulnerability seem to solidify in early adolescence and remain stable throughout adulthood, but Haeffel and Hames predicted that it might still be malleable under certain circumstances.
The researchers hypothesized that cognitive vulnerability might be "contagious" during major life transitions, when our social environments are in flux. They tested their hypothesis using data from 103 randomly assigned roommate pairs, all of whom had just started college as freshmen.
Within one month of arriving on campus, the roommates completed an online questionnaire that included measures of cognitive vulnerability and depressive symptoms. They completed the same measures again 3 months and 6 months later; they also completed a measure of stressful life events at the two time points.
The results revealed that freshmen who were randomly assigned to a roommate with high levels of cognitive vulnerability were likely to "catch" their roommate's cognitive style and develop higher levels of cognitive vulnerability; those assigned to roommates who had low initial levels of cognitive vulnerability experienced decreases in their own levels. The contagion effect was evident at both the 3-month and 6-month assessments.
Most importantly, changes in cognitive vulnerability affected risk for future depressive symptoms: Students who showed an increase in cognitive vulnerability in the first 3 months of college had nearly twice the level of depressive symptoms at 6 months than those who didn't show such an increase.
The findings provide striking evidence for the contagion effect, confirming the researchers' initial hypothesis.
Based on these findings, Haeffel and Hames suggest that the contagion effect might be harnessed to help treat symptoms of depression:
"Our findings suggest that it may be possible to use an individual's social environment as part of the intervention process, either as a supplement to existing cognitive interventions or possibly as a stand-alone intervention," they write. "Surrounding a person with others who exhibit an adaptive cognitive style should help to facilitate cognitive change in therapy."
According to the researchers, the results of this study indicate that it may be time to reconsider how we think about cognitive vulnerability.
"Our study demonstrates that cognitive vulnerability has the potential to wax and wane over time depending on the social context," say Haeffel and Hames. "This means that cognitive vulnerability should be thought of as plastic rather than immutable."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.
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Journal Reference:
G. J. Haeffel, J. L. Hames. Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Can Be Contagious. Clinical Psychological Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1177/2167702613485075
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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.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc's first quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street targets, as the Internet company continued to feel the effects of declining traffic to its Web properties and of falling display advertising sales, sending its shares down more than 4 percent.
Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said the company's plan to reverse the trend and restore the one-time Web powerhouse to its former glory was on track and would start showing results in the second half of the year. But she repeated previous comments that revitalizing Yahoo will be a long-term project measured in years.
"We are committed to growing our core business. First in line with the industry and ultimately surpassing it," said Mayer, a former Google executive who in July became Yahoo's third CEO in a one-year period.
Mayer said the company was making headway luring smartphone users to its services, with more than 300 million monthly mobile users in the first quarter, up from 200 million in the fourth quarter.
And she said that hiring efforts and acquisitions have positioned Yahoo to ramp up its product development and product releases in the coming months.
Yahoo's stock has surged more than 50 percent since Mayer took the helm in July, though analysts say much of the rise is due to stock buybacks and the value of Yahoo's Asian assets.
Evidence of a significant turnaround in Yahoo's business was hard to spot in the company's first-quarter earnings report, however.
Display ad revenue, which accounts for roughly 40 percent of Yahoo's revenue, declined 11 percent on an adjusted basis in the first three months of the year.
"This is a core business that needs significant work," said Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter. "The core takeaway here is more time is going to be needed."
Yahoo shares fell to $22.73 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
Yahoo also projected net revenue for the second quarter of $1.06 billion to $1.09 billion in a presentation posted on its website after its earnings release on Tuesday. That was below the average analyst expectation of $1.11 billion in second quarter net revenue, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
MICROSOFT SEARCH PARTNERSHIP CONTINUES
Yahoo and Microsoft entered into a 10-year search partnership in 2010, hoping their combined efforts could mount a more competitive challenge to Google Inc, the world's No.1 search engine.
Yahoo Finance Chief Ken Goldman said on Tuesday that a revenue guarantee that Microsoft Corp provided Yahoo under the terms of the companies' search partnership ended in March.
