WWE.com evaluates John Laurinaitis' job performance

WWE Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Raw John Laurinaitis might have one less title preceding his name Monday ? that?s when Chief Operating Officer Triple H rolls into town for Raw SuperShow to deliver a formal evaluation of the man who took his job. Laurinaitis has been on the clock since Oct. 10, 2011, when he supplanted Triple H as GM following a controversial ?no confidence? vote in The King of Kings by WWE?s Board of Directors. Since then, the self-proclaimed ?Mr. Excitement? has incurred the wrath of both John Cena and WWE Champion CM Punk for allowing Zack Ryder to compete through grievous injuries (though that may not have been entirely?Laurinaitis' fault) and voicing his intentions to cheat Punk out of the WWE Championship at the 25th anniversary of the Royal Rumble.

Add to this the fact that the WWE Universe is well aware of Triple H?s own beef with Laurinaitis, and there?s a good chance The Game will go the CM Punk route and tear "Big Johnny" a new one on national television, opening the door for Punk to kick Laurinaitis? head in at the Royal Rumble event.

Then again, this is a job evaluation, not a railroading. In his capacity as COO, Triple H has to examine all angles, good and bad. Mr. Laurinaitis has had some measurable success in his term as Interim Raw GM. Maybe The King of Kings will show mercy on his subject, who has already begun a pre-emptive campaign for a second chance.?What our COO will decide is anyone?s guess, but in the meantime, consider that we?re fans too at WWE.com. We?re part of the WWE Universe as much as anyone, not to mention WWE employees. Our jobs are affected by Mr. Laurinaitis? performance, and in that spirit, we?d like to present our own personal evaluation of Mr. Laurinaitis? performance, and what we think Triple H might have to say on certain matters.

Excitement Factor
Laurinaitis has called himself ?Mr. Excitement? on several occasions and, to be fair, the man has been fairly consistent in keeping the WWE Universe invested in Raw. His stipulation for the Miz/R-Truth match this past week on Raw SuperShow (where the loser would enter the 2012 Royal Rumble Match at No. 1), putting Chris Jericho in the Six-Man Tag Match two weeks ago, and making Zack Ryder go through his friend John Cena for a U.S. Title opportunity in December made for compelling television and interesting challenges for his roster. Granted, the ?puppet-master? feel of it all will probably irk Triple H more than anything else, but the chaos has been organized and entertaining. Final Grade: B+

Superstar Safety
Not only did Laurinaitis send Zack Ryder out there, despite injuries and a doctors? report, to get dropped like a bad habit by Jack Swagger and Kane (twice), but his oversight led to The Long Island Iced-Z suffering a herniated disc at the hands of The Devil?s Favorite Demon. Our guess is that The Game will consider this issue to be as cut-and-dry as we do, especially since Laurinaitis left him to Kevin Nash?s mercy on more than one occasion as well. Plus, who doesn?t love Zack Ryder? Final Grade: C-

Tag Team Innovation
Sorry Mr. L., but this area is SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long?s house. And frankly, we?re sure Triple H would agree. Final Grade: F

Kevin Nash Attacks
We?ll give it to the Interim Raw GM: this is the one area where he has achieved complete success. After weeks of terrorizing the WWE Universe (and poor Santino Marella), Big Sexy got clobbered with a sledgehammer by Triple H at WWE TLC and hasn?t been seen since. We?d imagine Triple H would appreciate this, since he seemed to be Nash?s target all along. Final Grade: A+

Personal Comportment
Did you see Laurinaitis before being knocked out by CM Punk?s ?GTS? The man maintains calm at all times. Triple H could start waving a sledgehammer in his face (in fact, it could come to that Monday) and we doubt Mr. Excitement would so much as blink. We commend him for this. A true leader keeps his cool in the face of chaos. This, if nothing else, has been a constant in Laurinaitis? term. Minus that instance with Mick Foley and the microphone, of course. Final Grade: A-

Impartiality
Authority figures? track record in this regard is a bit spotty, but give Triple H credit: when he refereed a match as Raw GM, especially an important one like Cena-Punk at SummerSlam, he tried to call it down the middle. Laurinaitis, on the other hand, openly told Mick Foley he was going to screw CM Punk out of the WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler at the 25th anniversary of the Royal Rumble. Laurinaitis ultimately called the bout right down the middle, but it seems like he did that more for fear of his job than a desire to be fair and square. Seems like a bit of a red flag to us. Final Grade: B-

Well, that?s our opinion. We won?t draw conclusions; anything can and probably will happen in WWE. And this Monday, we?ll find out whether the Laurinaitis Era will continue, or if we?ll bid a fond farewell to ?Big Johnny? Laurinaitis, EVP of Talent Relations, ?Mr. Excitement,? and Former Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2012-01-23/john-laurinaitis-job-review

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Iran vows to stop "some" oil sales as inspectors visit (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iran sent conflicting signals in a dispute with the West over its nuclear ambitions, vowing to stop oil exports soon to "some" countries but postponing a parliamentary debate on a proposed halt to crude sales to the European Union.

