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Thursday, April 11, 2013

My foray into the world of renter's insurance | InsuranceQuotes.com

Michelle J. Lee

?Think of all of your precious possessions. They cost you a lot, right? Now, imagine them all burning up in a fire and you having to replace every single item with your own money!?

I heard this every day for a week after we released our survey on renter?s insurance, and it was my own fault. My fault for being honest and sharing that I hadn?t purchased renter?s insurance.

It?s not like I was trying to rebel against my own professional industry, it?s because, well, I?m lazy. And I hate talking on the phone with strangers. And I hate shopping for things that don?t fall into the categories of shoes or clothing. Ahem. anxious-renter

I had gone shopping for renter?s insurance once before, a year ago. I didn?t get very far because I wanted to buy it solely via online interaction. I almost bought it from Company A*, but Company A said the final step was to hop on the phone with my potential agent. While some people might like that, I didn?t, so Company A lost me. (I even mentioned that I didn?t want to talk to anyone on the phone, which they acknowledged, but also dismissed.)

Then, thanks to the heckling of my co-workers (who I know had my best interests in mind), I crumbled beneath the peer pressure. I also was feeling very paranoid that anytime I stepped out of the house would be the last time that I saw my shiny laptop or my shoe collection.

So, earlier this month, I am pleased to announce, I joined the ranks of those with renter?s insurance. Hurrah.

I shopped at three companies. Company A (I still had my quote with them from a year before), Company B and Company C. From our story about the renter?s insurance survey, I knew that coverage can be as low as $10 a month. However, Company A gave me an estimate of more than $20 a month. Company B gave an estimate for about $10 a month, while Company C was above $22 a month. Why the disparity? I have no idea.

Tips for buying renter?s insurance

Let?s get into what happens when you shop for renter?s insurance, now that you have me with you to gently guide you into this world of trepidation.

1. Prepare to shop! It takes time. Don?t let laziness get in the way of comparing prices among at least three companies to get the best deal. Also, don?t scrunch up your face someone asks for your ZIP code ? that?s normal.

2. Be prepared to tell how much your stuff is worth. Take inventory. I don?t have much stuff to my name (chalk this up to me having an austere lifestyle or for just being a hoarding novice), so it was fairly easy for me to calculate the value of my personal property. This may not be the case for everyone.

3. Go with the company that best fits your wants and needs. For me, I didn?t want to deal with anyone on the phone unless I absolutely had to (for example, if I needed to file a claim). Company B won because I could do the entire shopping process online, and it had the cheapest rate with appropriate coverage. No unnecessary awkward phone calls ? and it fit my budget!

4. Choose between paying upfront and paying the full amount over time. I chose to pay upfront, because the monthly and biannual options involved a processing fee. Since my renter?s insurance is about $10 a month, the processing fees for each month ? if I chose to pay monthly ? were more than 30 percent of the monthly cost (around $3). Meaning, I would pay about $120 a year for coverage, and $36 on top of that to process monthly installments. Unless you don?t mind paying 28.8 percent in addition to the yearly fee, I recommend paying everything upfront without processing fees.

Glad to have it?

I?d like to thank my co-workers for their encouragement in getting me insured (read: for their jeering emails, verbal taunts and lunchtime conversations where they singled me out as ?that girl without renter?s insurance?). Now, I can leave my place without the ?what ifs? creeping into my head.

If you don?t have renter?s insurance, the process isn?t as painful as you think. And remember my story and how I survived!

* Insurance company names have been changed, if you couldn?t tell already.

Source: http://www.insurancequotes.com/shopping-for-renters-insurance/

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Blue-chip tech stocks lift Dow to intraday record high

BRUSSELS, April 8 (Reuters) - A French teenager who had hidden inside a garbage container was crushed to death inside a trash truck in Luxembourg on Saturday, police said. Garbage men only discovered the 17-year-old when he shouted out as they emptied the container into the back of the truck early on Saturday morning, but by then he was already in the grasp of the crushing mechanism. "He cried out, but it was already too late," a spokeswoman for Luxembourg police said on Monday. The young man, whose name was not released, died on the scene, in the city of Luxembourg. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-signal-mixed-open-093026199--finance.html

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Jury pool for Jackson death civil case grows to 81

FILE - In this April 27, 2011 file photo, Katherine Jackson poses for a portrait in Calabasas, Calif. Attorneys and a judge continue to try to qualify jurors to hear Jackson's lawsuit versus concert promoter AEG Live over the hiring of the doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the superstar's 2009 death. Jury selection continues the week of April 8-12 2013. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Attorneys and a Los Angeles judge have selected 81 people to remain in the jury pool for a case between Michael Jackson's mother and concert giant AEG Live.

Nine people were added to the pool Wednesday after the sixth day of jury selection.

Screenings will continue Thursday and Friday to try to find enough people to serve in Katherine Jackson's case against the promoter of her son's planned series of comeback concerts.