The partnership, which still exists, has not lived up to expectation. Yahoo's revenue per search remains below where it was before the deal with Microsoft, though Yahoo's Goldman said on Tuesday that the gap had narrowed in recent months.
Yahoo was once among the Internet industry's most powerful companies, it has lost its appeal among consumers and advertisers to rivals such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc.
Mayer has said that building better online products that entice consumers to spend more time on Yahoo properties, and developing new services for smartphones and other mobile devices, are key to turning the company around.
Yahoo said it earned $390 million, or 35 cents a share in the first three months of the year, compared to $286 million, or 23 cents in first quarter of 2012.
"People were disappointed by the display advertising because that's Yahoo's key business," said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley.
"We were looking for display to be down about 9 percent and they came in at negative 11," said Sinha.
Yahoo's overall net revenue, which excludes fees shared with partner websites, was $1.07 billion in the first quarter, roughly flat from the year-ago period, according to Yahoo.
Yahoo's net revenue was at the low-end of the $1.07 billion to $1.1 billion it forecast in January, in what was the first financial outlook that Yahoo offered since Mayer became CEO. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S on average expected net revenue of $1.1 billion.
(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic with additional reporting by Malathi Nayak; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Apr. 17, 2013 ? A team of astronomers has used the new ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) telescope to pinpoint the locations of over 100 of the most fertile star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. ALMA is so powerful that, in just a few hours, it captured as many observations of these galaxies as have been made by all similar telescopes worldwide over a span of more than a decade.
The most fertile bursts of star birth in the early Universe took place in distant galaxies containing lots of cosmic dust. These galaxies are of key importance to our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution over the history of the Universe, but the dust obscures them and makes them difficult to identify with visible-light telescopes. To pick them out, astronomers must use telescopes that observe light at longer wavelengths, around one millimetre, such as ALMA.
"Astronomers have waited for data like this for over a decade. ALMA is so powerful that it has revolutionised the way that we can observe these galaxies, even though the telescope was not fully completed at the time of the observations," said Jacqueline Hodge (Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie, Germany), lead author of the paper presenting the ALMA observations.
The best map so far of these distant dusty galaxies was made using the ESO-operated Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX). It surveyed a patch of the sky about the size of the full Moon*, and detected 126 such galaxies. But, in the APEX images, each burst of star formation appeared as a relatively fuzzy blob, which may be so broad that it covered more than one galaxy in sharper images made at other wavelengths. Without knowing exactly which of the galaxies are forming the stars, astronomers were hampered in their study of star formation in the early Universe.
Pinpointing the correct galaxies requires sharper observations, and sharper observations require a bigger telescope. While APEX has a single 12-metre-diameter dish-shaped antenna, telescopes such as ALMA use multiple APEX-like dishes spread over wide distances. The signals from all the antennas are combined, and the effect is like that of a single, giant telescope as wide as the whole array of antennas.
The team used ALMA to observe the galaxies from the APEX map during ALMA's first phase of scientific observations, with the telescope still under construction. Using less than a quarter of the final complement of 66 antennas, spread over distances of up to 125 metres, ALMA needed just two minutes per galaxy to pinpoint each one within a tiny region 200 times smaller than the broad APEX blobs, and with three times the sensitivity. ALMA is so much more sensitive than other telescopes of its kind that, in just a few hours, it doubled the total number of such observations ever made.
Not only could the team unambiguously identify which galaxies had regions of active star formation, but in up to half the cases they found that multiple star-forming galaxies had been blended into a single blob in the previous observations. ALMA's sharp vision enabled them to distinguish the separate galaxies.
"We previously thought the brightest of these galaxies were forming stars a thousand times more vigorously than our own galaxy, the Milky Way, putting them at risk of blowing themselves apart. The ALMA images revealed multiple, smaller galaxies forming stars at somewhat more reasonable rates," said Alexander Karim (Durham University, United Kingdom), a member of the team and lead author of a companion paper on this work.
The results form the first statistically reliable catalogue of dusty star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, and provide a vital foundation for further investigations of these galaxies' properties at different wavelengths, without risk of misinterpretation due to the galaxies appearing blended together. Despite ALMA's sharp vision and unrivalled sensitivity, telescopes such as APEX still have a role to play. "APEX can cover a wide area of the sky faster than ALMA, and so it's ideal for discovering these galaxies. Once we know where to look, we can use ALMA to locate them exactly," concluded Ian Smail (Durham University, United Kingdom), co-author of the new paper.
