Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit


Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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Newtown Inspires Country to Spread Kindness













While the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School have no doubt left the nation shaken, they have also inspired an outpouring of acts of kindness from across the nation and around the world.


The central hub of many of these is on display in the U.S. Post Office in Newtown, Conn., a community shaken by the killing of 20 children and six school staff members by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who also killed his mother and shot himself.


Mountains of mail and packages are flowing in from all over the world. Some are simply addressed to "Newtown" or specific families who lost people in the shootings. They're coming with return addresses ranging from Idaho to Virginia Beach and far beyond.


"I think I saw Brazil, Australia, (one addressed to) 'Anybody in Newtown who needs a hug.' It is just amazing," said a postal employee in Newtown.


In the town hall, donated toys are piling up just in time for Christmas.


Kindness is even flowing from victims of other tragedies like Hurricane Sandy, who sent hundreds of teddy bears to hand out to children in the community.


"We've had so much help, we wanted to pay it forward and try to help somebody else," one woman said.


Now, Newtown is hoping people everywhere "pay it forward" in their own communities, with the memory of those lost in the shootings serving as inspiration.


It's a concept that seems to be spreading across America.








Gun Violence Victims, Survivors Share Thoughts After Newtown Massacre Watch Video











Newtown Shooting: Moment of Silence in Connecticut Watch Video





In Michigan, a secret Santa of sorts paid off everyone's layaway items at a store there.


Reports are streaming in on Twitter from around the nation of others receiving coffees or meals paid for anonymously by others.


In New Jersey, Kristen Albright told ABC News she found an anonymous card in her shopping cart at Target, where she had gone to buy ingredients for holiday cookies.


She looked down, and found a gift card to Target inserted into a greeting card that asked her to pay it forward to others, in honor of Newtown shooting victim Catherine Hubbard.


"It really made me stop. I was frozen. It made me think about that little girl," Albright said.


Inspired, she did what the card asked, and gave it to a bank teller at the other end of a deposit she was making. Albright says her 11-year-old son Jackson has begun randomly giving now too.


"It really made me think of the bigger picture and family and friends, and extending that kindness to strangers as well," Albright said.


Stacey Jones of Surprise, Arizona wrote ABC to say she too has been inspired.


"I went to Target, purchased two gift cards, put them in seperate envelopes along with the message and handed them to strangers as I exited the store and entered the parking lot," Jones said. :It really felt good to do a small kind deed for someone."


Nicole Reyes of Boston had never heard of the growing movement of kindness when she found a ziplock bag tucked underneath her windshield on her way to work this morning. Inside, she found a Christmas lollipop with a note on a Christmas card that said it was, "In memory of Emily Parker, 6." And urged her to "Pay it forward!"


"I took a minute to remind myself of how amazing it is that a community, and entire nation can come together in the wake of such tragedy," Reyes said. "I ran into my house to show my mother the note. After reading it she immediately started crying. It was a special moment for her and I."


If you would like to share other stories related to this or anything else you can do so by tweeting this correspondent @greenblattmark.



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History of gun control is cautionary tale for those seeking regulations after Conn. shooting



Hours earlier, in the afternoon, a deranged man armed with semiautomatic weapons had gone on a rampage, slaughtering eight people at an office building in downtown San Francisco. The gunman’s motive would remain forever a mystery. Among the slain: Steve’s wife, 30-year-old Jody Jones Sposato, the mother of his 10-month-old daughter, Meghan.


His anguished letter to the president asked how it was possible for someone to possess rapid-fire weapons with 30-round magazines, seemingly designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. “Now I’m left to raise my 10-month-old daughter on my own,” he told the president. “How do I find the strength to carry on?”

That letter reached President Bill Clinton. The next year, Sposato stood by Clinton’s side in the Rose Garden as the president demanded that Congress pass a ban on assault weapons, such as the TEC-9s used to kill Sposato’s wife. Sposato testified on the Hill wearing little Meghan on his back in a baby carrier.

With some moderate Republicans joining the Democratic majority, both houses of Congress passed a 10-year ban on the sale of assault weapons and large ammunition magazines. An attempt to extend the ban in 2004 died in Congress amid opposition from the gun lobby.

Now gun control has roared back into the national conversation as the country reels from the horror in Newtown, Conn. President Obama and his fellow Democrats are vowing to pass a new assault weapons ban, along with other new laws to strengthen background checks on gun purchasers and limit the size of ammunition magazines.