The Jackson family matriarch claims AEG executives failed to investigate the doctor who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death. The company denies all wrongdoing.

Potential jurors are being given a 24-page questionnaire assessing their knowledge of the case.

In-person questioning of potential jurors is scheduled to begin Monday, with opening statements expected later this month.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-10-Jackson-Concert%20Promoter%20Suit/id-123ce8ee832e4dd596f3659a14cdb785

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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Study finds gene that may raise Alzheimer's risk in blacks

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The largest study to date looking for genetic causes of Alzheimer's in African Americans may offer new clues about why blacks in the United States are twice as likely as whites to develop the deadly, brain-wasting disease.

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday, show that mutations in two genes that play a role in whites also contribute to Alzheimer's risk in blacks. One of those, known as ABCA7, may double the risk in blacks who have the mutation versus those who don't.

Although many genes have been found to raise the risk of Alzheimer's, most studies have been conducted in largely white populations, and few studies have looked specifically at genes that drive Alzheimer's in blacks. Part of that is because very few African Americans take part in gene studies looking at Alzheimer's risk.

The latest findings will need to be confirmed by other research teams, and critics say the study is incomplete until that work is done.

To get enough participants for the newly published study, researchers combined genetic information from 18 different Alzheimer's Disease Centers funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. They gathered information on 6,000 African Americans, 2,000 of whom had late-onset Alzheimer's disease, the most common form that occurs in older people.

The team then looked for genes that were most strongly associated with Alzheimer's. The strongest link was with a variant of a gene called apolipoprotein E or APOE, a gene that contains instructions for making a protein that carries cholesterol and is well-known risk factor for Alzheimer's.

The team found that a variant of this gene called APOE-e4 doubled the risk of Alzheimer's in blacks, in much the same way it does in whites.

But the study also turned up another gene that has only been weakly associated with Alzheimer's in whites. This gene, called ABCA7, which also plays a role in the production of cholesterol and fats, appears to have a much stronger effect in blacks.

"In whites, it increases risk by 10 to 20 percent, but in African Americans, it increases risk by about 70 to 80 percent. It has a way larger effect size in African Americans," said Dr. Christiane Reitz of Columbia University Medical Center, who conducted the genetic analyses on the study.

ABCA7 is also involved in cholesterol metabolism, as are several of the genes which have been found in the past five years or so to be linked with Alzheimer's in whites.

"That seems to be a pathway that is involved in Alzheimer's disease," Reitz said.

Reitz said a variant form of APOE called APOE-e4 has the biggest effect, increasing the risk of Alzheimer's by about 200 percent. ABCA7 raised the risk by about 80 percent, and most other genes discovered so far increase risk by 10 to 20 percent.

Like other risk genes for the age-related form of Alzheimer's, the gene explains only part of the risk and likely will not lead to any new treatments soon. Reitz said it is clear that hundreds of genes are at work in Alzheimer's disease.

"ABCA7 and APOE are not the only genes involved in Alzheimer's disease in African Americans," Reitz said, adding that it would take tens of thousands of participants to detect some of the other risk genes. "What the study did show us is at least one gene which seems to have a major effect, and that's important to know."

REPRESENTATIVE ENOUGH?

The next step is to study how the ABCA7 gene works in the brain, and the team still needs to validate the results of this study in another independent population of blacks, something that may be challenging.

According to Neil Buckholtz, director of the division of neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, the study represented all of the well characterized genetic samples of blacks in the United States.

Dr. Allan Levey, director of Emory University's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, said the study was significant for being the first large-scale genetic study done in African Americans. But he said a major limitation is that the study was not replicated in another population of blacks to confirm the findings, which is considered necessary to ensure its validity.

"Had this same study been done in whites, it would never have been published here," said Levey, referring to JAMA, a highly-regarded medical journal.

Troy Duster, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley and author of "Backdoor to Eugenics" and contributor to "Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society," says the findings are too preliminary and the effect sizes too small to draw any definitive conclusions about differences in the risk of Alzheimer's between blacks and whites.

Without a replicating study in other groups who identify as African-American and as white, "it is impossible to interpret whether this small difference has significant meaning, or points to different etiologies (or the need for different treatments) in different groups," he said.

Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations at the Alzheimer's Association, which funded two of the study authors, said the findings should spur new research into the potential reasons for this link between ABCA7 and Alzheimer's in African Americans.

"Really, that all requires more funding for Alzheimer's disease research," Snyder said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/study-finds-gene-may-raise-alzheimers-risk-blacks-202839389.html

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Pistons Bulls: Detroit Finally Ends 18 Game Losing Streak To Chicago

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Brandon Knight scored 20 points Sunday night to help the Detroit Pistons snap an 18-game losing streak against the Chicago Bulls with a 99-85 victory Sunday night.

