ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday hailed the planned withdrawal of Kurdish rebel fighters from Turkey as the end of a "dark era" but warned against potential sabotage of a historic peace process.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which seeks autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish southeast, on Thursday ordered its fighters in Turkey to begin withdrawing to its main base in the mountains of northern Iraq under a carefully choreographed peace plan.
The withdrawal, due to begin on May 8, follows months of negotiations between Turkish intelligence officers and Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's jailed leader, to try to end hostilities after the bloodiest fighting in a decade erupted in June 2011. More than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the conflict since 1984.
"The door is closing on a dark era. Turkey is changing its ill fortune and is entering a new phase," Erdogan told a business group in comments broadcast live by state television, his first since the withdrawal was announced.
"No one should try to pull this process in a different direction," he added. "We remain vigilant against sabotage, against provocations, but today we are much more hopeful, determined and optimistic."
Some 2,000 PKK rebels are set to retreat in small groups in a process that will take months and is to be monitored by Turkish intelligence on one side and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq on the other.
The withdrawal is a significant advance in a process offering the best chance in more than a decade of ending a conflict that has blotted Turkey's human rights record and stunted economic growth.
Yet nationalists have slammed the jailhouse negotiations with Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence for treason, arguing that it means surrender to the demands of "terrorists".
Others have asked what the government has promised Ocalan in return for a PKK withdrawal.
Erdogan's government is now expected to tackle some of the political reforms sought by Kurds, including constitutional changes on citizenship, changes to anti-terrorism laws and broader Kurdish cultural and political rights.
Since sweeping to power 10 years ago, Erdogan has ushered in major changes for Turkey's estimated 14 million Kurds, especially in allowing more use of the Kurdish language, which was completely banned until two decades ago.
But his government has also clamped down on Kurdish political activity, jailing thousands of elected officials, journalists, academics, activists and others from the main Kurdish opposition during trials that are taking years to complete.
Federally funded research & development centers employed more than 3,000 postdoctoral researchersPublic release date: 26-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Deborah Wing dwing@nsf.gov 703-292-5344 National Science Foundation
According to a recent report released by the National Science Foundation, 22 of the nation's 39 federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) employed 3,011 postdocs in 2010, the year the latest data are available.
Three out of every four postdocs employed in the FFRDCs in 2010 were men. Foreign nationals on temporary visas made up 60 percent of all postdocs employed in FFRDCs. Men constituted a higher percentage of foreign nationals than of U.S. citizens and permanent residents--78 percent versus 72 percent.
Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, 75 percent were reported to be white and 14 percent were reported to be Asian. The remainder were Hispanic at 4 percent, black or African American at 1 percent, and other races or of unknown race or ethnicity were reported at 5 percent.
Overall, 75 percent of all postdocs employed in FFRDCs were working in a science field, and another 23 percent were working in an engineering field. The most frequently reported science fields were physics and astronomy at 31 percent; followed by chemistry at 18 percent; biological sciences at 8 percent; and earth, atmospheric and ocean sciences at 8 percent.
FFRDCs received approximately $16.8 billion dollars in federal expenditures in fiscal year 2010. Included in this amount is more than $1 billion in federal expenditures from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In addition to scientific research and analysis, many of the FFRCDs provide training opportunities for the country's aspiring researchers and scientists through postdoctoral appointments.
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For more information on this report, please contact Dan Foley.
Please visit the NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics for more reports and other products.
-NSF-
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Federally funded research & development centers employed more than 3,000 postdoctoral researchersPublic release date: 26-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Deborah Wing dwing@nsf.gov 703-292-5344 National Science Foundation
According to a recent report released by the National Science Foundation, 22 of the nation's 39 federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) employed 3,011 postdocs in 2010, the year the latest data are available.
Three out of every four postdocs employed in the FFRDCs in 2010 were men. Foreign nationals on temporary visas made up 60 percent of all postdocs employed in FFRDCs. Men constituted a higher percentage of foreign nationals than of U.S. citizens and permanent residents--78 percent versus 72 percent.
Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, 75 percent were reported to be white and 14 percent were reported to be Asian. The remainder were Hispanic at 4 percent, black or African American at 1 percent, and other races or of unknown race or ethnicity were reported at 5 percent.