*The observations were made in a region of the sky in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace) called the Chandra Deep Field South. It has been extensively studied already by many telescopes both on the ground and in space. The new observations from ALMA extend the deep and high resolution observations of this region into the millimetre/submillimetre part of the spectrum and complement the earlier observations.
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CRISPR, a system of genes that bacteria use to defend themselves against viruses, has been found to be involved in helping some bacteria evade the mammalian immune system.
The results are scheduled for publication Sunday, April 14 in Nature.
CRISPR is itself a sort of immune system for bacteria. Its function was discovered by dairy industry researchers seeking to prevent phages, the viruses that infect bacteria, from ruining the cultures used to make cheese and yogurt. Bacteria incorporate small bits of DNA from phages into their CRISPR region and use that information to fight off the phages by chewing up their DNA.
Now scientists at the Division of Infectious Diseases of the Emory University School of Medicine and the Emory Vaccine Center have shown that Francisella novicida, a close relative of the bacterium that causes tularemia, and another bacterium that causes meningitis, need parts of the CRISPR system to stay infectious. F. novicida, which grows inside mammalian cells, employs parts of CRISPR to shut off a bacterial gene that would otherwise trigger detection and destruction of the bacteria by its host.
Because disabling CRISPR creates a weakened bacterial strain that is easily recognized by the immune system, the finding could accelerate vaccine development. But it is also a broader reminder that in biology, defensive tools can be co-opted for purposes of stealth.
"CRISPR systems are bacterial defenses, but we've found that bacteria can use them offensively to hide from the host immune system and cause disease," says David Weiss, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at Emory University School of Medicine and Yerkes National Primate Research Center.
The CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) system has attracted recent attention among scientists for its potential uses in genetic engineering and biotechnology, but its roles in gene regulation and evading host immunity have remained relatively unexplored, Weiss says.
Weiss first isolated strains of F. novicida that had defects in their CRISPR systems while working as a postdoc with Denise Monack at Stanford. F. novicida infects rodents and only rarely infects humans. It is a model for studying the more dangerous F. tularensis, a potential biological weapon. Weiss was looking for F. novicida genes that are important for virulence: causing disease in a live animal.
Intriguingly, he found a DNA sequence that has recently been shown to encode a protein of the CRISPR system. What they were doing in F. novicida during infection was a puzzle.
"The mutations have a strong effect in the bacteria," Weiss says. "The wild type will kill mice, while the mutants are eradicated after a couple days. But why would the bacteria need to defend against foreign DNA to cause disease in a mouse? It didn't make sense."
The researchers discovered that the bacteria require one of the CRISPR genes to turn off production of a lipoprotein ? part of the bacterial cell membrane -- when the bacteria infect mammalian cells. For immune cells, lipoprotein is like blood in the water for a shark. A little whiff excites them. So for the bacteria to survive undetected, they have to silence lipoprotein production.
Working with Weiss, graduate student Tim Sampson ? who is first author of the Nature paper -dissected which parts of the CRISPR system were needed to turn off the lipoprotein. The CRISPR system consists of genes encoding several proteins and also incorporates small bits of DNA from phages as "repeats" into the bacterial DNA. RNA produced from the repeats guides an enzyme called Cas9 to slice up the phage DNA.
Sampson and Weiss found that part of the F. novicida CRISPR system makes an RNA that directs Cas9 against the lipoprotein gene. Weiss says the Cas9 regulatory system allows F. novicida to tune down the lipoprotein efficiently at the times when detection could be harmful, while still keeping it around for its function ? still unclear ? when the bacteria are outside the host.
"The finding that Cas9 is regulating a bacterial gene rather than slicing up a phage gene appears to be new, although there were already some hints that CRISPRs had broader functions in other bacteria," Sampson says.
To show that their results were not peculiar to F. novicida, the researchers collaborated with the laboratory of Yih-Ling Tzeng, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at Emory. They generated a strain of Neisseria meningitidis -- a cause of meningitis infections in humans -- with a deletion in Cas9. The mutated strain displayed defects in its ability to adhere to, invade and replicate in human cells. This suggests that similar functions for Cas9 and CRISPR may be found in other bacteria.
