Declutter, clean, paint, mow, plant, refinish, replace and renew; all words commonly found in blogs, magazine articles and books advising you how best to prepare your home for a quick sale at top dollar. You can do 99 percent of the right stuff to make your house look stellar, but if you let 1 percent of the wrong stuff slip through the cracks, it may be that one tiny thing that kills a potential offer. Worse yet, negative ?reviews? of your house can be exaggerated and widely spread through your neighborhood and the real estate community, possibly scaring away the perfect buyer.
A Rose by Any Other Name?
What types of things might be on that 1 percent list? One of my employees searching for a small fixer-upper second home in Arizona came across many unthinkable situations in average homes. Smells were a big one ? from dogs, cats and dirt ? but the worst house had a combination of all three along with an eye-stinging smell of urine. They held their noses and couldn?t get outside quickly enough. It was a large house in a good neighborhood, and probably fixable at the right price, but they couldn?t stay in the house long enough to evaluate it, even after making a repeat visit.
Let Sleeping Things Lie
No, please don?t. Just because your teenager likes to sleep until early afternoon, please don?t invite potential buyers into your house until you have done a complete sweep for animals and kids hiding under the covers. It just so happened that my employee and her real estate agent were unpleasantly surprised more than once by occupants stirring from their sleep in a back bedroom.
Lights Out
Another big no-no. Drapes drawn, unlit lamps and light switches in the ?off? position can give the impression that a stakeout is in progress. There is good reason on a hot summer afternoon to have shades drawn and lights low to keep things cool, but if you are trying to sell your house, you need to keep things turned on and opened up in order to highlight the best features of each room. Incandescent lamp lighting is most flattering to the human complexion, so if you truly want buyers to say they can ?see? themselves living there, then help them to see themselves at their best in ?their? home.
Picture via cotedetexas.blogspot.com
Pictures ARE Worth a Thousand Words
Before any buyer even thinks of stepping into your listed house, he or she has seen many pictures of it before asking to see the real thing. Don?t reduce your odds of a showing by displaying unflattering pictures of your fantastic home. You don?t need to hire a professional photographer or buy a fancy new camera just to market your home. Do take clear, well-lit and composed (aka staged or styled) pictures of the best parts of the house.
Leave kids, animals, paper piles, open cupboards, and your bathroom toiletries out of the pictures.?Your house can be beautifully staged, but if the pictures on the real estate websites don?t get your ?customer? in the door, then your staging dollars and efforts will not even get one chance to pay off. Tell your buyers with pictures what you can?t tell them with words.
One Bad Apple ?
Can spoil the whole bunch. Remove the bad apples and polish up the good ones. Homebuyers are savvier than you may think. Even though you have never met them, you are preparing your home to become theirs, and you only get one shot at it. Don?t spoil their first or last impression.
On Saturday, the North Texas man who was one of?the first Americans to receive a full face transplant married another burn patient he met at a support group.
Dallas Wiens, of Fort Worth, was severely injured in a bizarre construction accident in 2008 when he came in contact with a high-voltage power line.
See a gallery of photos of their wedding at NBCDFW.com
Jamie Nash, of Garland, nearly died in a car crash in Ennis in 2010. Her car erupted in flames, and she was trapped. She was severely burned on her hands, back and legs.
The couple?became engaged last fall.
Wiens and Nash exchanged vows Saturday morning at the Fort Worth church where Wiens was working when he was injured.
The couple?celebrated with a reception in downtown Fort Worth. They invited?their doctors and nurses.
Relationship built on hope The couple met in a support group at Parkland Hospital, where both were being treated.
"I was drawn to him. I just had to meet him," Nash said in November. "I just looked at him from across the room, and there was something about him."
See original report at NBCDFW.com
Wiens said he wasn't interested -- at first.
"I had sworn off love and relationships," he said. "I had no desire to be in one whatsoever."
Then, on Christmas Eve, they talked all night and set up a date.
"We went to dinner and a movie, and that's all she wrote," he said.
The two said they have been together every day since.
"I told him it's got to be love, because I'm not sick of you," Nash joked. "I know I've never felt more real than this."
The couple plans to put their pasts behind them.
"There's no reason to dwell on the past," he said.
"It's dead and gone," she added. "It burned in the fire."
They said they make the perfect couple and help balance each other.
Her hands, for example, were severely injured in her accident. His are fine.
She can see. He lost his eyesight in the accident.
"It's a story of hope, a story of true survivors," Nash said. "I mean, if we can do it, I guarantee you, anybody out there -- we all have a story. We're all going through something. And I want to give everybody hope."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? Across North Korea, soldiers are gearing up for battle and shrouding their jeeps and vans with camouflage netting. Newly painted signboards and posters call for "death to the U.S. imperialists" and urge the people to fight with "arms, not words."
But even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is issuing midnight battle cries to his generals to ready their rockets, he and his million-man army know full well that a successful missile strike on U.S. targets would be suicide for the outnumbered, out-powered North Korean regime.
Despite the hastening drumbeat of warfare, none of the key players in the region wants or expects another Korean War ? not even the North Koreans.
But by seemingly bringing the region to the very brink of conflict with threats and provocations, Pyongyang is aiming to draw attention to the tenuousness of the armistice designed to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula, a truce North Korea recently announced it would no longer honor as it warned that war could break out at any time.
It's all part of a plan to force Washington to the negotiating table, pressure the new president in Seoul to change policy on North Korea, and build unity at home ? without triggering a full-blown war if all goes well.
In July, it will be 60 years since North Korea and China signed an armistice with the U.S. and the United Nations to bring an end to three years of fighting that cost millions of lives. The designated Demilitarized Zone has evolved into the most heavily guarded border in the world.
It was never intended to be a permanent border. But six decades later, North and South remain divided, with Pyongyang feeling abandoned by the South Koreans in the quest for reunification and threatened by the Americans.
In that time, South Korea has blossomed from a poor, agrarian nation of peasants into the world's 15th largest economy while North Korea is struggling to find a way out of a Cold War chasm that has left it with a per capita income on par with sub-Saharan Africa.
The Chinese troops who fought alongside the North Koreans have long since left. But 28,500 American troops are still stationed in South Korea and 50,000 more are in nearby Japan. For weeks, the U.S. and South Korea have been showing off their military might with a series of joint exercises that Pyongyang sees a rehearsal for invasion.
On Thursday, the U.S. military confirmed that those drills included two nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers that can unload the U.S. Air Force's largest conventional bomb ? a 30,000-pound super bunker buster ? powerful enough to destroy North Korea's web of underground military tunnels.