Overall, 75 percent of all postdocs employed in FFRDCs were working in a science field, and another 23 percent were working in an engineering field. The most frequently reported science fields were physics and astronomy at 31 percent; followed by chemistry at 18 percent; biological sciences at 8 percent; and earth, atmospheric and ocean sciences at 8 percent.
FFRDCs received approximately $16.8 billion dollars in federal expenditures in fiscal year 2010. Included in this amount is more than $1 billion in federal expenditures from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In addition to scientific research and analysis, many of the FFRCDs provide training opportunities for the country's aspiring researchers and scientists through postdoctoral appointments.
###
For more information on this report, please contact Dan Foley.
Please visit the NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics for more reports and other products.
-NSF-
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The Steelers added a young outside linebacker to bolster their pass rush and help replace the departed James Harrison, selecting Georgia?s Jarvis Jones No. 17 overall on Thursday night.
Jones (6-2, 245) notched 14.5 sacks in 2012 for the Bulldogs. If Jones is to push for a starting role as a rookie, it would likely be at the expense of veteran Jason Worilds.
That said, the Steelers generally don?t rush their rookies into the lineup. They have to earn their way onto the field. Maurkice Pouncey played in his rookie season of 2010 because he was too good to sit, and guard David DeCastro looked poised to be a Week One starter before a knee injury last summer.
?Quite honestly, I don?t envision anyone coming in and being an impact in Year One,? Steelers GM Kevin Colbert said this week, according to the club. ?I never do because I think there is always a growing process that has to occur.?
It can take time for Steelers? outside linebackers to master Dick LeBeau?s defense. LaMarr Woodley, it should be noted, did not start as a rookie in 2007. If Jones can at least be a solid situational rusher (a la Woodley as a rookie) and pick up the defense, he will have done well, considering how other rookies have fared with this veteran-laden club.
When we first reported on the leaked image of China Unicom's HTC One with its back cover off, some questioned its authenticity since the phone touts its unibody design in other parts of the world. Well, as we found out at HTC's Beijing launch event on Wednesday, the Chinese variants (802w, 802t and 802d; ¥4,888 or about $790 for 32GB) do indeed have a removable cover for access to their dual SIM slots and microSD slot. But the question is: how does that piece of metal come off? It's simple: the usual micro-SIM tray at the top left side of the phone is replaced by a latch release (close-up shot after the break), and pushing it up would pop the cover open, as pictured above.
While this may technically not qualify for the "unibody" moniker, HTC's Vice President of China Lin Zurong told us that the removable cover and its accompanying parts at the top and bottom are cut out from the same piece of aluminum; so if you mix and match covers across two Ones of the same color, the fit or texture may not feel "right." Other than that, the Chinese One feels and looks very much the same as its foreign counterpart.
And finally, we asked whether the much anticipated red HTC One will be sold in China, to which a representative replied this was originally designed with other regions -- namely Japan -- in mind, so there's no confirmation as to whether China will get it just yet. Come to think of it, wouldn't the red HTC One be a nice fit for Verizon?
Apr. 25, 2013 ? Proteins, unlike diamonds, aren't forever. And when they wear out, they need to be degraded in the cell back into amino acids, where they will be recycled into new proteins. Researchers at Rockefeller University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have identified a new way that the cell's protein recycler, the proteasome, takes care of unwanted and potentially toxic proteins, a finding that has implications for treating muscle wasting, neurodegeneration and cancer.
The consensus among scientists has been that the proteasome is constantly active, chewing up proteins that have exceeded their shelf life. A mounting body of evidence now suggests that the proteasome is dynamically regulated, ramping up its activity when the cell is challenged with especially heavy protein turnover. The researchers, postdoctoral associate Park F. Cho-Park and Hermann Steller, head of the Strang Laboratory of Apoptosis and Cancer Biology at Rockefeller, have shown that an enzyme called tankyrase regulates the proteasome's activity. In addition, Cho-Park and Steller demonstrate that a small molecule called XAV939, originally identified by scientists at Novartis who developed it as therapeutic for colon cancer, inhibits tankyrase and blocks the proteasome's activity. The research is reported in today's issue of the journal Cell.
"Our findings have tremendous implications for the clinic since it gives a new meaning to an existing class of small-molecule compound," says Steller, Strang Professor at Rockefeller and an investigator at HHMI. "In particular, our work suggests that tankyrase inhibitors may be clinically useful for treating multiple myeloma."