"Most of the bacteria that encode Cas9 are either pathogenic, or can commonly be found in the human body," Sampson says. "I think our findings will encourage other scientists to re-examine the functions of Cas9 and CRISPR in other bacteria, to look at interactions with the host."
For example, some Streptococcus bacteria and Listeria have similar CRISPR systems, but any potential function in causing disease in humans has not been revealed. Weiss and Sampson plan to investigate further how Cas9 functions to shut off the lipoprotein gene in F. novicida and how Cas9 becomes activated.
Sampson is a student in Emory's Microbiology and Molecular Genetics graduate program.
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Emory Health Sciences: http://whsc.emory.edu/home/news/index.html
Thanks to Emory Health Sciences for this article.
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An important discovery in breast cancer by IRCM researchersPublic release date: 15-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Julie Langelier julie.langelier@ircm.qc.ca 514-987-5555 Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal
Montreal scientists identify a potential target to reduce the progression of metastases, the main cause of death for breast cancer patients
Montral, April 15, 2013 A team of researchers at the IRCM, led by Dr. Jean-Franois Ct, made an important discovery in breast cancer, which will published online this week by the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The Montral scientists identified the DOCK1 protein as a potential target to reduce the progression of metastases in patients suffering from breast cancer, the most common type of cancer in women.
Dr. Ct's laboratory is interested in metastasis, which is the spread of cancer from an organ (or part of an organ) to another. Nearly 90 per cent of cancer patient deaths are attributable to metastasis, thus explaining the importance of understanding the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of this harmful process.
"Despite important breakthroughs in breast cancer treatment, few mechanisms are known to explain the spread of metastases," says Dr. Ct, Director of the Cytoskeletal Organization and Cell Migration research unit at the IRCM. "We are looking to identify the proteins that regulate the metastatic process so that new agents can be developed and combined with current treatments."
Two major breast cancer subtypes, HER2+ and Basal, have a tendency to be metastatic and recurrent, and are ultimately associated to a poor survival rate. Research at the IRCM was conducted on the HER2+ type (Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2), which represents approximately 25 per cent of breast cancer cases. HER2 positive tumours tend to develop and spread more quickly than other types of tumours.
"By studying a genetic mouse model with HER2+ breast cancer, we identified the protein DOCK1 as an important regulator of metastasis," explains Mlanie Laurin, doctoral student in Dr. Ct's laboratory and first author of the study. "When we eliminated this protein in mice, our results showed a significant decrease in lung metastases. We also discovered that the DOCK1 protein contributes to the growth of tumours."
"To show the correlation between the expression of DOCK1 and breast cancer prognosis, we performed an analysis of several databases of patient genic," adds Dr. Benjamin Haibe-Kains, researcher at the IRCM who collaborated with Dr. Ct's team. "We did indeed discover that high levels of DOCK1 in HER2+ or Basal breast cancer patients are associated with a lower prognosis, or recurrence of the disease."
"Our work defined a new molecule required for the progression of breast cancer to the metastatic stage and allowed us to identify new markers that could become potential targets to stop the progression of metastases," concludes Dr. Ct. "We also showed that a chemical inhibitor of the DOCK1 protein, developed by Dr. Yoshinori Fukui, our collaborator in Japan, can stop the migration of cancerous cells. These results could eventually lead to the development of drugs that would limit the progression of metastatic breast cancer and could thereby improve patient prognosis."
"We are proud to fund this research," comments Melody Enguix, Scientific Communication Advisor at the Canadian Cancer Society. "The findings are another important step toward understanding how we can stop metastases, which are the cause of most breast cancer deaths."
###
About the research project
Several researchers collaborated in this study, including Jean-Franois Ct, Mlanie Laurin, Benjamin Haibe-Kains (Director of the Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics research unit), Jennifer Huber, Ariane Pelletier and Tarek Houalla from the IRCM; Morag Park and William J. Muller from the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre at McGill University; and Yoshinori Fukui from the Medical Institute of Bioregulation at Kyushu University in Japan. Research at the IRCM was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Fonds de recherche du Qubec Sant.