The Islamic Republic declared itself optimistic about a visit by U.N. nuclear experts that began Sunday but also warned the inspectors to be "professional" or see Tehran reducing cooperation with the world body on atomic matters.

Lawmakers have raised the possibility of turning the tables on the EU which will implement its own embargo on Iranian oil by July as it tightens sanctions on Tehran over the nuclear program.

But India, the world's fourth-largest oil consumer, said it would not take steps to cut petroleum imports from Iran despite U.S. and European sanctions against Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection delegation will try to advance efforts to resolve a row about the nuclear work which Iran says is purely civilian but the West suspects is aimed at seeking a nuclear weapon.

Tension with the West rose this month when Washington and the EU imposed the toughest sanctions yet in a drive to force Tehran to provide more information on its nuclear program. The measures take direct aim at the ability of OPEC's second biggest Oil exporter to sell its crude.

In a remark suggesting Iran would fight sanctions with sanctions, Iran's oil minister said the Islamic state would soon stop exporting crude to "some" countries.

Rostam Qasemi did not identify the countries but was speaking less than a week after the EU's 27 member states agreed to stop importing crude from Iran from July 1.

"Soon we will cut exporting oil to some countries," the state news agency IRNA quoted Qasemi as saying.

India, a major customer for Iranian crude, made clear it would not join the wider international efforts to put pressure on Tehran by cutting oil purchases.

"It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the imports from Iran drastically, because among the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economies, Iran is an important country amongst them," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters on a visit to the Unites States.

The United States wants buyers in Asia, Iran's biggest oil market, to cut imports to put further pressure on Tehran.

DISCUSSION POSTPONED

Iranian lawmakers had been due to debate a bill Sunday that could have cut off oil supplies to the EU in days, in a move calculated to hit ailing European economies before the EU-wide ban on took effect.

But Iranian MPs postponed discussing the measure.

"No such draft bill has yet been drawn up and nothing has been submitted to the parliament. What exists is a notion by the deputies which is being seriously pursued to bring it to a conclusive end," Emad Hosseini, spokesman for parliament's Energy Committee, told Mehr news agency.

Iranian officials say sanctions have had no impact on the country. "Iranian oil has its own market, even if we cut our exports to Europe," Oil Minister Qasemi said.

Another lawmaker said the bill would oblige the government to cut Iran's oil supplies to the EU for five to 15 years, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

By turning the sanctions back on the EU, lawmakers hope to deny the bloc a six-month window it had planned to give those of its members most dependent on Iranian oil - including some of the most economically fragile in southern Europe - to adapt.

NUCLEAR WATCHDOG

Before departing from Vienna, IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts said he hoped Iran would tackle the watchdog's concerns "regarding the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program."

Mehr quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying during a trip to Ethiopia: "We are very optimistic about the outcome of the IAEA delegation's visit to Iran ... Their questions will be answered during this visit."

"We have nothing to hide and Iran has no clandestine (nuclear) activities."

Striking a sterner tone, Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned the IAEA team to carry out a "logical, professional and technical" job or suffer the consequences.

"This visit is a test for the IAEA. The route for further cooperation will be open if the team carries out its duties professionally," said Larijani, state media reported.

"Otherwise, if the IAEA turns into a tool (for major powers to pressure Iran), then Iran will have no choice but to consider a new framework in its ties with the agency."

Iran's parliament has approved bills in the past to oblige the government to review its level of cooperation with the IAEA. However, Iran's top officials have always underlined the importance of preserving ties with the watchdog body.

The head of the state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said late Saturday that the export embargo would hit European refiners, such as Italy's Eni, that are owed oil from Iran as part of long-standing buy-back contracts under which they take payment for past oilfield projects in crude.

The EU accounted for 25 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the third quarter of 2011. However, analysts say the global oil market will not be overly disrupted if parliament votes for the bill that would turn off the oil tap for Europe.

Potentially more disruptive to the world oil market and global security is the risk of Iran's standoff with the West escalating into military conflict.