Tankyrase was originally identified in the late 1990s by Rockefeller's Titia de Lange and her colleagues in the Laboratory for Cell Biology and Genetics, who showed that it plays a role in elongating telomeres, structures that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes. In a series of experiments in fly and human cells, Cho-Park and Steller discovered that tankyrase uses a process called ADP-ribosylation to modify PI31, a key factor that regulates the activity and assembly of proteasome subunits into the active complex called 26S. By promoting the assembly of more 26S particles, cells under stress can boost their ability to break down and dispose of unwanted proteins.
The proteasome is currently a target for developing cancer therapeutics. The FDA has approved Velcade, a proteasome inhibitor, for the treatment of multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. However, patients on Velcade can experience peripheral neuropathy or become resistant to the drug.
Multiple myeloma cells need increased proteasome activity to survive. Preliminary data from Cho-Park and Steller show that XAV939 can block the growth of multiple myeloma cells by inhibiting the assembly of additional proteasomes without affecting the basal level of proteasomes in the cell. This selective targeting may mean fewer side effects for patients. "Drugs, such as XAV939, that inhibit the proteasome through other mechanisms than Velcade may have significant clinical value," says Steller.
The findings by Cho-Park and Steller also link, for the first time, metabolism and regulation of the proteasome. Sometimes the proteasome digests too much protein, which can lead to loss of muscle, says Steller.
"This discovery reveals fundamental insights into protein degradation, a process important for normal cell biology, and a key factor in disorders such as muscle wasting and neurodegeneration," said Stefan Maas of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partly supported the study. "Intriguingly, the findings also enlighten ongoing research on cancer therapies, exemplifying the impact of basic research on drug development."
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Journal Reference:
Park?F. Cho-Park, Hermann Steller. Proteasome Regulation by ADP-Ribosylation. Cell, 2013; 153 (3): 614 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.03.040
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
With Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference -- WWDC 2013 -- selling out in under 2 minutes, Apple has published a shot news blurb on their News and Announcements for Developers hoping to assuage the disappointment of those who couldn't score a ticket by reiterating that videos will be coming quickly this year, and that Tech Talks will once again be following in the fall.
Thank you for your unprecedented interest in WWDC.
Enthusiasm for WWDC 2013 has been incredible, with tickets selling out in record time. For those who can?t join us in San Francisco, you can still take advantage of great WWDC content, as we?ll be posting videos of all our sessions during the conference. We?ll also be hitting the road this fall with Tech Talks in a city near you. Hope to see you there.
Tech Talk tickets have traditionally gone to developers who didn't attend WWDC, so no big surprise there. Videos have likewise been coming more quickly in recent years than previous years, though this year certainly looks to be even quicker still.
If you missed out on a WWDC ticket, does any of this make you feel any better? Would even live streams of the sessions and a major increase in the amount of evangelists and Tech Talks make any difference?
Apr. 25, 2013 ? A unique new study led by University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researchers Guo-Min Li and Libya Gu, in collaboration with Dr. Wei Yang at National Institutes of Health, reveals a novel mechanism explaining the previously unknown root cause of some forms of colorectal cancers.
The study, published in Cell, discovers that an abnormal histone protein modification impairs a DNA repair machinery that controls cancer development, yielding a potential new way of detecting these types of colorectal cancers. It represents the first time that epigenetic histone marks regulate the genome maintenance system.
DNA errors created during DNA replication can lead to many forms of cancer, including colorectal cancer. Cells possess DNA mismatch repair (MMR) machinery that aids in correcting these errors, thus preventing disease development. Defects in MMR genes lead to development of colorectal cancers characterized by frequent alterations in simple repetitive DNA sequences, a phenomenon referred to as microsatellite instability (MSI). Some cancers develop in individuals who possess MSI without MMR gene defects, and until now, the reason for this has been unknown.
Dr. Li's study shows that defects in SETD2 -- an enzyme that is not involved in MMR but chemically or epigenetically modifies histone proteins associated with DNA that control the regulation of gene expression and DNA replication -- prevent the association of MMR proteins with damaged DNA, thus preventing DNA mismatch repair.