For more information on the published article, entitled Rac-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor DOCK1 is a critical regulator of HER2-mediated breast cancer metastasis, please refer to the PNAS website: http://www.pnas.org/.
Breast cancer statistics
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, breast cancer continues to be the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women, with 22,700 new cases expected in Canada in 2012, which represents approximately one-quarter (26 per cent) of all new cancer cases in women. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death from cancer in Canadian women. In Quebec, an estimated 5,500 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 1,350 will die of breast cancer in 2012.
About Jean-Franois Ct
Jean-Franois Ct obtained a PhD in biochemistry from McGill University. He is Associate IRCM Research Professor and Director of the Cytoskeletal Organization and Cell Migration research unit. Dr. Ct is also associate research professor in the Department of Medicine (accreditation in molecular biology) at the Universit de Montral, and adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine (Division of Experimental Medicine) at McGill University. He is a Research Scholar from the Fonds de recherche du Qubec Sant. For more information, visit http://www.ircm.qc.ca/cote.
About the IRCM
Founded in 1967, the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montral (http://www.ircm.qc.ca) is currently comprised of 35 research units in various fields, namely immunity and viral infections, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cancer, neurobiology and development, systems biology and medicinal chemistry. It also houses three specialized research clinics, eight core facilities and three research platforms with state-of-the-art equipment. The IRCM employs 425 people and is an independent institution affiliated with the Universit de Montral. The IRCM Clinic is associated to the Centre hospitalier de l'Universit de Montral (CHUM). The IRCM also maintains a long-standing association with McGill University. The IRCM is funded, in part, by the Quebec ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology.
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An important discovery in breast cancer by IRCM researchersPublic release date: 15-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Julie Langelier julie.langelier@ircm.qc.ca 514-987-5555 Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal
Montreal scientists identify a potential target to reduce the progression of metastases, the main cause of death for breast cancer patients
Montral, April 15, 2013 A team of researchers at the IRCM, led by Dr. Jean-Franois Ct, made an important discovery in breast cancer, which will published online this week by the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The Montral scientists identified the DOCK1 protein as a potential target to reduce the progression of metastases in patients suffering from breast cancer, the most common type of cancer in women.
Dr. Ct's laboratory is interested in metastasis, which is the spread of cancer from an organ (or part of an organ) to another. Nearly 90 per cent of cancer patient deaths are attributable to metastasis, thus explaining the importance of understanding the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of this harmful process.
"Despite important breakthroughs in breast cancer treatment, few mechanisms are known to explain the spread of metastases," says Dr. Ct, Director of the Cytoskeletal Organization and Cell Migration research unit at the IRCM. "We are looking to identify the proteins that regulate the metastatic process so that new agents can be developed and combined with current treatments."
Two major breast cancer subtypes, HER2+ and Basal, have a tendency to be metastatic and recurrent, and are ultimately associated to a poor survival rate. Research at the IRCM was conducted on the HER2+ type (Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2), which represents approximately 25 per cent of breast cancer cases. HER2 positive tumours tend to develop and spread more quickly than other types of tumours.
"By studying a genetic mouse model with HER2+ breast cancer, we identified the protein DOCK1 as an important regulator of metastasis," explains Mlanie Laurin, doctoral student in Dr. Ct's laboratory and first author of the study. "When we eliminated this protein in mice, our results showed a significant decrease in lung metastases. We also discovered that the DOCK1 protein contributes to the growth of tumours."
"To show the correlation between the expression of DOCK1 and breast cancer prognosis, we performed an analysis of several databases of patient genic," adds Dr. Benjamin Haibe-Kains, researcher at the IRCM who collaborated with Dr. Ct's team. "We did indeed discover that high levels of DOCK1 in HER2+ or Basal breast cancer patients are associated with a lower prognosis, or recurrence of the disease."
"Our work defined a new molecule required for the progression of breast cancer to the metastatic stage and allowed us to identify new markers that could become potential targets to stop the progression of metastases," concludes Dr. Ct. "We also showed that a chemical inhibitor of the DOCK1 protein, developed by Dr. Yoshinori Fukui, our collaborator in Japan, can stop the migration of cancerous cells. These results could eventually lead to the development of drugs that would limit the progression of metastatic breast cancer and could thereby improve patient prognosis."