Jonas Jerebko added 17 points and a season-high nine rebounds for the Pistons, who ended an eight-game home skid.

The Bulls led by as many as 11 points in the first quarter but Detroit gradually caught up and took the lead in the second after starting the period on a 12-4 run.

Carlos Boozer had 21 points and 10 rebounds for the postseason-bound Bulls, who are fighting to secure the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. Nate Robinson added 18 points and Jimmy Butler scored 14 as Chicago's two-game winning streak ended.

The Pistons took a 50-46 lead to intermission and pushed it to as many as 10 in the third quarter. Knight scored a dozen points in the period. Detroit scored the first four points of the fourth and never let the Bulls get closer than 10 points the rest of the night.

Rodney Stuckey had 14 points and rookie Andre Drummond added 10 rebounds for Detroit.

Luol Deng, the Bulls' leading scorer and the NBA's leader in minutes per game, missed the game with a sore hip. Coach Tom Thibodeau said the decision to bench him was "precautionary."

Chicago's Joakim Noah, who missed eight games with an injured right foot, and Marco Belinelli, who was out seven with an abdominal strain, each returned Sunday night.

The Bulls were aiming to match the franchise record for consecutive victories over an opponent, which also was against the Pistons. Michael Jordan's 1990s teams won 19 in a row against Detroit.

The Pistons treated home fans to their first win since the All-Star break. They hadn't won at the Palace of Auburn Hills since Feb. 13.

Notes: Pistons point guard Jose Calderon, who had started all 28 games since Detroit acquired him in a Jan. 30 trade, missed the game with a right triceps strain. . Chicago's last loss to the Pistons was Dec. 23, 2008.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/pistons-bulls-detroit-streak_n_3036653.html

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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Remaining Martian atmosphere still dynamic

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Mars has lost much of its original atmosphere, but what's left remains quite active, recent findings from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity indicate. Rover team members reported diverse findings today at the European Geosciences Union 2013 General Assembly, in Vienna.

Evidence has strengthened this month that Mars lost much of its original atmosphere by a process of gas escaping from the top of the atmosphere.

Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument analyzed an atmosphere sample last week using a process that concentrates selected gases. The results provided the most precise measurements ever made of isotopes of argon in the Martian atmosphere. Isotopes are variants of the same element with different atomic weights. "We found arguably the clearest and most robust signature of atmospheric loss on Mars," said Sushil Atreya, a SAM co-investigator at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

SAM found that the Martian atmosphere has about four times as much of a lighter stable isotope (argon-36) compared to a heavier one (argon-38). This removes previous uncertainty about the ratio in the Martian atmosphere from 1976 measurements from NASA's Viking project and from small volumes of argon extracted from Martian meteorites. The ratio is much lower than the solar system's original ratio, as estimated from argon-isotope measurements of the sun and Jupiter. This points to a process at Mars that favored preferential loss of the lighter isotope over the heavier one.

Curiosity measures several variables in today's Martian atmosphere with the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), provided by Spain. While daily air temperature has climbed steadily since the measurements began eight months ago and is not strongly tied to the rover's location, humidity has differed significantly at different places along the rover's route. These are the first systematic measurements of humidity on Mars.

Trails of dust devils have not been seen inside Gale Crater, but REMS sensors detected many whirlwind patterns during the first hundred Martian days of the mission, though not as many as detected in the same length of time by earlier missions. "A whirlwind is a very quick event that happens in a few seconds and should be verified by a combination of pressure, temperature and wind oscillations and, in some cases, a decrease is ultraviolet radiation," said REMS Principal Investigator Javier G?mez-Elvira of the Centro de Astrobiolog?a, Madrid.

Dust distributed by the wind has been examined by Curiosity's laser-firing Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. Initial laser pulses on each target hit dust. The laser's energy removes the dust to expose underlying material, but those initial pulses also provide information about the dust.

"We knew that Mars is red because of iron oxides in the dust," said ChemCam Deputy Principal Investigator Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Plan?tologie in Toulouse, France. "ChemCam reveals a complex chemical composition of the dust that includes hydrogen, which could be in the form of hydroxyl groups or water molecules."

Possible interchange of water molecules between the atmosphere and the ground is studied by a combination of instruments on the rover, including the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), provided by Russia under the leadership of DAN Principal Investigator Igor Mitrofanov.

For the rest of April, Curiosity will carry out daily activities for which commands were sent in March, using DAN, REMS and the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD). No new commands are being sent during a four-week period while Mars is passing nearly behind the sun, from Earth's perspective. This geometry occurs about every 26 months and is called Mars solar conjunction.

"After conjunction, Curiosity will be drilling into another rock where the rover is now, but that target has not yet been selected. The science team will discuss this over the conjunction period." said Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to investigate the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed in August 2012 to begin its two-year prime mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about the mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/YqrPEUzI6wM/130408192956.htm

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