"This study provides new clues to cancer etiology, that is, from the classical genetic defects to abnormal epigenetic modifications in the future," Li said. "Since SETD2 mutations have been shown in many types of cancers, including clear cell renal cell carcinoma, lung cancer, gastric cancer and hematological malignancies, our next goal is to determine association of MMR defects with these cancers, as well as SETD2 mutations in MSI-positive MMR-competent colorectal cancers."
Although most colorectal cancers are preventable or treatable with proper screening, colorectal cancer remains the second-leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Kentucky is ranked in the highest tiers for both colorectal and lung cancer incidence and death.
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Apr. 18, 2013 ? Keeping up with current scientific literature is a daunting task, considering that hundreds to thousands of papers are published each day. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a computer program to help them evaluate and rank scientific articles in their field.
The researchers use a text-mining algorithm to prioritize research papers to read and include in their Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD), a public database that manually curates and codes data from the scientific literature describing how environmental chemicals interact with genes to affect human health.
"Over 33,000 scientific papers have been published on heavy metal toxicity alone, going as far back as 1926," explains Dr. Allan Peter Davis, a biocuration project manager for CTD at NC State who worked on the project and co-lead author of an article on the work. "We simply can't read and code them all. And, with the help of this new algorithm, we don't have to."
To help select the most relevant papers for inclusion in the CTD, Thomas Wiegers, a research bioinformatician at NC State and the other co-lead author of the report, developed a sophisticated algorithm as part of a text-mining process. The application evaluates the text from thousands of papers and assigns a relevancy score to each document. "The score ranks the set of articles to help separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak," Wiegers says.
But how good is the algorithm at determining the best papers? To test that, the researchers text-mined 15,000 articles and sent a representative sample to their team of biocurators to manually read and evaluate on their own, blind to the computer's score. "The results were impressive," Davis says. The biocurators concurred with the algorithm 85 percent of the time with respect to the highest-scored papers.
Using the algorithm to rank papers allowed biocurators to focus on the most relevant papers, increasing productivity by 27 percent and novel data content by 100 percent. "It's a tremendous time-saving step," Davis explains. "With this we can allocate our resources much more effectively by having the team focus on the most informative papers."
There are always outliers in these types of experiments: occasions where the algorithm assigns a very high score to an article that a human biocurator quickly dismisses as irrelevant. The team that looked at those outliers was often able to see a pattern as to why the algorithm mistakenly identified a paper as important. "Now, we can go back and tweak the algorithm to account for this and fine-tune the system," Wiegers says.
"We're not at the point yet where a computer can read and extract all the relevant data on its own," Davis concludes, "but having this text-mining process to direct us toward the most informative articles is a huge first step."
The work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Carolina State University.
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Journal Reference:
Allan Peter Davis, Thomas C. Wiegers, Robin J. Johnson, Jean M. Lay, Kelley Lennon-Hopkins, Cynthia Saraceni-Richards, Daniela Sciaky, Cynthia Grondin Murphy, Carolyn J. Mattingly. Text Mining Effectively Scores and Ranks the Literature for Improving Chemical-Gene-Disease Curation at the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e58201 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058201
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Charlize Theron and Seth MacFarlane were spotted out on a dinner date in West Hollywood last night! Charlize and Seth met up for sushi at Matsuhisa Restaurant in Beverly Hills and were spotted leaving together. Charlize Theron is back in Los Angeles after working as the executive producer on the upcoming series “Hatfields & McCoys” ...
Adaptable leaders may have best brains for the job, study findsPublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: APA Public Affairs public.affairs@apa.org 202-336-5700 American Psychological Association
Top leadership traits defined by psychological and neurological tests
WASHINGTON Effective leaders' brains may be physically "wired" to lead, offering the promise of more precise identification and training, according to studies of U.S. Army officers published by the American Psychological Association.
Researchers have linked adaptive leadership skills with brain functioning and psychological complexity measures among active leaders. Those leaders who were found to be more adaptable and complex in psychological studies appeared to have brains that function differently from those of less adaptable leaders, according to an article published online in the APA Journal of Applied Psychology. This fusion of neuroscience and leadership research could one day revolutionize how organizations assess and develop effective and adaptive leaders, according to the study's authors.
"Once we have confirmed how the brain works in these leaders, we can create an 'expert' profile," said the study's lead author, Sean Hannah, PhD, of Wake Forest University. "This profile can help us develop brain training methods to enhance brain functioning in leaders, such as the neurofeedback techniques that have been successfully used with elite athletes, concert musicians and financial traders."