Iran has repeatedly said it could close the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane if sanctions succeed in preventing it from exporting crude, a move Washington said it would not tolerate.

(Additional reporting by Hashem Kalantari, Robin Pomeroy and Hossein Jaseb in Tehran, Svetlana Kovalyova in Milan and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Robin Pomeroy; Editing by William Maclean and David Stamp)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/wl_nm/us_iran

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Santorum heads west (Politico)

MIAMI, Fla. ? While his rivals will be here for Tuesday?s primary, Rick Santorum is heading west.

Trailing far behind Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in the polls here, Santorum won?t even be in Florida on primary day as he doesn?t want to waste time in a state he seems to know he cannot win.

Continue Reading

Even if he finishes in the back of the pack in Florida, Santorum says he will continue to run, hitting Nevada, Missouri, Colorado, and maybe Arizona ? cheaper states where delegates are claimed proportionally. And then he says he will go on to super Tuesday on March 6.

?This race is changing every few weeks,? Santorum says in his stump speech. ?It?s going to change again. And what we need to do is to be out there sounding a very strong, consistent message, compete in every state, and that?s what we?re doing.?

?You keep out there, you keep your name out, and lots of things can happen between now and August and we?re going to be in a position to take advantage of that,? he says.

Santorum?s schedule is in flux after his young daughter was hospitalized Saturday night in Philadelphia, and he canceled a Florida campaign appearance scheduled for Sunday morning. But he?s likely to be back in Florida before Tuesday.

After winning the Iowa caucuses, Santorum?s decision to spend time in New Hampshire instead of heading straight to South Carolina, where voters were considered more receptive to his message, puzzled many. But his advisers say there?s a method to such madness. Without the kind of money of some of his competitors, he can still gain earned media in the early primary states and turn in strong debate performances. If he wins delegates in the caucus states and stays focused on his message, eventually Santorum ? not Gingrich ? will prove the stronger alternative to Romney, his advisers hope.

John Brabender, Santorum?s chief strategist, explained the campaign wants a ?clear shot at Romney.?

?That?s ultimately what we?re looking for,? Brabender said.

Brabender said it would have been disastrous to not play in Florida, even if it seemed obvious they couldn?t win the important state. The media would have written Santorum off as unable to run or win a national campaign.

The campaign initially planned to buy advertising time here, but decided to reroute the cash to Nevada instead. Santorum?s first commercial aired in Nevada during Thursday night?s debate.

?If we would have bet the ranch on Florida?and hadn?t won, then we wouldn?t have had very many options,? Brabender said. ?We wanted to be [in Florida] so we were in the dialogue. Instead of targeting by voters, we wanted to target by how much press we could get.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories0112_72116_html/44347304/SIG=11mgsoh2r/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72116.html

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Time short for Gingrich to close gap in Florida (AP)

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. ? Newt Gingrich slammed GOP rival Mitt Romney on Sunday for the steady stream of attacks he likened to "carpet-bombing," trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner's lead in Florida in the dwindling hours before Tuesday's pivotal presidential primary.

And despite surging ahead in polls, Romney wasn't letting up, relentlessly casting Gingrich as an influence peddler with a "record of failed leadership."

In what has become a wildly unpredictable race, the momentum has swung back to Romney, staggered last weekend by Gingrich's victory in South Carolina. Romney has begun advertising in Nevada ahead of that state's caucuses next Saturday, illustrating the challenges ahead for Gingrich, who has pledged to push ahead no matter what happens in Florida.

An NBC News/Marist poll published Sunday showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters, compared with 27 percent for Gingrich.

Romney's campaign has dogged Gingrich at his own campaign stops, sending surrogates to remind reporters of Gingrich's House ethics probe in the 1990s and other episodes in his career aimed at sowing doubt about his judgment.

Gingrich reacted defensively, accusing the former Massachusetts governor and a political committee that supports him of lying, and the GOP's establishment of allowing it.

"I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false," Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. "I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order."

Gingrich objected specifically to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House's decision to discipline Gingrich, then speaker, for ethics charges.

Romney continued to paint Gingrich as part of the very Washington establishment he condemns and someone who had a role in the nation's economic problems.

"Your problem in Florida is that you worked for Freddie Mac at a time when Freddie Mac was not doing the right thing for the American people, and that you're selling influence in Washington at a time when we need people who will stand up for the truth in Washington," Romney told an audience in Naples.