It was a flexing of military muscle by Washington, perhaps aimed not only at Pyongyang but at Beijing as well.
In Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un reacted swiftly, calling an emergency meeting of army generals and ordering them to be prepared to strike if the U.S. actions continue. A photo distributed by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency showed Kim in a military operations room with maps detailing a "strike plan" behind him in a very public show of supposedly sensitive military strategy.
North Korea cites the U.S. military threat as a key reason behind its need to build nuclear weapons, and has poured a huge chunk of its small national budget into defense, science and technology. In December, scientists launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket using technology that could easily be converted for missiles; in February, they tested an underground nuclear device as part of a mission to build a bomb they can load on a missile capable of reaching the U.S.
However, what North Korea really wants is legitimacy in the eyes of the U.S. ? and a peace treaty. Pyongyang wants U.S. troops off Korean soil, and the bombs and rockets are more of an expensive, dangerous safety blanket than real firepower. They are the only real playing card North Korea has left, and the bait they hope will bring the Americans to the negotiating table.
Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, isn't convinced North Korea is capable of attacking Guam, Hawaii or the U.S. mainland. He says Pyongyang hasn't successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.
But its medium-range Rodong missiles, with a range of about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers), are "operational and credible" and could reach U.S. bases in Japan, he says.
More likely than such a strike, however, is a smaller-scale incident, perhaps off the Koreas' western coast, that would not provoke the Americans to unleash their considerable firepower. For years, the waters off the west coast have been a battleground for naval skirmishes between the two Koreas because the North has never recognized the maritime border drawn unilaterally by the U.N.
As threatening as Kim's call to arms may sound, its main target audience may be the masses at home in North Korea.
For months, the masterminds of North Korean propaganda have pinpointed this year's milestone Korean War anniversary as a prime time to play up Kim's military credibility as well as to push for a peace treaty. By creating the impression that a U.S. attack is imminent, the regime can foster a sense of national unity and encourage the people to rally around their new leader.
Inside Pyongyang, much of the military rhetoric feels like theatrics. It's not unusual to see people toting rifles in North Korea, where soldiers and checkpoints are a fixture in the heavily militarized society. But more often than not in downtown Pyongyang, the rifle stashed in a rucksack is a prop and the "soldier" is a dancer, one of the many performers rehearsing for a Korean War-themed extravaganza set to debut later this year.
More than 100,000 soldiers, students and ordinary workers were summoned Friday to Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang to pump their fists in support of North Korea's commander in chief. But elsewhere, it was business as usual at restaurants and shops, and farms and factories, where the workers have heard it all before.
"Tensions rise almost every year around the time the U.S.-South Korean drills take place, but as soon as those drills end, things go back to normal and people put those tensions behind them quite quickly," said Sung Hyun-sang, the South Korean president of a clothing maker operating in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. "I think and hope that this time won't be different."
And in a telling sign that even the North Koreans don't expect war, the national airline, Air Koryo, is adding flights to its spring lineup and preparing to host the scores of tourists they expect to flock to Pyongyang despite the threats issuing forth from the Supreme Command.
War or no war, it seems Pyongyang remains open for business.
___
Lee is chief of AP's bureaus in Pyongyang, North Korea, and Seoul, South Korea. She can be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/newsjean. Eric Talmadge in Tokyo contributed to this report.
UPS agrees to $40 million fine to end US probe into deliveries for illegal online pharmacies. UPS also agrees to block further deliveries from suspect pharmacies. FedEx is still under investigation.
By Paul Elias,?Associated Press / March 29, 2013
A UPS truck arrives for a delivery in Miami Springs, Fla. United Parcel Service has agreed to pay a federal fine of $40 million ? what the US Justice Department says it made from delivering drugs from illegal Internet pharmacies.
Alan Diaz/AP/File
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Shipping company?UPS?agreed Friday to pay $40 million to end a federal criminal probe connected to deliveries it made for illicit online pharmacies.
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The U.S. Department of Justice announced that the Atlanta-based company would also "take steps" to block illicit online drug dealers from using their delivery service.
The DOJ said the fine amount is the money?UPS?collected from suspect online pharmacies.?UPS?won't be charged with any crimes.
"We believe we have an obligation and responsibility to help curb the sale and shipment of drugs sold through illegal Internet pharmacies,"?UPS?spokesman Bill Tanner said. "UPS?will pay a $40 million penalty and has agreed to enhance its compliance policies with respect to Internet pharmacy shippers."
Its biggest rival, FedEx Corp., still remains a target in the federal investigation, according to its March 21 quarterly report filed with the Security and Exchange Commission.
"We believe that our employees have acted in good faith at all times," FedEx stated in its regulatory filing. "We do not believe that we have engaged in any illegal activities and will vigorously defend ourselves in any action that may result from the investigation."
FedEx said it received subpoenas from a federal grand jury in San Francisco in 2008 and 2009. The San Francisco U.S. Attorney's office has played a central role in a nationwide crackdown on online pharmacies. Ten people with ties to online pharmacies have been convicted over the last two years.
"It is unclear what federal laws?UPS?may have violated," FedEx said in statement Friday. "We remain confident that we are in compliance with federal law."
The DOJ said some?UPS?employees knew the company was making deliveries between 2003 and 2010 for pharmacies that filled orders for dangerous drugs without proper prescriptions from doctors.
"Despite being on notice that this activity was occurring,?UPS?did not implement procedures to close the shipping accounts of Internet," the DOJ said in a prepared statement.
FedEx said federal investigators have declined to supply it with a list of suspect pharmacies. The company said it "can immediately shut off shipping services to those pharmacies" if given such a list.
A DOJ spokesman declined to comment about the FedEx investigation.
In a prepared statement announcing the?UPS?settlement, Food and Drug Administration criminal chief John Roth said the "FDA is hopeful that the positive actions taken by?UPS?in this case will send a message to other shipping firms to put public health and safety above profits."
Earlier this week, a federal judge in San Francisco sentenced Chris Napoli to four years in prison and ordered to forfeit $24 million his illicit pharmacy Safescripts Online earned between 2004 and 2006. Two other men were sentenced to prison along with Napoli. Receipts from?UPS?and FedEx were used as evidence in the trio's trial last year.
In 2011, Google Inc. agreed to pay $500 million to settle allegations by the Justice Department that it profited from ads for illegal online pharmacies.
"Come See Our New Home on Android," the invitation sent to members of the press on Thursday declared. Does this mean the long-rumored Facebook phone is about to become official? What is the social network's next move? And does it stand a chance?