But although Newtown has supercharged the conversation on how to stop another massacre, the history of gun control is a cautionary tale for those who push for more regulations. If past is prologue, the legislative fights ahead will be protracted and brutal — and any resulting legislation may well be riddled with loopholes.



There is no uncontested ground here. Few issues in the country are as polarized as gun control.

The ideological chasm was on full display in Washington on Friday when the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, held a take-no-prisoners news conference in which he called for a federal program to put armed guards in every school in the country, saying, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

He said laws making schools gun-free zones have backfired: “They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.” LaPierre’s remarks were twice interrupted by protesters; one held a sign saying, “NRA Killing Our Kids.”

The news conference provided a reminder that gun policy is a central feature of what is loosely known as the culture wars. The gun-control and gun-rights camps don’t even speak the same language, with one side arguing that the Second Amendment can’t possibly mean the right to own an assault weapon, while the other side says “assault weapon” is a pejorative invented by an urban elite that wouldn’t know an AR-15 from an AK-47.

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Norovirus kills six in Japanese hospital






TOKYO: The norovirus has killed six elderly people in a rural Japanese hospital and infected dozens of other patients and staff, officials said on Sunday.

The winter bug, which causes vomiting and diarrhoea, has killed six patients in their 70s and 80s since December 12, the officials from the Shunko-kai Higashi Hospital in southern Miyazaki prefecture said.

Another 24 patients and 14 staff are also infected, with five of the patients in a serious condition.

The hospital officials apologised and said the outbreak could have been caused by a caregiver who used a disposable apron throughout the day rather than replacing it after caring for each patient.

- AFP/xq



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Narendra Modi's development claim 'phoney': Markandey Katju

BHOPAL: Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju on Sunday hit out at Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi describing as " phoney" his claims of development in the state and saying its malnutrition rate was worse than Somalia.

Katju said Modi had made tall claims about development in Gujarat but pointed out that the living standards of the common people was still "abysmal".

Citing figures, he told reporters that Gujarat's malnutrition rate was higher than that of poor countries like Somalia in Africa.

Katju said the development claim in Gujarat was "phoney", since it had not helped the common man in any way.

The time may come when the people of the state would themselves realise that the development about which Modi boasts a lot was of no use to them, he said.

He also touched upon the the 2002 post-Godhra riots. "There is no way in which the blot on Modi's name due to the 2002 Gujarat communal riots can be wiped out," Katju said.

Asked what he thought of Modi's third successive win in assembly elections, he said that everyone knows how polls are fought and won these days in the country.

He said that in sharp contrast, there was no blot on another BJP-ruled state Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's name.

Katju said that he met Chouhan two days ago and invited him to attend an 'mushaira' (Urdu poetry meet) and the chief minister promised that he would come for only 15 minutes.

Katju said that when Chouhan came, he extended his stay to 50 minutes and appreciated Urdu poetry.

"I found Chouhan to be a polite and humble person," Katju said.

He said Chouhan also promised to do all that he can for the development of Urdu in Madhya Pradesh.

Read More..

Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit


Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

Read More..

Obama, Congress Waving Bye-Bye Lower Taxes?













The first family arrived in the president's idyllic home state of Hawaii early today to celebrate the holidays, but President Obama, who along with Michelle will pay tribute Sunday to the late Sen. Daniel Inouye at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, could be returning home to Washington sooner than he expected.


That's because the President didn't get his Christmas wish: a deal with Congress on the looming fiscal cliff.


Members of Congress streamed out of the Capitol Friday night with no agreement to avert the fiscal cliff -- a massive package of mandatory tax increases and federal spending cuts triggered if no deal is worked out to cut the deficit. Congress is expected to be back in session by Thursday.


It's unclear when President Obama may return from Hawaii. His limited vacation time will not be without updates on continuing talks. Staff members for both sides are expected to exchange emails and phone calls over the next couple of days.


Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner is home in Ohio. He recorded the weekly GOP address before leaving Washington, stressing the president's role in the failure to reach an agreement on the cliff.


"What the president has offered so far simply won't do anything to solve our spending problem and begin to address our nation's crippling debt," he said in the recorded address, "The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. ... The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House."








Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Halted for Christmas Watch Video









Cliffhanger: Congress Heads Home after 'Plan B' Vote Pulled from House Floor Watch Video









Fiscal Cliff: Boehner Doesn't Have Votes for Plan B Watch Video





Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed the sentiment while lamenting the failure to reach a compromise.