Gingrich's consulting firm was paid more than $1.5 million by the federally-backed mortgage company over a period after he left Congress in 1999.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, stayed in his home state, where his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, was hospitalized. She has a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. Aides said he would resume campaigning as soon as possible.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has invested little in Florida, looked ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.

The intense effort by Romney to slow Gingrich is comparable to his strategy against Gingrich in the closing month before Iowa's leadoff caucuses Jan. 3. Gingrich led in Iowa polls, lifted by what were hailed as strong performances in televised debates, only to drop in the face of withering attacks by Romney, aided immensely by ads sponsored by a "super" political action committee run by former Romney aides.

But Romney aides say they made the mistake of assuming Gingrich could not rise again as he did in South Carolina. Romney appears determined not to let that happen again.

"His record is one of failed leadership," Romney told more than 700 people at a rally in Pompano Beach Sunday evening. "We don't need someone who can speak well perhaps, or can say things we agree with, but does not have the experience of being an effective leader."

Gingrich has responded by criticizing Romney's conservative credentials. Outside an evangelical Christian church in Lutz, Gingrich said he was the more loyal conservative on key social issues.

"This party is not going to nominate somebody who is a pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase liberal," Gingrich said. "It isn't going to happen."

But Gingrich, in appearances on Sunday news programs, returned to complaining about Romney's tactics. "It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all," he said.

Romney and the political committee that supports him had combined to spend some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week. Gingrich and a super PAC that supports him were spending about one-third that amount.

Gingrich worked to portray himself as the insurgent outsider, collecting the endorsement of tea party favorite Herman Cain, whose own campaign for president foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.

It was unclear how aggressively Gingrich would be able to compete in states beyond Florida. The next televised debate, a format Gingrich has used to his advantage, is not until Feb. 22, more than three weeks away.

Romney already has campaigned in Nevada more than Gingrich, is advertising there, and stresses his business background in a state hard-hit by the economy. His campaign welcomed the Sunday endorsement of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper.

Michigan and Maine, where Romney won during his 2008 campaign, also hold their contests in February. Arizona, a strong tea-party state where Gingrich could do well, has its primary Feb. 28.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Naples and Shannon McCaffrey in Lutz contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Magnetic Soap May Help Clean Up Spilled Oil

BP released millions of gallons of dispersants to break up oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But what if dispersants could be sucked up again after doing their job? Chemist Julian Eastoe talks about an iron-containing soap he's created that can be recaptured using a magnet.

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, BP poured nearly two million gallons of dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico. The goal, of course, is breaking up oil slicks, making them dissolve into ocean waters, sort of like how you squirt dish soap on a greasy frying pan to get the oil to wash away with the water.

The problem is, after you dump all that soap into the Gulf, the soap stays there. My next guest has developed something that could be the solution: the soap that has iron in it so that you can suck up the soap with a magnet.

How do they do it? Could we really use something like this next time there's a big oil spill? Julian Eastoe is a professor in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol in the U.K. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

JULIAN EASTOE: Hello, Ira, from the United Kingdom.

FLATOW: Thanks for joining - how did you get this idea? It sounds so simple yet so easy.

EASTOE: Well, to explain that, I'd like to propose an interactive experiment for you and your listeners. Would that be OK?

FLATOW: Absolutely.

EASTOE: Well, the experiment works best if you're in the kitchen. So go over to the fridge and take one of those picture fridge magnets, you know, with Niagara Falls, Las Vegas or Disneyland on it.

FLATOW: Right.

EASTOE: And now go over to the kitchen sink with the magnet. Next put the magnet against the bottle of dish soap. Right. What happens?

FLATOW: Nothing.

EASTOE: Absolutely nothing.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

EASTOE: That's because normal soap is not magnetic. Just as you said, you can't control where it goes. Gravity does that, just sucks it down the drain. Now, Ira, we've been making soaps and surfactants with unusual properties for some years. Have you ever thought of a soap you could turn on with the flick of a switch, a light-sensitive surfactant? We made one of those about five years ago.

And next we thought why not try magnets. Would it be possible to make surfactants or soaps that respond to magnets? Well, if that's true, then you stand a chance to control where the soap does and where it doesn't go. Our motivation for this was just good old-fashioned scientific inquisitiveness.

FLATOW: So you created this soap that is magnetic so that the soap dissolves the grease, keeps the grease with it, and then you can just magnetize it away with a magnet?

EASTOE: Yeah, it sounds incredible, but it's true. I mean, I was witnessing the experiments in my laboratory at the University of Bristol this afternoon with graduate students. We were making emulsions with lube oil, our magnetic soap, and we were moving them around using magnets. The emulsions can be collected up. It's amazing.