Facebook is intending to introduce a modified version of Google's Android operating system, according to sourcing from TechCrunch's Josh Constine, the New York Times' Nick Bilton and Brian X. Chen, and the Wall Street Journal's Evelyn M. Rusli and Amir Efrati. This version of Android will put Facebook front and center and "will debut on a handset made by HTC, according to a Facebook employee and another person who were briefed on the announcement," Chen and Bilton explain.
"Imagine Facebook?s integration with iOS 6, but on steroids, and built by Facebook itself," Constine adds. "It could have a heavy reliance on Facebook?s native apps like Messenger, easy social sharing from anywhere on the phone, and more."
?It?s putting Facebook first,? a person familiar with the matter emphasized to Wall Street Journal reporters. But unlike competitors such as Amazon and Google, it is not putting Facebook itself into the hardware game.
"With Amazon, it's pretty clear," mobile industry consultant Chetan Sharma told NBC News. "They want to sell their content and services. They're building their own devices, which is different from what Facebook is doing."
However, the idea of a modified version of Android may be viewed as an act of hostility directed at Facebook's frenemy, Google.
"The reaction from Google will be interesting to see," Sharma pointed out. "There's obviously overlap ... It seems to Google that it's underpinning their Google+ efforts. Longer term, I don't see them letting it go and letting other people do their work."
But even if Google lets Facebook's plans fly, there are other issues to consider, Sharma says. "If it's just a phone that's going to be pushed by HTC, its chances are going to be limited," he explains. "[HTC] doesn't have the marketing powers." To truly stand a shot, Facebook needs to join hands with carriers.
Of course, some might wonder whether any carriers would be game. After all, Facebook's VoIP efforts and its baked-in Messenger service might conflict with carriers' business agendas, right?
Not necessarily so, says Sharma. "In certain markets [VoIP and Messenger] would be challenging," he elaborates. "In markets where unlimited voice and messaging is already bundled in ? in those scenarios operators have less resistance to the idea. They already make money on voice and messaging and they'll also make money on the data used by Facebook."
Initial whispers don't suggest that "Facebook Home," as the social network's device/software combo is expected to be named, is going to be pitched by any carriers, so we'll have to see how things fare with merely HTC. (Of course, that's assuming all these rumors and reports pan out.)
Things will be official on Thursday, April 4, and we'll be in Menlo Park, Calif., to report live.
Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.
MILAN (Reuters) - Fiat's CEO Sergio Marchionne is being investigated in Italy over allegations of violation of labor rights in a long-running dispute at a factory near Naples, the automaker said on Friday.
Fiat, Italy's biggest private sector employer, said Marchionne and another group manager were notified by the public prosecutor of Nola of a preliminary investigation on Friday.
Fiat said the prosecutor's move was "the umpteenth expression of an unprecedented judiciary offensive directed by (trade union) FIOM against Fiat, for more than two years".
The dispute stems from a Rome appeals court ruling last October that Fiat must take back 19 laid-off employees who were members of FIOM and had filed a complaint alleging discrimination.
Fiat, which controls U.S. carmaker Chrysler, has denied several times any wrongdoing.
Back in February, Marchionne said the dispute at the factory had been resolved, taking the heat out of the controversial issue in the country's election campaign.
Politicians and labor leaders criticized Fiat ahead of the February vote for trying to lay off the 19 workers at the factory, in a country mired in recession.
(Reporting By Danilo Masoni; Editing by David Gregorio)
Fantastic long term career opportunity with massive growth potential. Opportunity to develop and lead the team. Being the SEO Lead, you will develop and lead a team of junior seo's and copywriters to ensure positive quantifiable results in Search Engine Rankings, Traffic and Conversions and manage all aspects of SEO for a growing range of clients.
PRINCIPAL DUTIES:
*Develop and maintain SEO strategy and project plans to get good rankings on Google for highly competitive keywords *Evangelize SEO process in projects *Support optimizing site architectures for Internet Marketing *Develop, Maintain, and Implement the SEO strategy with team *Improve indexing and ranking of web pages *Keyword Discovery and Expansion: Research, analyze and pick high traffic and relevant Keywords for our clients online businesses *Research and analyze competitor advertising links Back link strategy and implementation *Directory submissions and revisions *Social Media Submitting web pages and content to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, Squidoo, etc *Collaborate with web, multimedia, or art design staffs to create multimedia web sites that conform to brand and company visual format. *Collect and analyze sales data, using web traffic metrics such as page visits, transaction size, link popularity, click-through rates, and cost-per clicks. *Conduct online marketing initiatives such as paid ad placement, affiliate programs, sponsorship programs, email promotions, and viral marketing campaigns on social media websites. *Optimize web site exposure by analyzing search engine patterns to direct online placement of keywords or other content. *Collaborate with other marketing staff to integrate and complement marketing strategies across multiple sales channels. *Communicate and collaborate with merchants, webmasters, bloggers, or online editors to place sales-oriented hyperlinks in high-traffic locations. *Conduct financial modeling for online marketing programs or website revenue forecasting. *Conduct market research analysis to identify electronic commerce trends, market opportunities, or competitor performance. *Coordinate sales or other promotional strategies with merchandising, operations, or inventory control staff to ensure product catalogs are current and accurate. *Develop transactional web applications, using web programming software and knowledge of programming languages, such as hypertext markup language (HTML) and extensible markup language (XML).
* Blog postings, Link Building, Article submission, Websites directory submission * Knowledge and understanding of current search engine algorithms / methods * Senior SEO expected to produce daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting; assigned analytic projects; and produce independent analysis to help search engine strategy. * Must have led successful SEO projects which resulted in significant growth in traffic and conversions * The successful candidate will have strong analytic capabilities with specific knowledge of online marketing analytics
Special knowledge, licenses, etc Expert knowledge of * SEO * SEM * PPC other Internet marketing strategies
Abilities:
* Review code to check for possible SEO ramifications, checking that there are no errors on pages and those pages meet W3C standards. * Keep up to date on the latest SEO trends and practices. * Create back links, articles, blogs, forums and other Social Media including FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn. * Implement methods such paid adverts, PPC, etc
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Proxy advisor Glass Lewis on Friday became the second firm to suggest that MetroPCS Communications Inc shareholders vote against a proposed merger with T-Mobile USA, adding pressure on Deutsche Telekom AG to sweeten the deal.
The move by No. 2 proxy firm Glass Lewis backs efforts by two key activist investors to block the deal, the day after leading proxy firm ISS said shareholders should vote against the deal with T-Mobile USA, the U.S. business of Deutsche Telekom.