Officers were defined as being more psychologically complex if they had a more diverse sense of their own abilities and accomplishments as leaders. For example, complex leaders described themselves as filling more leadership roles such as mentor, team leader and spokesperson and possessing a diverse set of skills and attributes within these roles. Also, leaders who were more complex effectively worked their way through a challenging four-part military leadership scenario.
Brain networks in the frontal and prefrontal lobes of the most complex and adaptable leaders areas associated with self-regulation, decision-making and memory were more complex and differentiated compared to those of leaders who were determined not to be very complex, according to neuroimaging.
Ranging in rank from officer cadet to major, 103 volunteers were recruited from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for the study. Eighty-seven of the officers were men and the average age was 24. The officers had an average of four years of military leadership experience. All went through a medical screening and completed a standardized survey to measure how complex a leader they saw themselves. For example, they were asked to picture themselves as leaders of a combat unit and then describe what roles they saw themselves filling and what knowledge, skills and abilities they used across those roles. They then organized those roles and attributes in order of importance. In addition, half of the participants underwent a quantitative electroencephalography scan. Using electrodes placed on 19 different locations on subjects' heads, researchers were able to track activity in particular areas of the brain while the participant was seated, at rest.
Researchers also tested the participants' leadership and decision-making abilities in a hypothetical tactical military scenario, where the participants had to lead their unit to interact with hostile and non-hostile civilians, enemy forces, the media and, eventually, the shooting down of a U.S. helicopter during an international humanitarian relief mission in Africa. The scenario was developed by two West Point military leadership instructors specifically for this study to show how officers could adapt in a fast-changing, quickly deteriorating situation. Former military officers with significant experience in these types of situations rated the officers' responses to the scenario based on their adaptability, situational awareness and decisions. Leaders who had a more complex sense of their leadership skills and greater neurological complexity were found to be more adaptive and effective leaders in these scenarios.
Hannah, a retired colonel with 26 years of experience in the U.S. Army, including serving as the director of Leadership and Management Programs at West Point, said the results are a step toward finding out how effective and adaptable leaders not only think and act, but how their brains are wired to lead.
###
Article: "The Psychological and Neurological Bases of Leader Self-Complexity and Effects on Adaptive Decision-Making," online April 1, 2013, Journal of Applied Psychology; Sean T. Hannah, PhD, Wake Forest University; Pierre A. Balthazard, PhD, St. Bonaventure University; David A. Waldman, PhD, Arizona State University; Peter L. Jennings, PhD, Center for the Army Profession and Ethic; Robert W. Thatcher, PhD, University of South Florida and Applied Neuroscience Laboratories.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-ofp-hannah.pdf
Contact: Sean Hannah at (336) 758-5412 or hannahst@wfu.edu
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 134,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
http://www.apa.org
If you do not want to receive APA news releases, please let us know at public.affairs@apa.org or 202-336-5700.
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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.
Adaptable leaders may have best brains for the job, study findsPublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: APA Public Affairs public.affairs@apa.org 202-336-5700 American Psychological Association
Top leadership traits defined by psychological and neurological tests
WASHINGTON Effective leaders' brains may be physically "wired" to lead, offering the promise of more precise identification and training, according to studies of U.S. Army officers published by the American Psychological Association.
Researchers have linked adaptive leadership skills with brain functioning and psychological complexity measures among active leaders. Those leaders who were found to be more adaptable and complex in psychological studies appeared to have brains that function differently from those of less adaptable leaders, according to an article published online in the APA Journal of Applied Psychology. This fusion of neuroscience and leadership research could one day revolutionize how organizations assess and develop effective and adaptive leaders, according to the study's authors.
"Once we have confirmed how the brain works in these leaders, we can create an 'expert' profile," said the study's lead author, Sean Hannah, PhD, of Wake Forest University. "This profile can help us develop brain training methods to enhance brain functioning in leaders, such as the neurofeedback techniques that have been successfully used with elite athletes, concert musicians and financial traders."
Officers were defined as being more psychologically complex if they had a more diverse sense of their own abilities and accomplishments as leaders. For example, complex leaders described themselves as filling more leadership roles such as mentor, team leader and spokesperson and possessing a diverse set of skills and attributes within these roles. Also, leaders who were more complex effectively worked their way through a challenging four-part military leadership scenario.