FLATOW: Now, I've - I've got an experiment for you now. Tell me if this is possible. Let's say that you can put your - you can disperse your magnetic soap into a harbor. Can you magnetize the hulls of ships so that they sort of scoot around the harbor soaking up all the grease collecting on their hulls, and then you just clean them off when they get back to the harbor?

EASTOE: Well, Ira, I hadn't thought about that. It sounds feasible to me, but I think we would have to do some tests in the laboratory. I'm not sure about if you can maintain magnetism in the hull of a ship.

FLATOW: A-ha, but you think you can do this with an oil spill by collecting up all the grease later on?

EASTOE: Well, in principle that's right. That's what we demonstrated in the laboratory. The - we started with chemicals that are relatives of common or garden(ph) soaps. We kept the organic part of the molecule, the one which dissolves oily substances, but we chemically modified the ionic part, which makes the compound water soluble.

And it's quite simple, really. We replace the normal ions with magnetic ions. Those ions contain the element iron.

FLATOW: And voila, because the soap molecule, as you say, is fascinating to begin with. One end likes to stick in the grease, one end likes to stick in the water, and that's why it works so well. And you basically took the water end and put a piece of iron in there.

EASTOE: Yeah, we've done this with iron. That's in the paper, which has been published recently, but we've even used other magnetic units. I can't disclose them right now because they're under a secrecy agreement, but we are now starting to optimize the chemistry, and that is now really exciting.

I think what this research shows is the first stage in any scientific breakthrough, the essential proof of principle, and once the proof of principle has been established and has been communicated to the scientific community, that's when it gets really interesting.

FLATOW: Yeah.

EASTOE: That's when the collective consciousness, those thousands and thousands of scientific minds get to work coming up with ideas that you would never have thought of.

FLATOW: Yeah, it's - so once you show that this can happen, people will say, you know, this is what I could do with it. Sort of like...

EASTOE: Now, it was suggested to me, Ira, by somebody from the British equivalent of the Audubon Society - that's the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the United Kingdom - that this could potentially help in the cleanup of those poor seabirds when they get contaminated by oil slicks.

FLATOW: They get washed down with this magnetic soap.

EASTOE: Yeah, he suggested that maybe with the extra pull from the magnet you would be able to clean off the poor birds more effectively than just using the traditional, you know, dispersants. So I sent a grad student down to the store to get some lube oil and a pillow. We've taken it apart and we're testing that idea right now with down from the pillows that we bought in the store.

FLATOW: I'm sure the grad students are doing it, right?

EASTOE: Sure.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: You know, once these things happen, you know, like you never know where they're going to end up. I mean, the laser beam was invented to cut steel and razor blades back in the early '60s, but look what it's used for now. You never know where your idea might wind up, where it will end.

EASTOE: No, that's the really exciting thing about being a scientist, is that you uncover facts and figures that you just do not know where that will lead for the human race. Think about the liquid crystals, which were developed in the U.K. in the 1970s.

When they developed liquid crystals, they had no idea that it would be an integral part of mobile phones and smartphones, for example, but they certainly don't work without liquid crystals to allow you to interface with the electronics through the screen. And this is the same it could be here with this application, the applications that could come from this magnetic soap.

FLATOW: Now, let me ask you the $64 question, as we say here in the States.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: And it is a $64 question, I guess. Is it cheap enough? You know, can you make...

EASTOE: Well, in fact, it's interesting that what we started with, a chemical, sort of just the brothers and sisters of those that you would find in household products, we tried to keep it simple here. And the cost of our magnetic soap is already reasonable. It's reasonable enough that it could actually be scaled up.

Think that the elements that are contained in this soap are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine and iron, all very, very common elements. And therefore the soap that we've made is cheap, commercially viable.

FLATOW: Well, I wish you the best of luck, and we'll watch to see where your soap shows up, so to speak.

EASTOE: OK, thank you very much.

FLATOW: Thanks for taking time to be with us today. Julian...

EASTOE: OK, it's been a great pleasure, Ira.

FLATOW: You're quite welcome. Julian Eastoe is a professor in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol in the U.K.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/27/145990087/magnetic-soap-may-help-clean-up-spilled-oil?ft=1&f=1007

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SUMO-snipping protein plays crucial role in T and B cell development

Saturday, January 28, 2012

When SUMO grips STAT5, a protein that activates genes, it blocks the healthy embryonic development of immune B cells and T cells unless its nemesis breaks the hold, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in Molecular Cell.

