In lab, Pannexin1 restores tight binding of cells that is lost in cancer

Monday, January 30, 2012

First there is the tumor and then there's the horrible question of whether the cancerous cells will spread. Scientists increasingly believe that the structural properties of the tumor itself, such as how tightly the tumor cells are packed together, play a decisive role in the progression of the disease. In a new study, researchers show that the protein Pannexin1, known to have tumor-suppressive properties, plays an important role in keeping the cells within a tissue closely packed together, an effect that may be lost with cancer.

"In healthy tissues, the recently discovered protein Pannexin1 may be playing an important role in upholding the mechanical integrity of the tissue," said first author and Brown University M.D./Ph.D. student Brian Bao. "When we develop cancer, we lose Pannexin1 and we lose this integrity."

The results appeared in advance online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Jan. 20.

To conduct their research, the group at Brown University and the University of British Columbia employed a "3-D Petri dish" technology that allows investigators to watch closely how cells interact with each other, without scientists having to worry about additional interactions with surrounding scaffolding or the culture plate itself. How readily the cells form large multicellular structures therefore reflects their interactions with each other, not their in vitro surroundings.

Bao's advisor, Jeffrey Morgan, associate professor of medical science, developed the 3-D Petri dish technology. Morgan is the paper's senior author.

Cancer cells converge

Starting with rat "C6" glioma (brain tumor) cells that do not express Pannexin1, the researchers left some unaltered and engineered others to express Pannexin1. After putting the different cells into the 3-D Petri dishes and watching them interact for 24 hours, they saw that the Pannexin1 cells were able to form large multicellular tissues much faster and more tightly than the unaltered cancer cells.

To confirm that Pannexin1 was indeed causing these changes, Bao and his colleagues treated their samples with the drugs Probenecid and Carbenoxolone, which are well known inhibitors of Pannexin1. They saw that sure enough, the drugs negated Pannexin1's accelerating effect.

Then the team was ready to achieve the the study's main aim, Bao said, namely to determine how Pannexin1 was able to drive these cells to clump together faster and tighter. They found that Pannexin1 sets off a chain reaction involving the energy-carrying molecule ATP and specific receptors for it.

When all experiments were done, Bao, Morgan, and their collaborators had found that as soon as the cells touched each other, Pannexin1 channels were stimulated to open and release ATP. The ATP then bound to cell surface receptors, kicking off intracellular calcium waves that ultimately remodeled the network of a structural protein called actin. This remodeling increases the forces between the cells, driving them to bind together more tightly.

Figuring out that sequence, and Pannexin1's role in it, is perhaps the study's biggest contribution to cancer research, Bao said.

"Using their single-cell systems, others have been able to carefully study individual pieces of this cascade," he said. "We came from a different perspective. Because the strength of our assay is that we can look at gross multicellular behavior in 3-D, we could ask, 'Does this actually manifest into something tangible on the multicellular level?'"

Having gained this understanding of Pannexin1's role in the mechanics of tumors, Bao is now engaged in research to answer the obvious next questions: Does Pannexin1 affect the tumor's ability to spread and invade? When cancerous cells regain Pannexin1 expression, are they less likely to spread and leave the tumor?

###

Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau

Thanks to Brown University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117181/In_lab__Pannexin__restores_tight_binding_of_cells_that_is_lost_in_cancer

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3-vehicle crash preceded fatal mass pileup in Fla.

GAINESVILLE, Fla.?? The Florida Highway Patrol says there was a three-vehicle crash just hours before a series of pileups killed 10 people and injured 18 others on the same stretch of Interstate 75.

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According to the report released Monday, heavy smoke and fog resulted in low visibility along I-75 south of Gainesville late Saturday. About 11:55 p.m. Saturday, a tractor-trailer hit a Toyota in the northbound lanes. A Lexus then hit the back of the truck.

Authorities say a passenger in the Lexus was sent to the hospital in serious condition.

The Highway Patrol closed I-75 and nearby U.S. 441 a short time later, due to worsening road conditions. But the highway was then reopened early Sunday and a series of pileups began around 3:45 a.m., some of them fatal.

'People were screaming'
Steven R. Camps and some friends were driving home on the interstate when they heard "cars hitting each other."

"People were crying, People were screaming. It was crazy," the Gainesville resident told The Associated Press hours later. "If I could give you an idea of what it looked like, I would say it looked like the end of the world."

Some of the road's asphalt melted.

Lt. Patrick Riordan, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman, described the pileup as "probably the worst one I've seen in 27 years."

Riordan said investigators are still trying to determine how many separate collisions occurred on the interstate.

The pileups happened around 3:45 a.m. Sunday on both sides of I-75. When rescuers first arrived, they could only listen for screams and moans because the poor visibility made it difficult to find victims in wreckage that was strewn for nearly a mile.

"That's a very scary thing when you can't see anything and hear the squealing of tires and don't know if 2,000 pounds of metal is coming at you,? Alachua County Sheriff's Sgt. Todd Kelly told the Gainesville Sun.

At least a dozen cars and six tractor-trailers were involved, and some burst into flames.

Hours later, twisted, burned-out vehicles were scattered across the pavement, with smoke still rising from the wreckage.

Cars appeared to have smashed into the big rigs and, in one case, a motor home. Some cars were crushed beneath the heavier trucks.

Fog bank
Reporters who were allowed to view the site saw bodies still inside a burned-out Grand Prix. One tractor-trailer was burned down to its skeleton, charred pages of books and magazines in its cargo area. And the tires of every vehicle had burned away, leaving only steel belts.