Brain networks in the frontal and prefrontal lobes of the most complex and adaptable leaders areas associated with self-regulation, decision-making and memory were more complex and differentiated compared to those of leaders who were determined not to be very complex, according to neuroimaging.
Ranging in rank from officer cadet to major, 103 volunteers were recruited from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for the study. Eighty-seven of the officers were men and the average age was 24. The officers had an average of four years of military leadership experience. All went through a medical screening and completed a standardized survey to measure how complex a leader they saw themselves. For example, they were asked to picture themselves as leaders of a combat unit and then describe what roles they saw themselves filling and what knowledge, skills and abilities they used across those roles. They then organized those roles and attributes in order of importance. In addition, half of the participants underwent a quantitative electroencephalography scan. Using electrodes placed on 19 different locations on subjects' heads, researchers were able to track activity in particular areas of the brain while the participant was seated, at rest.
Researchers also tested the participants' leadership and decision-making abilities in a hypothetical tactical military scenario, where the participants had to lead their unit to interact with hostile and non-hostile civilians, enemy forces, the media and, eventually, the shooting down of a U.S. helicopter during an international humanitarian relief mission in Africa. The scenario was developed by two West Point military leadership instructors specifically for this study to show how officers could adapt in a fast-changing, quickly deteriorating situation. Former military officers with significant experience in these types of situations rated the officers' responses to the scenario based on their adaptability, situational awareness and decisions. Leaders who had a more complex sense of their leadership skills and greater neurological complexity were found to be more adaptive and effective leaders in these scenarios.
Hannah, a retired colonel with 26 years of experience in the U.S. Army, including serving as the director of Leadership and Management Programs at West Point, said the results are a step toward finding out how effective and adaptable leaders not only think and act, but how their brains are wired to lead.
###
Article: "The Psychological and Neurological Bases of Leader Self-Complexity and Effects on Adaptive Decision-Making," online April 1, 2013, Journal of Applied Psychology; Sean T. Hannah, PhD, Wake Forest University; Pierre A. Balthazard, PhD, St. Bonaventure University; David A. Waldman, PhD, Arizona State University; Peter L. Jennings, PhD, Center for the Army Profession and Ethic; Robert W. Thatcher, PhD, University of South Florida and Applied Neuroscience Laboratories.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-ofp-hannah.pdf
Contact: Sean Hannah at (336) 758-5412 or hannahst@wfu.edu
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 134,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
http://www.apa.org
If you do not want to receive APA news releases, please let us know at public.affairs@apa.org or 202-336-5700.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Michael J. Fox jokes in a recent interview that his long career has taken him to demographic extremes.
"I went from Teen Beat and Tiger Beat... to AARP," he said to Access Hollywood. "There's some great tips about colon health!"
The "Family Ties" and film star is preparing to return to NBC with a new sitcom next season that draws from his own family life and battle with Parkinson's disease. He plays a news anchor who's life, like the actor's, has been disrupted by Parkinson's.
Fox, 51, said he didn't question whether to address his real-life struggle onscreen.
"Well, I don't have a choice," he said. "You can sit and project out and say, 'Oh, I'm going to have this and it's going to be like this and I won't be able to do that.' But it's much more about right now. 'What can I do right now?' Right?"
He added: "I just thought, I love to do this and as much as anyone will let me do it and give me their time to do it - I should do it. And so, I'm doing it."
Images show a revamp of Google Chat's interface, complete with emoticons and message bubbles. Could this be Google Babel?
The fine folks over at Techradar got their hands on a set of screen captures, supposedly of the web interface for the new Google unified messaging application "Babel". It appears to be a rewrite of the existing Google Chat for Gmail, with a new interface new sign in options, and new features inside the program.
The screenshots also suggest photo sharing within the program, with a mandatory Google+ login, a feature to start a Google+ hangout right from chat. The Google+ emojis are also on board in a smaller size, and there are a bunch of new ones we haven't seen in a Google product before. It's clear that if this is legitimate, it's built around Google+ as one would expect.