If the deal collapses, it would be a huge blow for Deutsche Telekom after being forced in 2011 to abandon its plan to sell T-Mobile USA to AT&T for $39 billion amid regulator opposition.
The failure of that 2011 plan cost T-Mobile USA some customers as the company focused away from its core business.
T-Mobile USA - the No. 4 mobile provider in the United States - and its smaller rival MetroPCS want to pool their spectrum resources and networks in order to better compete with larger rivals Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel.
But Glass Lewis said the current deal undervalues MetroPCS's contribution to the combined company. Staying independent would help MetroPCS shareholders reap more value in the short term, the proxy firm said in a report.
A 'no' vote by MetroPCS shareholders could also prompt a better offer, Glass Lewis said.
DEAL SCRUTINIZED
According to analysts, the negative reviews from proxy firms could likely force Deutsche Telekom to change the deal terms. That could mean reducing the proposed debt load of the combined company and corporate governance changes.
The proposed debt load of $21 billion is the biggest gripe MetroPCS shareholders have with the deal, according to analysts and investors.
Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst with New Street Research, said shareholders would likely push for less onerous terms on the debt and for governance changes as well as lower debt levels, before they would vote for the deal.
But shareholders could look for governance changes as well.
A MetroPCS spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the board remains committed to the deal and thinks it is in the best interest of stockholders.
MetroPCS declined to say if the recommendations would lead to any changes to the deal. Representatives for Deutsche Telekom did not respond to requests for comment on the Glass Lewis recommendation.
Paulson & Co, the biggest MetroPCS shareholder, and P. Schoenfeld Asset Management, another big shareholder, had both committed to vote against the deal on concerns about the valuation and the amount of debt being assigned to the combined company.
Even so, another major shareholder - Madison Dearborn - had thrown its weight behind the deal. A smaller advisory firm, Egan Jones, had also recommended its clients vote in favor of the transaction.
Under the terms of the reverse-merger announced in October, Deutsche Telekom would end up with a 74 percent stake in the combined company, and MetroPCS would declare a 1-for-2 reverse stock split and pay $1.5 billion in cash to its shareholders.
On top of these issues, the companies are soon expected to face tougher competition from an emboldened Sprint, which has agreed to sell 70 percent of its shares to Japan's SoftBank Corp for $20 billion.
P. Schoenfeld Asset Management LP, which says it owns about 2.5 percent of MetroPCS, is leading a proxy battle against the deal. Paulson & Co has a 9.9 percent stake, and Madison Dearborn owns about 8.3 percent of MetroPCS shares, according to the most recent public disclosures.
MetroPCS shares have slid more than 8 percent since October 1, 2012, the day before reports emerged that MetroPCS and Deutsche Telekom were in talks.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew, additional reporting by Luciana Lopez; editing by G Crosse)
While meal replacement shakes are nothing new, most are meant to be your breakfast, lunch, or dinner?not all three of them. But one man who's been subsisting on an all-liquid diet for the past two months says it can be a healthy plan.
Rob Rhinehart, a 24-year-old software engineer from Atlanta, says he created Soylent not to lose weight but to maximize efficiency in all areas of his life. "It became clear that food was a massive drain on my schedule, finances, and peace of mind," he told SHAPE. "I also love to experiment and was very curious to see what something like this would do to me."
After researching, Rhineheart came up with a list of essential nutrients (click here for the full list of ingredients in Soylent), purchased them all in raw form, and started experimenting until he found a combination that seemed to be just right. The odorless, beige, smoothie-type drink includes almost no food (save for a few tablespoons of olive and fish oils), but Rhinehart is confident that it includes all the nutrients necessary for surivival.
"It's not very exciting; I measure a large panel of powders I keep in my kitchen with a precise scale and standard measuring spoons and cups, and then I add water," Rhinehart says. "There are a lot of ingredients, most you would probably think twice about eating once you see the name?such as riboflavin or panthothenic acid?but they're already used as food additives in many products."
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Rhinehart's been getting regular bloodwork done and wrote in a blog post that he feels like the "six million dollar man." "Over the weeks, I've noticed a massive boost to my focus, stamina, physique, and free time," he says. "The biggest improvement has been sleep, which I always struggled with." Additionally, he says his memory, skin, and teeth have improved, and he's lost weight.
However, because Rhinehart says his previous diet was "probably poor, but on the better end of average for an American," Cynthia Sass, R.D., believes it's possible that many of the positive side effects he feels are simply a result of improved nutrition and have less to do with the shake itself. "He may be feeling great because he's in a better balance nutritionally speaking than he was before," she says.
Soylent has met raised eyebrows and mixed reviews from the healthy living community. Some experts argue that there's nothing basically wrong with what Rhinehart is doing?after all, medical food already exists and has been used to keep patients alive for years?but he?s missing out on the social aspects of food and overall experience.
Sass agrees. "In addition to there being dozens of antioxidants and phytonutrients beyond the ones he's listed, with each one performing a unique function, research also suggests that colors and aroma positively impact satiety," she says.
RELATED: Blueberries and acai aren't the only sources of free-radical fighters. Check out these 12 surprising sources of antioxidants.
Plus, she adds, "For many, experiencing the flavors and textures of food, from the crispness of a fresh apple to the juiciness of a ripe peach, is one of life's greatest pleasures."
Despite the critics, Rhinehart thinks his formula could improve health around the globe. "Health is a huge part of this, and clearly the existing options for being healthy are not suitable for everyone, or else everyone would be healthy, he says. ?Having something that is cheap, convenient, and tasty means more people will choose it. Soylent also alleviates many of the logistics issues around food storage, production, and distribution, so I really think this has potential to help people worldwide who have hunger or malnutrition issues."
Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy (R) and Stephen Breyer on Capitol Hill on March 14, 2013. (Win McNamee/Getty??
Few things were certain after the Supreme Court's first foray into the issue of gay marriage earlier this week?except that conservative-leaning swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy will control the outcome.
The four liberal and the four conservative justices appeared to split right down the middle on how (and whether) to decide the constitutionality of both Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Kennedy?who in the past authored the court's two most important opinions affirming gay rights?seemed to be on the fence in both cases.
The most likely scenario: Kennedy will form a coalition with the liberals to strike down Proposition 8 and DOMA without substantially addressing the plaintiffs' claims that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry and have those marriages treated equally to opposite-sex marriages by the law.
The hope for a "nationwide ruling on same-sex marriage was clearly dashed on Tuesday," said Doug NeJaime, a professor at Loyola Law School.