"This research extends the activity of SUMO and the Sentrin/SUMO-specific protease 1 (SENP1) to the field of immunology, in particular the early lymphoid development of T and B cells," said the study's senior author, Edward T. H. Yeh, M.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson's Department of Cardiology.

SUMO proteins, also known as the small ubiquitin-like modifiers or Sentrin, attach to other proteins in cells to modify their function or to move them within a cell. SENP1 is one of a family of six proteins that snips SUMO off of SUMO-modified proteins. SUMOylation (SUMO modification) of proteins has been implicated in development of cancer, heart and neurodegenerative diseases, among others.

The team first analyzed the role of SENP1 in the development of lymphoids in mice and found it is heavily expressed in precursor cells, the early stages of B and T cell development.

Working with genetically modified mice they developed that lack SENP1 gene expression, Yeh and colleagues found the mouse embryos had severe defects in their T and B cells, white blood cell lymphocytes that identify and fight infection.

SUMO pins STAT5 in the nucleus

Subsequent experiments led them to STAT5, a transcription factor known to play critical roles in the development and function of immune cells. Transcription factors work in the cell nucleus, activating gene expression by connecting to a gene's promoter region.

"STAT5 works in a cycle, moving from the cytosol of a cell into the nucleus to activate genes and then back out to the cytosol," Yeh said. "We found that when STAT5 is SUMOylated in the nucleus it gets trapped there when there's no SENP1 to remove SUMO."

The team found that SUMO muscles in on two other signaling events that govern STAT5 activity - phosphorylation and acetylation.

SUMO inhibits STAT5 signaling

STAT5 is activated in the cell cytosol when the JAK tyrosine kinase attaches a phosphate group at a specific site on the STAT5 protein. This transformed STAT5 crosses the nuclear membrane into the nucleus to transcribe genes.

The team found that SUMO attaches to STAT5 close to its phosphorylation site and that cells lacking SENP1 have increased SUMOylation and decreased phosphorylation.

SUMOylation vs. acetylation

In addition to phosphorylation, acetylation of STAT5 has been shown to be essential for STAT5 to cross the nuclear membrane into the nucleus to enhance gene transcription. Yeh and colleagues found that SUMO competes directly with acetyl groups for the same binding site, inhibiting acetylation.

"Without SENP1 to remove SUMO, STAT5 can't be acetylated or phosphorylated and can't be recycled for use again," Yeh said. "We discovered that SENP1 controls lymphoid development through regulation of SUMOylation of STAT5."

Since Yeh's lab discovered SUMOylation in 1996, SUMO has been found to alter the function of thousands of proteins.

Yeh is hosting the 6th International Conference SUMO, Ubiquitin, UBL Proteins: Implications for Human Diseases Feb. 8-11 in the Dan L. Duncan Building at MD Anderson. Yeh organizes the meeting every other year.

"There used to be so little known about SUMO. Now, a protein is assumed to be SUMOylated until proved otherwise," Yeh said.

###

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: http://www.mdanderson.org

Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117155/SUMO_snipping_protein_plays_crucial_role_in_T_and_B_cell_development

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Forests for all? New federal rule aims to please

Siskiyou Project via AP file

National forest uses include logging like this work in Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest. Trying to balance resource use and resource protection has been controversial.

By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com

It's no easy task figuring out how to balance forest and wildlife protection with logging, drilling and offroading on the nation's 155 national forests, but the Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a rule it says will do just that. An era of collaboration and less litigation was promised with the rule managing forests, but some initial reaction?by interested parties -- which range from environmentalists to loggers to offroaders -- was not promising.

"Our preferred alternative will safeguard our natural resources and provide a roadmap for getting work done on the ground that will restore our forests while providing job opportunities for local communities," U.S. Agriculture Department chief Tom Vilsack vowed in a statement.


The rule essentially revises the existing framework for how each forest's managers must proceed with a given issue -- be it a request to log, a request to protect some species or even a request to open part of a forest to offroad vehicles.

The U.S. Forest Service, which?is part of USDA, last year issued a draft of?the rule for public review. That process generated more than 300,000 comments that Vilsack said were weighed and, in some cases, incorporated into the final rule.?

Unlike national parks, which protect resources, national forests were created to balance resource protection with resource use but that still hasn't prevented decades of legal battles.

"We expect to see much less litigation because of the increased collaborative effort" in deciding what happens in each forest, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told reporters.

Officials noted that several changes were made to the draft, including adding emphasis on "sound science" and, according to Tidwell, "beefed up protection of water resources."