"We are proud to fund this research," comments Melody Enguix, Scientific Communication Advisor at the Canadian Cancer Society. "The findings are another important step toward understanding how we can stop metastases, which are the cause of most breast cancer deaths."
###
About the research project
Several researchers collaborated in this study, including Jean-Franois Ct, Mlanie Laurin, Benjamin Haibe-Kains (Director of the Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics research unit), Jennifer Huber, Ariane Pelletier and Tarek Houalla from the IRCM; Morag Park and William J. Muller from the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre at McGill University; and Yoshinori Fukui from the Medical Institute of Bioregulation at Kyushu University in Japan. Research at the IRCM was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Fonds de recherche du Qubec Sant.
For more information on the published article, entitled Rac-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor DOCK1 is a critical regulator of HER2-mediated breast cancer metastasis, please refer to the PNAS website: http://www.pnas.org/.
Breast cancer statistics
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, breast cancer continues to be the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women, with 22,700 new cases expected in Canada in 2012, which represents approximately one-quarter (26 per cent) of all new cancer cases in women. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death from cancer in Canadian women. In Quebec, an estimated 5,500 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 1,350 will die of breast cancer in 2012.
About Jean-Franois Ct
Jean-Franois Ct obtained a PhD in biochemistry from McGill University. He is Associate IRCM Research Professor and Director of the Cytoskeletal Organization and Cell Migration research unit. Dr. Ct is also associate research professor in the Department of Medicine (accreditation in molecular biology) at the Universit de Montral, and adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine (Division of Experimental Medicine) at McGill University. He is a Research Scholar from the Fonds de recherche du Qubec Sant. For more information, visit http://www.ircm.qc.ca/cote.
About the IRCM
Founded in 1967, the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montral (http://www.ircm.qc.ca) is currently comprised of 35 research units in various fields, namely immunity and viral infections, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cancer, neurobiology and development, systems biology and medicinal chemistry. It also houses three specialized research clinics, eight core facilities and three research platforms with state-of-the-art equipment. The IRCM employs 425 people and is an independent institution affiliated with the Universit de Montral. The IRCM Clinic is associated to the Centre hospitalier de l'Universit de Montral (CHUM). The IRCM also maintains a long-standing association with McGill University. The IRCM is funded, in part, by the Quebec ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
There are very few platforms that have something that you use on a daily basis, let alone on a minute-by-minute basis. Team communication platform service, Convo, is one of those for us at TechCrunch. Today, the company has released an update for its essential iOS app, which is something that we use here quite often to communicate about everything you can think of. Since using the service, our team has generated more than 100,000 interactions, averaging 1,200 of them a day, with 95 percent of our team present on the platform on those days. Its desktop version is in real time, acting like a threaded IRC chat. The service overall isn’t without its faults, but it’s difficult to build team and enterprise software that can make everyone happy. One of the top complaints that we had was about its iOS app, which was lacking proper iPhone 5 and retina support, along with some general usability issues. Today’s app udpate is all about speed, commenting and a slicker design that will help you get through all of the threaded discussions your team is having since you checked in last. The feed This is the most important part of Convo, especially when you’re on the go. In today’s update, you’re able to scan and refresh the main feed quickly, and when you tap on the comments for any given thread, they slide over from the right. This is a huge improvement from the previous version, which loaded the thread into a new page: That update alone will save time, as you can jump back and forth between threads that you’re participating in and make decisions on whether to get involved in one quicker. Additionally, you’ll be able to “Like” things, which is a passive way of saying that you’ve seen something or agree with something, depending on how your team uses it. Images are also clearer thanks to the retina support and complete overhaul of how they’re displayed. Depending on how you use the service, images could play a huge role in the conversation that you’re having. If it’s about a piece of artwork for your app, seeing images at the highest resolution possible is the only way that you’ll be able to make a decision on whether to use them or feedback that you might have for your designer. Cleanup and sharing In addition to the feed overhaul, Convo has been
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Public release date: 15-Apr-2013
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