We're not sure of anything on this. There are so many rumors and fakes going around, and anyone with a little skill could design some of these windows and images themselves -- and have. The imagery looks very similar to some other things we've seen -- both legit and admitted fakes. We eagerly await Google I/O to see just what is real and what isn't, but in the meantime we can all have a little bit of fun speculation about it all. Today's stuff looks pretty convincing. Hit the source link below and check it out.
A Gilbert Islands shark tooth weapon in the collections of Chicago's Field Museum. Credit: Drew J, Philipp C, Westneat MW (2013) Shark Tooth Weapons from the 19th Century Reflect Shifting Baselines in Central Pacific Predator Assemblies. PLOS ONE 8(4): e59855. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059855.
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience
A collection of vicious weapons made of shark teeth reveals that two species of sharks vanished from the reefs of Kiribati before scientists even noticed the species were there.
Until about 130 years ago, residents of the Gilbert Islands, which make up much of the Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, used teeth from dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscrus) and spotfin sharks (Carcharhinus sorrah) to make swords, spears, daggers and other fearsome weapons. Today, spotfin sharks can be found near Australia and Indonesia, and dusky sharks can be spotted near Fiji ? but neither plies the waters around Kiribati.
"We're losing species before we even know that they existed," said study researcher Joshua Drew, an ichthyologist at Columbia University. "That just resonates with me as fundamentally tragic."
Toothy weapons Sharks have long been a major part of the Gilbert Islands? culture, as the animals played a role in Kiribati myths and rituals, Drew told LiveScience. The first European visitors to the islands in the late 1700s noted the native inhabitants? craftsmanship of weapons made of shark teeth. Weapon-makers would drill tiny holes in the teeth and secure them to wooden handles using coconut fibers and human hair. The results were daunting: all sharp points and serrated sides. [Image Gallery: Amazing Great White Sharks]
Drew and his colleagues were looking for ways to tie sharks into their culture in order to get people excited about conservation. They were "poking around" in the anthropology collections of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, when museum anthropologist Christopher Philipp, also one of the study authors, asked if they'd like to see some shark-tooth weapons.
"Anytime anybody asks you that question, your natural response is 'Yeah!'" Drew said. "They're cool."
The weapons were scientifically cool, too. Shape, serration patterns and other features of shark teeth were enough for researchers to identify the species. That meant Drew and his colleagues could figure out what kind of sharks the people of the Gilbert Islands were catching before scientific expeditions to the atolls were ever launched.
PLOS ONE
Gilbert Islands weapon-makers affixed shark teeth to wood handles with coconut fibers and human hair. Credit: Drew J, Philipp C, Westneat MW (2013) Shark Tooth Weapons from the 19th Century Reflect Shifting Baselines in Central Pacific Predator Assemblies. PLOS ONE 8(4): e59855. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059855.
Vanished species Using field guides and the museum's collections of shark jaws, the researchers identified teeth from eight species of shark on 122 weapons and teeth collections from the Gilbert Islands. The most common of those species was the silvertip shark (C. albimarginatus), whose teeth graced 34 weapons. Gilbert Islands weapon-makers also used teeth from silky sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks, tiger sharks, blue sharks and hammerheads.
Most surprising to scientists, however, was the discovery of dusky and spotfin sharks' teeth, as no scientist has ever recorded those sharks in Gilbert Islands reefs. It's unlikely that these two commercially valuable species would have been overlooked, the researchers wrote in a study published today (April 3) in the journal PLOS ONE, so it seems that the sharks simply vanished before anyone started taking a census.
"Probably, they were fished out," Drew said. Extensive shark-finning operations started in the region by the early 1900s, and in 1950 alone, fisherman pulled almost 7,716 pounds of shark fins (and only fins) from Gilbert Island waters. (Scientists now estimate that 100 million sharks are killed worldwide each year.)
The findings underscore the connection between Gilbert Islanders and sharks, Drew said. Kiribati has been a world leader in marine conservation, he said, adding that he hopes the findings will encourage more of that work. The discovery of previously unknown sharks in the area also pushes conservationists not to "set the bar too low" for Gilbert Islands reefs, Drew said, given that at one point, they supported more biodiversity than they do today.
"We shouldn't pack up and call it a day because we have two species of sharks there," Drew said. "We can do better."
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jim Carrey was considered for a key role in "Jurassic Park," according to a new oral history of the dinosaur disaster flick on Entertainment Weekly.