Tidwell said the rule would also streamline how each national forest is managed, which will free up "more time, more money to get the restoration done" across the 193 million acres of forest.

The Natural Resources Defense Council had a mixed initial take on the rule. "It is much more meaningful about getting local officials to apply the best available science," NRDC forest analyst Niel Lawrence told msnbc.com, and there's "significant improvement in public participation."

But the environmental group is also "very concerned" because the rule removes a provision ensuring that wildlife will have viable populations distributed across the forests where they are now found, Lawrence said. "It jettisons the single most important conservation protection" on U.S. forests over the last 30 years, he added.

The NRDC intends to lobby the administration and if that doesn't work a lawsuit is "perfectly possible," Lawrence said.

A timber industry group, for its part, told msnbc.com that it needed a day or two to review the rule. But, in a statement?issued right after the rule, the?American Forest Resource Council voiced concern.?"We are very concerned about whether the agency took the comments we made on the draft rule to heart and made changes needed to avoid the mistakes of the past," said council President Tom Partin.

The BlueRibbon Coalition, a group representing offroad interests, also said it was still reviewing the rule.

In Congress, the chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Washington state Republican Doc Hastings, said the concerns he'd raised earlier "fell on deaf ears."

"These new Obama regulations introduce excessive layers of bureaucracy that will cost jobs, hinder proper forest management, increase litigation and add burdensome costs for Americans," he said in a statement.

Last November, Hastings' committee hosted a hearing where critics piled on against the draft rule.

"First, the proposed planning rule will increase the complexity, cost, and time for the Forest Service to complete forest plans," testified Scott Horngren on behalf of the American Forest Resource Council. "Second, of greater concern, is that the planning rule will make the projects that implement the plans more vulnerable to lawsuits than they are today."

The last time the planning rules were updated was in 1982. Several attempts to revise it have been thrown out by federal courts. In 2009, a Bush administration plan was struck down. Environmentalists had fought the rule, saying it rolled back key forest protections.

The Obama administration decided not to challenge that ruling and instead come up with new rules.

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Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10243280-forests-for-all-new-federal-rule-aims-to-please

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UC Merced research project examines South Dos Palos

No jobs, a lack of infrastructure, a delay in fire and law enforcement response and many loose dogs roaming the streets.

Those are among the findings from a research project aimed at gathering information on one of the poorest communities in Merced County.

The needs and challenges of the small unincorporated rural town of South Dos Palos mirror those of other small rural communities in the Central Valley.

South Dos Palos is a community with one of the widest disparities of poverty, said Robin DeLugan, a professor at UC Merced, who led the research, which will be a part of a bigger project. DeLugan said the project confirmed what she and others already knew.

However, there wasn't concrete information using statistics and percentages about the community's specific needs to really represent what's going on, she said.

This project intended to do just that.

"We were waiting for an opportunity to show where research can make a difference," she said.

Talking with residents

Last spring, a group of 30 undergraduate students went door-to-door to try to get information from residents about local conditions. DeLugan said they were able to get information from about 215 households, which represents about 70 percent of the occupied homes in South Dos Palos.

Some of the information was about public safety, how long residents have to travel for groceries and medical services and what they like or dislike about their community. "We are hoping the information becomes useful in shedding light on the community," DeLugan said.

The data can be used for grant writing to help improve the community. "Those are our goals with the data that we collected," DeLugan said.

Some of the problems indicated by residents aren't so hard to solve. For example, one safety issue was an excess of loose dogs, which can be addressed, she said.

Students spent last fall analyzing the data. On Sunday, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., there will be an exhibit of their work at the UC Merced Kolligian Library, Room 355.

The next step will be to disseminate information to the residents and get them involved in making changes.

A portion of the survey used for South Dos Palos residents will be used in other rural unincorporated communities in the Central Valley, which will bring opportunities for comparison, DeLugan said.

DeLugan and her team, along with such other organizations as the Community University Research and Action for Justice, California Rural Legal Assistance and PolicyLink, began to work with the George Washington Carver Center board members to collect the data. The Carver Center is a community center in Dos Palos.

Reporter Yesenia Amaro can be reached at (209) 385-2482 or yamaro@mercedsunstar.com.

Source: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/01/26/2207369/uc-merced-research-project-examines.html

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Researchers Spot Potential Bile Duct Cancer Drug Targets (HealthDay)

THURSDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers who identified a new genetic signature associated with bile duct cancer say their discovery could lead to targeted treatment for the deadly cancer.