"I'm stuck here in Washington trying to prevent my fellow Kentuckians having to shell out more money to Uncle Sam next year," he said.


McConnell is also traveling to Hawaii to attend the Inouye service Sunday.


If the White House and Congress cannot reach a deficit-cutting budget agreement by year's end, by law the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts -- the so called fiscal cliff -- will go into effect. Many economists say that will likely send the economy into a new recession.


Reports today shed light on how negotiations fell apart behind closed doors. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that when Boehner expressed his opposition to tax rate increases, the president allegedly responded, "You are asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?"


The icy exchange continued when, in reference to Boehner's offer to secure $800 billion in revenue by limiting deductions, the speaker reportedly implored the president, "What do I get?"


The president's alleged response: "You get nothing. I get that for free."


The account is perhaps the most thorough and hostile released about the series of unsuccessful talks Obama and Boehner have had in an effort to reach an agreement about the cliff.


Unable to agree to a "big deal" on taxes and entitlements, the president is now reportedly hoping to reach a "small deal" with Republicans to avoid the fiscal cliff.


Such a deal would extend unemployment benefits and set the tone for a bigger deal with Republicans down the line.


In his own weekly address, Obama called this smaller deal "an achievable goal ... that can get done in 10 days."


But though there is no definitive way to say one way or the other whether it really is an achievable goal, one thing is for certain: Republican leadership does not agree with the president on this question.


Of reaching an agreement on the fiscal cliff by the deadline, Boehner said, "How we get there, God only knows."



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Tax fight sends GOP into chaos



Now that very issue is tearing the GOP apart and making it an all-but-ungovernable majority for Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead in the House.


Disarray is a word much overused in politics. But it barely begins to describe the current state of chaos and incoherence as Republicans come to terms with electoral defeat and try to regroup against a year-end deadline to avert a fiscal crisis.

The presidential election was fought in large measure over the question of whether some Americans should pay more in taxes. Republicans lost that argument with the voters, who polls show are strongly in favor of raising rates for the wealthy.

But a sizable contingent within the GOP doesn’t see it that way and is unwilling to declare defeat on a tenet that so defines them. Nor are they prepared to settle for getting the best deal they can, as a means of avoiding the tax hikes on virtually everyone else that would take effect if no deal is reached.

When Boehner tried to bend even a little, by proposing to raise rates on income over $1 million, his party humiliated him, forcing him Thursday night to abruptly cancel a vote on his “Plan B.”

“We had a number of our members who just really didn’t want to be perceived as having raised taxes,” Boehner said Friday. “That was the real issue.”

Whether and how the party can resolve the issue has implications going forward. It could determine Boehner’s viability — even his survival— as leader of the only part of the federal government controlled by the Republicans.

It also could set the terms of engagement for the battles that lie ahead, including such contentious ones as immigration and the fiscal 2013 spending bills, which are funded for only half the year and which expire March 31.

As things stand now, some worry that nothing short of a catastrophe could force a resolution.

“We have sunk to the lowest common denominator in order to get a deal — sheer panic,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, a former aide to House and Senate leadership. “The reality of a stock market crash is probably the only way Washington will strike a deal. It is probably the only scenario that could likely force the speaker’s hand and allow for a deal driven by Democratic votes to pass the House.”

Which, of course, is not an ideal way to govern.

“The hard-core anti-tax conservatives in the GOP seem to believe that Barack Obama will be blamed if there is no agreement reached to avoid sequestration and the tax increases that are coming,” said Sheldon D. Pollack, a University of Delaware law and political science professor who has written a history of Republican anti-tax policy. “Calculated gamble? Or are they simply incapable of recognizing that they do not control the White House or the Senate, and hence do not have the ability to control the agenda? Sadly, I think it is the latter.”

Their intransigence alone is unlikely to sell the electorate on the Republican point of view on taxes.

“You have to make an argument. You have to go out there and engage. You can’t just simply assert a position,” said GOP pollster David Winston, who advises the House leadership. “Part of the dynamic for Boehner is that he’s trying to have the debate over economic policies that should have occurred during the election, and he also has to deal with this piece of legislation.”

As long as there has been a Republican Party, there has been at least a faction within it that has taken a hard-line stance on taxes, Pollack said. But it has not always had the upper hand.

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was also the first to put a national income tax into place, as a temporary means of funding the Civil War. Even then, House Ways and Means Chairman Thaddeus Stevens (now enjoying a return to popular consciousness as Tommy Lee Jones’s character in the movie “Lincoln”) denounced the idea of a graduated rate structure as a “strange way to punish men because they are rich.”