Gay rights advocates had pinned their hopes on the 76-year-old Sacramento native and Ronald Reagan appointee, based on his striking down of state anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and a Colorado statute that prohibited local governments from passing anti-discrimination laws protecting gay people in Romer v. Evans (1996).
But in both cases, Kennedy appeared unsympathetic to the argument that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marriage. He repeatedly noted that same-sex unions are historically new and that there's not much "sociological" evidence about them and their offspring. He did, however, express sympathy for the children of same-sex couples, saying he believed their voices were "important" and that they were harmed because their parents were not allowed to wed.
Kennedy did seem far more open to striking down both anti-gay marriage laws on procedural grounds. While this would have a much more limited effect than a broader decision, it would still be a victory for the gay rights movement.
In the Proposition 8 case about California's 2008 voter-approved gay marriage ban, Kennedy dropped a bombshell early into oral arguments when he wondered aloud whether the Supreme Court should have ever agreed to hear the case in the first place. (At least four justices must vote to take on a case, which happens privately in the judges' chambers.)
"I just wonder if?if the case was properly granted," Kennedy said to attorney Ted Olson, who was arguing for the ban to be struck down. Kennedy later asked attorney Charles Cooper, who was arguing on behalf of Proposition 8, why the Supreme Court should hear the case at all.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor took up Kennedy's line of argument, asking Cooper why they couldn't let the issue of same-sex marriage "percolate" longer before making such a major decision.
Kennedy appears to be weighing dismissing the case altogether, and Sotomayor's questioning suggests he may be able to get the four liberal justices to join him. If they dismiss the case, the lower-court decision stands allowing gay marriage in California, but no other state would be affected. If that's the route the court goes, it's possible Kennedy would write the opinion without substantially addressing the plaintiffs' claims that they have the same right to marry as people of another sexual orientation.
Interestingly, Kennedy's comments in Wednesday's DOMA oral arguments also suggest he may take a way out that doesn't require him to rule on the substance of whether the law discriminates against gay couples. DOMA defines marriage at the federal level as only between opposite-sex couples, denying federal benefits and obligations to same-sex married couples in the nine states that allow it. Kennedy appeared very intrigued by the argument that DOMA improperly intrudes into the states' domain of marriage, characterizing the law as potentially in "conflict" with states' rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts also pursued this line of questioning, repeatedly asking the attorneys arguing against DOMA if they believed it was a violation of federalism. Neither attorney would take the bait, however, instead sticking with the reasoning that DOMA discriminates against same-sex couples.
"The chief justice got both parties to the case to admit that they don't think there's a federalism issue here," said Chapman University law professor John Eastman. Eastman is the chairman of the anti-gay marriage group the National Organization for Marriage. "I don't know whether that persuaded Justice Kennedy that he was going down the wrong line."
NeJaime said it's possible Kennedy could write an opinion striking down DOMA on federalist grounds, while the four liberal justices joined in a concurring opinion that struck it down as discriminatory. (If Kennedy sides with the liberals, he could assign the opinion to himself because he is the most senior justice of that group.) If so, Kennedy's decision could say nothing substantial about gay rights, merely sticking to the argument that it's an overreach of federal power.
"You could end up with two decisions from Kennedy that basically allow same-sex marriage in some ways but do nothing on the substance," NeJaime said.
Renault UK allowed two unsuspecting people to test drive its new Clio model with a fake car sales person.
When the drivers stopped at an intersection, they were asked to they try the "va va voom" button on the car's dash.
Upon doing so, they were immediately transported to Paris in the form of an impromptu piece of street theater ? via a kissing couple, an Eiffel Tower backdrop, baguette and rose vendors, and then dancing girls and guys.
The two ads ? one featuring dancing women in lingerie, the other topless men ??embraces the trend of immersive "experiential" ads that plunge everyday consumers into strange situations, which are filmed for YouTube. Belgian agency Duval Guillaume popularized the trend when it released a video last year for TNT, in which people in a random European square were bombarded by biker gangs, gun fights, and other dramatic scenarios after pushing a red button. The TNT spot now has more than 44 million views.
The Renault ad incorporates not only the button pushing, but another ingredient of a recently successful experiential ad: a test drive gone wrong.
Pepsi's most successful social video ever, released earlier this month, had race car driver Jeff Gordon dress up and take a used car salesman on a high octane, terrifying test drive. (It also turned out to be completely fake, but that didn't stop it from becoming a viral success.)
Renault's carefully planned ad was created by Manning Gottlieb OMB and Unruly's Social Video Lab. Unruly is a social company that tracks online videos that go viral and breaks down the causes of its success.
This is Unruly's first time working with a company on making an ad that it thinks will go viral.
One significant difference between Renault's campaign is that both TNT and Pepsi only had one video meant to appeal to both sexes. Renault broke its campaign into two videos: one aimed at mainly at guys (featuring women in lingerie) and the other mostly at women (starring a batch of shirtless dudes). Will this decrease or increase the overall sharing?
How about some family card games to keep parents and children entertained? Woozles has some new card games in stock, and some familiar items back on the shelves.
Back in stock are Rat-A-Tat-Tat, Sleeping Queens, UNO, and Crazy Mates.
New on the shelves are:
There?s a Moose in the House In this silly matching game, the goal is to keep the moose out of your house while passing the moose cards to your opponents instead. Use a door to close off empty rooms, maybe plant a moose trap to keep the mooses (?!) away. The player with the fewest moose wins. An Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Toy Platinum Award Winner. Ages 8 and up. For 2-5 players.
Horse Show Which horse will take home the blue ribbon? Pick the best horse cards from your stable and enter the show. Each event favours some horses and penalizes others. There are special assit cards like custom saddles and braiding kits that earn you extra points. The most blue ribbon cards wins! A Dr. Toy Best Vacation winner. Ages 8 and up. For 2-4 players.
Hike A new card game where nature springs surprises and players battle for survival in the outdoors. Go on a trek, get lost on a trail, ride out avalanches and always remember to watch out for ? poop. No littering allowed. PLay a card in each hand and the win a hand with the fewest leftover cards. A Dr. Toy Best Vacation winner. Ages 7 and up. For 3-8 players.
Wizard This is a game of trump, where you score points if you predict exactly how many tricks you will will bid and take. Winning too many or too few means losing points. Each round adds more cards and more excitement as you try to beat your opponents! Ages 10 and up. For 3-6 players.