The team at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center screened samples from 287 patients with gastrointestinal tumors and found that growth-enhancing mutations in two genes (IDH1 and IDH2) may account for nearly one-fourth of bile duct tumors that develop in the liver.

Mutations in IDH1 were found in 13 percent of all bile duct tumors and in 23 percent of those within the liver itself. Mutations in IDH2 were less common.

It may be possible to develop drugs that target this mutation in order to control tumor growth, they said.

The findings were published online in The Oncologist.

Bile duct cancer occurs in a duct that carries bile from the liver to the small intestine.

"Patients with bile duct cancer have a generally poor prognosis. Most of them are diagnosed with advanced or metastatic disease, so surgical resection [removal] is not feasible," study co-senior author Dr. Andrew Zhu, director of Liver Cancer Research at the MGH Cancer Center, said in a hospital news release.

"Identifying this new and relatively common mutation in intrahepatic [within the liver] bile duct cancer may have significant implications for the diagnosis, prognosis and therapy of patients whose tumors harbor this mutation," Zhu added.

Currently, there are no drugs that target IDH mutations, but extensive efforts are underway to develop such drugs, the researchers say.

Each year in the United States, 12,000 people are diagnosed with cancers of the gallbladder and bile duct, but only 10 percent of those cancers are discovered early enough for successful surgical treatment. Average survival, even with chemotherapy, is less than a year.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about bile duct cancer.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120127/hl_hsn/researchersspotpotentialbileductcancerdrugtargets

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Forklift driver rewarded in homeless killings case (AP)

ANAHEIM, Calif. ? Donny Hopkins was buying his wife cigarettes at a drug store when a man burst inside and screamed the unbelievable: A serial killer was savagely stabbing a man in the parking lot.

Hopkins, who knew a killer was stalking homeless men, bolted from the store to find a man repeatedly plunging a knife into a Vietnam veteran behind a Carl's Jr. restaurant.

"I'm yelling as loud as I can, `Hey, stop!' at the top of my lungs. He just kept going and kept going," Hopkins told The Associated Press on Wednesday as he recounted the Jan. 13 attack.

Fumbling to dial 911 on his cellphone, Hopkins chased the suspect across the Anaheim strip mall and into a mobile home park, where police eventually collared a blood-covered suspect.

Hopkins, a 32-year-old forklift driver, was hailed a hero Wednesday and given a $5,000 reward for his role in the capture of Itzcoatl Ocampo, a former Marine.

"While we never encourage citizens to put themselves in danger, his actions saved unknown lives," said Tom Dominguez, president of The Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, which paid the reward.

Ocampo, 23, an Iraq war veteran from Yorba Linda, has been charged with murdering four homeless men in Orange County over nearly a month. Police fanned out across the county better known as the home to Disneyland and multi-million dollar beachfront homes to urge the homeless to be careful and seek shelter indoors.

Hopkins, who lives with his wife, two children and mother in the trailer park where Ocampo was nabbed, received the check at a news conference outside the fast-food restaurant where 64-year-old victim John Berry is remembered with a collection of candles, flowers and teddy bears.

Hopkins, who had given money to Berry in the past, said he didn't feel like a hero because the man died.

"I did what I hope anybody would do if you see somebody in trouble," he said. "I'm just a guy who did the right thing. John was a Vietnam vet ? he's a hero. That's a real hero."

Hopkins intends to use the reward to pay bills and help his mother, who lost her job a few weeks ago.

Prosecutors said Ocampo stalked each victim and stabbed them repeatedly with a knife sharp enough to cut through bone.

Authorities found a knife sharpener, a book titled "The Most Notorious Crimes in American History," dark clothes and a medical marijuana prescription letter in Ocampo's bedroom at his Yorba Linda home, according to court documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Ocampo's father, who is homeless and lives in a disabled big-rig truck, said his son was troubled after he returned from Iraq in 2008. Refugio Ocampo said his son showed him a picture of one of the slain men and warned him to be careful just days before his arrest.

Prosecutors said Itzcoatl Ocampo targeted Berry after he appeared in a Los Angeles Times story about police warning the homeless about the serial killings.

The first victim in the killing spree was James Patrick McGillivray, 53, who was stabbed near a shopping center in Placentia on Dec. 20. The body of Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found near a riverbed trail in Anaheim on Dec. 28. Paulus Smit, 57, was stabbed to death outside a Yorba Linda library Dec. 30.

Ocampo was being held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 17. Prosecutors have not announced whether they will seek the death penalty in the case.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_us/us_homeless_homicides

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