At the time, the rubber-faced comedian was best known for his work playing outrageous characters like Fire Marshall Bill on Fox's "In Living Color," but was not yet a household name. When the film was casting in 1992, he was two years away from his breakout role in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective."
However, he impressed the "Jurassic Park" team with his audition for the role of Ian Malcolm, the mathematician and chaos theoretician so brilliantly portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
"I read the book and I thought of Jeff Goldblum right away," Janet Hirshenon, the film's casting director, recalled. "There were several other people we taped for the part, though. Jim Carrey had come in and he was terrific, too, but I think pretty quickly we all loved the idea of Jeff."
The film also can thank a big-name guardian angel for steering Laura Dern to the project. The actress had just scored an Oscar nomination for her starring role in "Rambling Rose" when she was approached for the project.
"I was talking with Nicolas Cage, and we had just done 'Wild at Heart' together, and I said to him, 'Nic, they want to put me on the phone with Steven Spielberg, but they want to talk to me about a dinosaur movie?,'" Dern said. "And he was like, 'You are doing a dinosaur movie! No one can ever say no to a dinosaur movie!' I was like, 'Really?' And he's like, 'Are you kidding? It's a dream of my life to do a movie with dinosaurs!' So he was such an influence on me."
MOSCOW (AP) ? Pasha P183, a prominent Russian graffiti artist who hid his identity and has been compared to Britain's Banksy, has died. He was 29.
The Teatralnoye Delo theatrical production company, which recently commissioned Pasha P183 to create scenery for the musical "Todd," said the artist died Monday in Moscow. It wouldn't elaborate.
Teatralnoye Delo's spokeswoman Regina Vartsan, who knew the artist personally, described him Wednesday as a "sincere and open person of remarkable talent and unique vision."
Like Banksy, and late U.S. artist Keith Haring, Pasha P183 started out painting graffiti in the dead of night, and recalled being detained numerous times by Moscow police.
One of his most famous works was painted on the ground in a snow-covered yard and features a huge pair of glasses, with a lamppost serving as one arm. Another piece showed chocolate bars painted on a panel of concrete, an image he said reflected his abhorrence of the commercialization of art and life.
"I wanted that work to carry the most important message ... that a person mustn't sell himself," he said in a rare interview posted on adme.ru last year. "I made a chocolate bar that can't be bought, using a giant panel of concrete."
He said the work provided a more optimistic ending for a film he made ? the original one had the hero jumping out of the window to his death, while the alternative had him landing safely in front of the chocolate bar.
Little was known about the artist, who carefully protected his identity. In the same interview, he described himself as an "anarchist" and spoke with contempt about the "constant run for money" in Moscow.
Many of his street works had political undertones and carried an apparent reference to a recent wave of massive street protests in Moscow against President Vladimir Putin's rule. One showed a protester lighting a flare and another work had shield-carrying riot police on a subway station's glass doors.
"Put simply, I want to teach people in this country to tell lies from the truth and to tell bad from good," he said in an interview with Russia Today television, wearing a black ski mask that covered most of his face. "This is what our people still cannot do."
Despite all that, he said he didn't consider himself a political artist and hated politics just as much as he hated advertising.
The artist has claimed to have had many professions since graduating from a university, working as a computer expert, photographer, cameraman, film director and even child psychiatrist. He scoffed at comparisons to Banksy, saying they belittled his own style.
The rock musical "Todd" is currently showing in Moscow.
"It was a colossal work," Pasha P183 wrote on his Facebook page of the production of the scenery. "If I die tomorrow, I can at least feel that I have left something real behind."
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Pasha P183's personal web site: http://www.183art.ru
Now that China is comfortable letting drivers access Beidou to get around the middle kingdom, it's decided that everyone else should get easy access as well. Talking to Xinhua News, state official Yang Qiangwen said that it won't be long before the nation's made-at-home GPS is adopted by local smartphone makers. The government is seeking to attract investment to promote the technology for public use, presumably lobbying domestic manufacturers to get on board -- before making similar overtures to the big boys elsewhere.
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Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
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Charlize Theron and Seth MacFarlane were spotted out on a dinner date in West Hollywood last night! Charlize and Seth met up for sushi at Matsuhisa Restaurant in Beverly Hills and were spotted leaving together. Charlize Theron is back in Los Angeles after working as the executive producer on the upcoming series “Hatfields & McCoys” ...