Dutch Blitz Dutch Blitz is a highly interactive, highly energetic, family-friendly card game that will test your skills, smarts and speed. A player?s goal is to be the first to empty his/her Blitz pile and yell ?Blitz? to win the game. Speed is essential in winning since everyone plays at the same time! Ages 8 and up. For 2-4 players.
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We see this in all the creative professions. Writers complain about writer?s block. Artists run out of creative ideas. Businesses become stale and stagnate. Why is it so hard to stay creative, to keep making progress on your recovery and what can you do about those out of gas episodes.
As a counselor I see a similar phenomenon. The client who is making lots of progress and then suddenly after one particularly great session they return and this subsequent session seems to go nowhere. What happened to the resolve to change?
We have different words to use to describe these occurrences but the common thread is that after a period of successful activity there is a period of needing to rest, relax and recharge your batteries. One thing we learn in mindfulness is that you can?t fix a car when it is being driven at 65. The creative mind needs some time of rest if the creativity is going to keep coming.
Sometimes when we open up and reveal the true us, in counseling or in relationships, we fear we have gone too far in changing, gotten ahead of where we are comfortable and we need to pull back and reevaluate.
The client who has breakthroughs, who achieves insight, sometimes feels they have overdone, over shared and the next time they are in the office they retreat to a safer, less involved place. The challenge is to not let this pull back, this need to recharge, become an end to our efforts to make things better.
How if you are making significant progress on an issue do you sustain that effort? What keeps this uncomfortable place from becoming a place of permanently stuck.
How does the creative person recharge their batteries and pick up the process without long periods of being unproductive. Most writers have had episodes of writers block but if those episodes last too long then you stop being a writer. The writer writes, the creative business person conducts business and the parent needs to keep on parenting even when they run out of answers.?
One reason that your productivity declines after a period of accomplishment is that your interest in the project or the field has decreased. We see this in college majors frequently. The first year and into the second the student wants to learn all they can. By the last year they just want to get done and get a job. Somewhere along the way, for many of us, the passion ends long before the relationship.
A novelist starts out wanting to tell the story. Part way through the story the essential ingredients are all down on paper, the plot the characters and so on. From then and there the author knows how the characters will respond to events, the outcome becomes more predictable. The writer?s problem is to maintain the level of interest in what will happen and in telling his characters stories that he had at the beginning.
This same phenomenon happens to businesses. They grow and expand in the early stages and then the owners having put in all that effort begin to lose interest, the fire of desire has gone out and the new innovative ideas stop flowing. Recharging brains helps but relighting the fires of interest is what is really needed.
We know that good relationships, romantic, parental or relationships with self, do not just happen. To keep that relationship alive you need to invest some time and effort in maintaining those relationships.
What we all need to learn to do is to spend some time maintaining that one relationship that will last a life time, our relationship with ourselves.
What have you done recently to put the fun back in to your life? How will you choose to take care of yourself? What specific actions will you take to maintain your relationship with your partner and with your children? How will you find ways to make that job you do, that career or business you own, fun again.
To put that creative spark back in all you do you first need to put the excitement back into what you are doing and how that will get done.?
For more about David Joel Miller and my work in the areas of mental health, substance abuse and Co-occurring disorders see the about the author page. For information about my other writing work beyond this blog there is also a Facebook authors page, up under David Joel Miller. Posts to the ?books, trainings and classes? category will tell you about those activities. If you are in the Fresno California area, information about my private practice is at counselorfresno.com.?
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Incoming college freshmen could end up paying $5,000 more for the same student loans their older siblings have if Congress doesn't stop interest rates from doubling.
Sound familiar? The same warnings came last year. But now the presidential election is over and mandatory budget cuts are taking place, making a deal to avert a doubling of interest rates much more elusive before a July 1 deadline.
"What is definitely clear, this time around, there doesn't seem to be as much outcry," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "We're advising our members to tell students that the interest rates are going to double on new student loans, to 6.8 percent."
That rate hike only hits students taking out new subsidized loans. Students with outstanding subsidized loans are not expected to see their loan rates increase unless they take out a new subsidized Stafford loan. Students' non-subsidized loans are not expected to change, nor are loans taken from commercial lenders.
The difference between 3.4 percent and 6.8 percent interest rates is a $6 billion tab for taxpayers ? set against a backdrop of budget negotiations that have pitted the two parties in a standoff. President Barack Obama is expected to release his budget proposal in the coming weeks, adding another perspective to the debate.
Last year, with the presidential and congressional elections looming, students got a one-year reprieve on the doubling of interest rates. That expires July 1.
Neither party's budget proposal in Congress has money specifically set aside to keep student loans at their current rate. House Republicans' budget would double the interest rates on newly issued subsidized loans to help balance the federal budget in a decade. Senate Democrats say they want to keep the interest rates at their current levels but the budget they passed last week does not set aside money to keep the rates low.
In any event, neither side is likely to get what it wants. And that could lead to confusion for students as they receive their college admission letters and financial aid packages.
House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, down to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.
Some two-thirds of students are graduating with loans exceeding $25,000; one in 10 borrowers owes more than $54,000 in loans. And student loan debt now tops $1 trillion. For those students, the rates make significant differences in how much they have to pay back each month.
For some, the rates seem arbitrary and have little to do with interest rates available for other purchases such as homes or cars.
"Burdening students with 6.8 percent loans when interest rates in the economy are at historic lows makes no sense," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit organization.
Both House Education Committee Chairman John Kline of Minnesota and his Democratic counterpart, Rep. George Miller of California, prefer to keep rates at their current levels but have not outlined how they might accomplish that goal.
Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat, last week introduced a proposal that would permanently cap the interest rate at 3.4 percent.
Senate Democrats say their budget proposal would permanently keep the student rates low. But their budget document doesn't explicitly cover the $6 billion annual cost. Instead, its committee report included a window for the Senate Health Education and Pension Committee to pass a student loan rate fix down the road.
But so far, the money isn't there. And if the committee wants to keep the rates where they are, they will have to find a way to pay for them, either through cuts to programs in the budget or by adding new taxes.
"Spending is measured in numbers, not words," said Jason Delisle, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee and now director of the New America Foundation's Federal Budget Project. "The Murray budget does not include funding for any changes to student loans."
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the almost $113 billion in new student loans the government made this year, more than $38 billion will be lost to defaults, even after Washington collects what it can through wage garnishments.
The net cost to taxpayers after most students pay back their loans with interest is $5.7 billion. If the rate increases, Washington will be collecting more interest from new students' loans.
But those who lobbied lawmakers a year ago said they were pessimistic before Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney both came out in support of keeping the rates low.