The 16th Amendment, which established the constitutionality of the federal income tax in 1913, was proposed by a Republican, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Nelson W. Aldrich. But it was decried by another one, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, as “confiscation of property under the guise of taxation” and “a pillage of a class.”

The divisions went on until the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, who ran as an advocate of tax-cutting supply-side economics.

In 1990, Newt Gingrich established himself as the de facto head of his party in the House, when he stood up to a president of his own party and led the opposition to George H.W. Bush’s tax increases.

Gingrich insisted in an interview Friday that the Republicans still have leverage, if they are willing to fight hard enough.

“They need a strategy, not just a way of getting through this week,” he said.

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Man loses S$6,000 in unhonoured online purchase






SINGAPORE: 21-year-old Kenrick Ho is S$6,000 poorer after an online purchase gone wrong.

He had ordered 10 mobile phone sets from an eBay seller named Ms Siah, in September 2012.

But after making full payment, no goods were delivered.

"(I am) very depressed and stressed because I can do alot with S$6,000," he lamented. "What if I need the money urgently? The seller said she'd refund the money, but she kept delaying it."

Like Mr Ho, 46-year-old Madam Teo Kim Sang ordered three mobile phone sets and paid Ms Siah S$1,500 in October.

After much hassle, Madam Teo managed to get a refund of S$750, two weeks after she made full payment.

She said: "If today is Saturday, she'll say '(On) Friday I'll update you, whether I get the phone, whether I deliver, all these things' and sometimes she'll say '(On) Friday I'll deliver (the phones)' but when Friday comes, nothing (arrives)."

The relief teacher has since cancelled her order.

Both Mr Ho and Madam Teo said they will lodge a report with the Small Claims Tribunal next week.

Separately, calls from Channel NewsAsia to Ms Siah went unanswered.

According to the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), there were 228 reports of "failure-to-honour" transactions between January and November this year.

Of these, CASE handled and assisted 48 of the reports. Of those that CASE handled, about half were resolved.

Experts say it is more difficult for buyers to recover their money as there is no physical shopfront.

"The practices of the online vendors or online businesses are covered by the Consumers Protection Fair Trading Act and consumers can exercise their right under the Act to file a claim at the Small Claims Tribunal," said Seah Seng Choon, executive director of CASE.

"Secondly, if the consumer suspects foul play or cheating in any way, they should file a complaint with the police. They should ensure that the business is set up in Singapore. For businesses that are set up overseas, consumer would have great difficulty seeking redress if there's any dispute later on."

With more people going online to make their purchases, Mr Seah said it is important to read the terms and conditions of the transaction so as to avoid pitfalls of online shopping.

He added that shoppers who purchase items online has the right under the lemon law to request the businesses to repair, refund or even reduce prices if there are defects on the goods.

Another way to avoid problems in transactions is to go for cash-on-delivery deals.

- CNA/xq



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Mayawati upset with govt but won't withdraw support

NEW DELHI: BSP chief Mayawati is upset with Congress over its "attitude" on the bill for promotions in government jobs for SCs and STs but will continue support to it for rest of its term.


Days after pandemonium scuttled passage of the Constitution Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha, Mayawati said the "intention" of the Congress is doubtful and the ruling party did not seem serious on the issue.


"Their intention is doubtful...they want the bill to remain hanging," the BSP chief told in an interview, while underlining that the proposed legislation could have been passed if the Congress and the government wanted.


Asked whether she would continue to extend support to UPA in view of her unhappiness, she ruled out pulling the plug.


"We extended support to UPA to see that communal forces do not get strengthened at the central level.... I supported it for three-and-a-half years. Now only one-and-a-quarter year is left.... We will give them further chance," she said.


The reservation bill, being pushed by BSP, was passed by the Rajya Sabha but the debate on it in the Lok Sabha could not be completed because of pandemonium created by Samajwadi Party on December 19 and 20, the last two days of the just-concluded Winter Session.


Mayawati said the government deliberately created a situation in the Lok Sabha where even BJP created uproar after its senior leader L K Advani was disallowed from making his point on the quota bill.


"Had the government been actually willing to get the bill passed, it could have requested for use of marshals (against protesting SP members in Lok Sabha). Marshals were used in Rajya Sabha during Women's Reservation Bill," she said.


She also accused the government of failing on other fronts like economic and poverty alleviation besides uplift of SC and STs. "I am upset," she said.

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