"We were at this point and we knew this issue was looming. But it wasn't anything we had any real traction with," said Tobin Van Ostern, deputy director of Campus Progress at the liberal Center for American Progress. "At this point, I didn't think we'd prevent them from doubling."
This time, he's looking at the July 1 deadline with the same concern.
"Having a deadline does help. It's much easier to deal with one specific date," Van Ostern said. "But if Congress can't come together ... interest rates are going to double. There tends to be a tendency for inaction."
eBay's latest initiative is a little different from its more recent efforts that have focused mostly on re-branding and expanding the reach of PayPal. Sell it Forward encourages users to sell their used clothes and donate half the proceeds to Goodwill. The pilot program is currently only available in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin, though the company is going out of its way to make the process as painless as possible for those in eligible areas. Instead of creating listings for each item, wannabe auctioneers need only fill the pre-paid mailing bag (provided by eBay) with the clothes and accessories they wish to sell. Everything else will be taken care of for them. Employees will decide if your wares are in decent enough condition to sell, create a listing and, if the item is sold within 14 days, split the proceeds between the "seller" and Goodwill. If the item remains unsold for 14 days it becomes a straight donation to the charity. If you're in one of the trial areas and want to give Sell it Forward a go yourself, hit up the source link.
It's just like being Tony Stark! Minus the women, money, genius, and booze.
You might have heard about the new free to play Iron Man 3 on-rails shooter coming soon to Android. We caught up with the Gameloft folks here at GDC 2013 to have a go, and it looks fantastic. Players have to tap, swipe, and tilt to avoid obstacles and blow up bad guys.
Along the way, players collect tokens which can be spent on buying bitchin' new Iron Man suits and consumable power-ups. Even though it largely follows the simple endless runner formula, the awesome graphics and wealth of unlockables guarantees you'll be playing this one for awhile to come.
Keep an eye out for this one in Google Play on April 25. Anyone itching to catch the new movie?
GENEVA (Reuters) - Addax & Oryx Group (AOG), chaired by billionaire Jean Claude Gandur, plans to list its oil exploration subsidiary Oryx Petroleum in Canada, the firm said on its website.
Oil industry veteran Gandur was catapulted onto the Forbes rich list in 2009 when he sold Addax Petroleum to Sinopec three years after its IPO.
"AOG's upstream division, Oryx Petroleum, has filed a preliminary prospectus with the securities authorities in Canada, as the first step in the process of preparing for an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock exchange," the company said on its website on March 15.
It did not give further details of the IPO timing.
Like Addax, Oryx has a focus on the Middle East and West Africa, with interests in the Kurdish and Wasit regions of Iraq, Nigeria, Republic of Congo and the offshore AGC block between Senegal and Guinea Bissau.
"When we sold in 2009 we had long chats with the board about what to do," AOG's chairman billionaire Jean Claude Gandur told Reuters in an interview last month, before the decision to list Oryx Petroleum.
"I said I would like to give a last chance to rebuild a second Addax Petroleum - I love upstream, I have a lot of knowledge and I know a lot of actors in the sector and I would like to rebuild a new Addax Petroleum and that's the one we call Oryx Petroleum today."
The latest IPO figures suggest that Oryx might have picked a good moment to tap the market.
This year's stock market rebound and easing concerns about the world economy mean that more companies are lining up to list, with U.S. IPO volumes up 65 percent so far this quarter.
But Oryx has yet to earn a dollar of revenues or find its first barrel of oil. Gandur is preparing a Toronto initial public offering, underwritten by RBC Dominion Securities, Barclays Capital and Merrill Lynch, to fund exploration until mid-2014.
Addax was also floated in Toronto, in early 2006, and was taken over by the Chinese state-controlled oil giant in late 2009 for an enterprise value of about C$10 billion ($9.84 billion).
Addax and Oryx Group Ltd, majority-owned by a trust created by Gandur and named after two breeds of African antelope, has so far invested about $700 million in Oryx Petroleum.
But Oryx had only about $308 million in cash in January, according to a preliminary prospectus for the IPO, while it plans to spend $325 million on exploration in 2013 alone.
The firm bought control of the Hawler field in Kurdistan in 2012 from AAR Advisory Services, the group of Russian billionaires who sold half of TNK-BP to Rosneft for $28 billion last December.
The field had a shareholder loan from AAR valued at $377.9 million at Aug 9, 2011, but Oryx Petroleum will come to the market with no debt, according to the preliminary prospectus.
AOG also has investments ranging from energy to real estate, as well as a downstream oil business, Oryx Energies, which Gandur has said will invest $400 million over the next four to five years in Africa.
(Reporting by Tom Miles and Emma Farge; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Researchers discover primary role of the olivocochlear efferent systemPublic release date: 27-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Leach Mary_Leach@meei.harvard.edu Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Light shed on the natural mechanism that protects ears from hearing loss
New research from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology may have discovered a key piece in the puzzle of how hearing works by identifying the role of the olivocochlear efferent system in protecting ears from hearing loss. The findings could eventually lead to screening tests to determine who is most susceptible to hearing loss. Their paper is published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Until recently, it was common knowledge that exposure to a noisy environment (concert, iPod, mechanical tools, firearm, etc.), could lead to permanent or temporary hearing loss. Most audiologists would assess the damage caused by this type of exposure by measuring hearing thresholds, the lowest level at which one starts to detect/sense a sound at a particular frequency (pitch). Drs. Sharon Kujawa and Charles Liberman, both researchers at Mass. Eye and Ear, showed in 2009 that noise exposures leading to a temporary hearing loss in mice (when hearing thresholds return to what they were before exposure) in fact can be associated with cochlear neuropathy, a situation in which, despite having a normal threshold, a portion of auditory nerve fibers is missing).
The inner ear, the organ that converts sounds into messages that will be conveyed to and decoded by the brain, receives in turn fibers from the central nervous system. Those fibers are known as the olivocochlear efferent system. Up to now, the involvement of this efferent system in the protection from acoustic injury although clearly demonstrated has been a matter of debate because all the previous experiments were probing its protective effects following noise exposures very unlikely to be found in nature.
Stephane Maison, Ph.D., investigator at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratory at Mass. Eye and Ear and lead author, explains. "Humans are currently exposed to the type of noise used in those experiments but it's hard to conceive that some vertebrates, thousands of years ago, were submitted to stimuli similar to those delivered by speakers. So many researchers believed that the protective effects of the efferent system were an epiphenomenon not its true function."
Instead of using loud noise exposures evoking a change in hearing threshold, we used a moderate noise exposure at a level similar to those found in restaurants, conferences, malls, and also in nature (some frogs emit vocalizations at similar or higher levels) and instead of looking at thresholds, we looked for signs of cochlear neuropathy, Dr. Maison continued.
The researchers demonstrated that such moderate exposure lead to cochlear neuropathy (loss of auditory nerve fibers), which causes difficulty to hear in noisy environments.
"This is tremendously important because all of us are submitted to such acoustic environments and it takes a lot of auditory nerve fiber loss before it gets to be detected by simply measuring thresholds as it's done when preforming an audiogram," Dr. Maison said. "The second important discovery is that, in mice where the efferent system has been surgically removed, cochlear neuropathy is tremendously exacerbated. That second piece proves that the efferent system does play a very important role in protecting the ear from cochlear neuropathy and we may have found its main function."
The researchers say they are excited about this discovery because the strength of the efferent system can be recorded non-invasively in humans and a non-invasive assay to record the efferent system strength has already been developed and shows that one is able to predict vulnerability to acoustic injury (Maison and Liberman, Predicting vulnerability to acoustic injury with a noninvasive assay of olivocochlear reflex strength, Journal of Neuroscience, 20:4701-4707, 2000).
"One could envision applying this assay or a modified version of it to human populations to screen for individuals most at risk in noise environments," Dr. Maison concluded.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication disorders (Grants RO1 DC 0188 and P30 DC 05209).
A full list of authors and affiliations and full acknowledgement of all contributors is available in the pdf of the paper, "Efferent Feedback Minimizes Cochlear Neuropathy from Moderate Noise Exposure."
About Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute in 2011, Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is home to the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, the largest collection of basic hearing laboratories. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.
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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.
Researchers discover primary role of the olivocochlear efferent systemPublic release date: 27-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Leach Mary_Leach@meei.harvard.edu Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Light shed on the natural mechanism that protects ears from hearing loss
New research from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology may have discovered a key piece in the puzzle of how hearing works by identifying the role of the olivocochlear efferent system in protecting ears from hearing loss. The findings could eventually lead to screening tests to determine who is most susceptible to hearing loss. Their paper is published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Until recently, it was common knowledge that exposure to a noisy environment (concert, iPod, mechanical tools, firearm, etc.), could lead to permanent or temporary hearing loss. Most audiologists would assess the damage caused by this type of exposure by measuring hearing thresholds, the lowest level at which one starts to detect/sense a sound at a particular frequency (pitch). Drs. Sharon Kujawa and Charles Liberman, both researchers at Mass. Eye and Ear, showed in 2009 that noise exposures leading to a temporary hearing loss in mice (when hearing thresholds return to what they were before exposure) in fact can be associated with cochlear neuropathy, a situation in which, despite having a normal threshold, a portion of auditory nerve fibers is missing).
The inner ear, the organ that converts sounds into messages that will be conveyed to and decoded by the brain, receives in turn fibers from the central nervous system. Those fibers are known as the olivocochlear efferent system. Up to now, the involvement of this efferent system in the protection from acoustic injury although clearly demonstrated has been a matter of debate because all the previous experiments were probing its protective effects following noise exposures very unlikely to be found in nature.
Stephane Maison, Ph.D., investigator at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratory at Mass. Eye and Ear and lead author, explains. "Humans are currently exposed to the type of noise used in those experiments but it's hard to conceive that some vertebrates, thousands of years ago, were submitted to stimuli similar to those delivered by speakers. So many researchers believed that the protective effects of the efferent system were an epiphenomenon not its true function."
Instead of using loud noise exposures evoking a change in hearing threshold, we used a moderate noise exposure at a level similar to those found in restaurants, conferences, malls, and also in nature (some frogs emit vocalizations at similar or higher levels) and instead of looking at thresholds, we looked for signs of cochlear neuropathy, Dr. Maison continued.
The researchers demonstrated that such moderate exposure lead to cochlear neuropathy (loss of auditory nerve fibers), which causes difficulty to hear in noisy environments.
"This is tremendously important because all of us are submitted to such acoustic environments and it takes a lot of auditory nerve fiber loss before it gets to be detected by simply measuring thresholds as it's done when preforming an audiogram," Dr. Maison said. "The second important discovery is that, in mice where the efferent system has been surgically removed, cochlear neuropathy is tremendously exacerbated. That second piece proves that the efferent system does play a very important role in protecting the ear from cochlear neuropathy and we may have found its main function."
The researchers say they are excited about this discovery because the strength of the efferent system can be recorded non-invasively in humans and a non-invasive assay to record the efferent system strength has already been developed and shows that one is able to predict vulnerability to acoustic injury (Maison and Liberman, Predicting vulnerability to acoustic injury with a noninvasive assay of olivocochlear reflex strength, Journal of Neuroscience, 20:4701-4707, 2000).
"One could envision applying this assay or a modified version of it to human populations to screen for individuals most at risk in noise environments," Dr. Maison concluded.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication disorders (Grants RO1 DC 0188 and P30 DC 05209).
A full list of authors and affiliations and full acknowledgement of all contributors is available in the pdf of the paper, "Efferent Feedback Minimizes Cochlear Neuropathy from Moderate Noise Exposure."
About Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute in 2011, Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is home to the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, the largest collection of basic hearing laboratories. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.
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?
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.
What types of things might be on that 1 percent list? One of my employees searching for a small fixer-upper second home in Arizona came across many unthinkable situations in average homes. Smells were a big one ? from dogs, cats and dirt ? but the worst house had a combination of all three along with an eye-stinging smell of urine. They held their noses and couldn?t get outside quickly enough. It was a large house in a good neighborhood, and probably fixable at the right price, but they couldn?t stay in the house long enough to evaluate it, even after making a repeat visit.
Picture via cotedetexas.blogspot.com 
Before any buyer even thinks of stepping into your listed house, he or she has seen many pictures of it before asking to see the real thing. Don?t reduce your odds of a showing by displaying unflattering pictures of your fantastic home. You don?t need to hire a professional photographer or buy a fancy new camera just to market your home. Do take clear, well-lit and composed (aka staged or styled) pictures of the best parts of the house.
There?s a Moose in the House
Horse Show
Hike
Wizard
Dutch Blitz
We see this in all the creative professions. Writers complain about writer?s block. Artists run out of creative ideas. Businesses become stale and stagnate. Why is it so hard to stay creative, to keep making progress on your recovery and what can you do about those out of gas episodes.
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Public release date: 27-Mar-2013
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