Before Camps hit the fog bank, a friend who was driving ahead of him in a separate vehicle called to warn of the road conditions. The friend said he had just seen an accident and urged Camps to be careful as he approached the Paynes Prairie area, just south of Gainesville.

A short time later, Camps said, traffic stopped along the northbound lanes.

"You couldn't see anything. People were pulling off the road," he said.

Camps said he began talking about the road conditions to a man in the car stopped next to him when another vehicle hit that man's car.

Explosions
The man's vehicle was crushed under a semi-truck stopped in front of them. Camps said his car was hit twice, but he and another friend were able to jump out. They took cover in the grass on the shoulder of the road.

All around them, cars and trucks were on fire, and they could hear explosions as the vehicles burned.

"It was happening on both sides of the road, so there was nowhere to go. It blew my mind," he said, explaining that the scene "looked like someone was picking up cars and throwing them."

Authorities had not released the names of victims Sunday evening, but said one passenger car had four fatalities. A "tour bus-like" vehicle also was involved in the pileup, police said.

All six lanes of the interstate were closed most of Sunday as investigators surveyed the site and firefighters put out the last of the flames.

The northbound lanes were reopened at about 5:30 p.m. The Gainesville Sun reported that the southbound lanes reopened at around 11 p.m. on Sunday.

No sign of lightning
At some point before the pileup, police briefly closed the highway because of fog and smoke. The road was reopened when visibility improved, police said. Riordan said he was not sure how much time passed between the reopening of the highway and the first crash.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Forest Service, Ludie Bond, said the fire began Saturday, and investigators were trying to determine whether the blaze had been intentionally set. She said there were no controlled burns in the area and no lightning.

Bond also said the fire had burned 62 acres and was contained but still burning Sunday. A similar fire nearby has been burning since mid-November because the dried vegetation is so thick and deep. No homes are threatened.

Four years ago, heavy fog and smoke were blamed for another serious crash.

In January 2008, four people were killed and 38 injured in a series of similar crashes on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa, about 125 miles south of Sunday's crash. More than 70 vehicles were involved in those crashes, including one pileup that involved 40 vehicles.

The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46186780/ns/us_news-life/

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Wambach, Sinclair both at 129 as US plays Canada

/

By JOSEPH WHITE

updated 5:13 p.m. ET Jan. 28, 2012

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Abby Wambach and Christine Sinclair have spent the last two weeks chasing each other, chasing history and chasing a place in the London Olympics.

Part three has been accomplished. Wambach and the U.S. women's soccer team qualified for the Summer Games on Friday night by beating Costa Rica. Sinclair and the Canadians punched their ticket a couple of hours later with a win over Mexico.

Now for a little competitive fun. The United States and Canada play each other Sunday in the championship game of the qualifying tournament. With the Olympic berths settled, the game is essentially for bragging rights between neighboring rivals.

"You try telling the players it's a glorified friendly when they play against the U.S.," Canada coach John Herdman said. "Nah. The sleeves are off straightaway."

The teams feature the two most prolific active goal-scorers in the world, and they have been putting on a show at BC Place.

Wambach and Sinclair played on alternate nights during the group phase of the tournament, and it almost seemed as if one was trying to top the other. Sinclair opened with four goals against Haiti; Wambach followed with a pair against the Dominican Republic. Sinclair got one against Cuba; Wambach notched two against Guatemala.

Wambach then went silent ? scoreless against Mexico and Costa Rica ? while Sinclair added two more against both teams.

Where do they stand now? It's a tie. They have 129 career goals apiece. They've both passed Germany's Birgit Prinz to move into third place all-time, one behind Kristine Lilly and still quite a few behind Mia Hamm's world-record 158.

"I think it's just going to be a matter of time whenever Sincy or I end up breaking Mia's record," Wambach said. "Obviously we want to stay healthy and contribute to goals scored for our team. But, quite honestly, I've said this from the beginning ? I'd give away every record, individual, that I've ever won for a world championship, and I think that Sincy would probably say the same thing.

"But it's cool, it's amazing to be alongside such a fantastic soccer player like her. She's the essence of the blue-collar worker, coming from a country who generally speaking hasn't competed well in the world championships."

Wambach didn't stop there. She also called Sinclair "the most underrated player in the whole world" and "probably the best all-around player."

This is a goal-scoring race flush with mutual respect.

"I actually think that mostly likely neither of us think about it too much," Sinclair said. "We both play on successful national teams, and we both play forward for that team, and we're expected to score goals. Usually when the U.S. or Canada is winning, it involves us scoring."

They have different playing styles. Wambach is always hanging around the goal, and has the best header in the women's game. Sinclair has been playing a more withdrawn position to give her more versatility on the attack.

Their personalities are different as well. Wambach has the gift of gab, while Sinclair is more of a reluctant star. For many years, she was just about the only reason to watch the Canadian women's team, although the talent around her has improved considerably in recent years.

"Canada is a very good side ? with the exception of Sinclair," Mexico coach Leonardo Cuellar said. "She's in another world."

It seemed out of character when Sinclair appeared on a scoreboard video throughout the tournament proclaiming: "Some say I'm one of the best. But to be the best, you have to win something big."

She didn't write that script ? it was a video promoting Canadian soccer ? but she doesn't argue with the second sentence. Canada has been to World Cups and Olympic Games, but its best finish is a fourth at the 2003 World Cup.

"This is a team sport, where, yeah, individuals can do some great things and score some goals, but until your team actually wins or gets on the podium on whatever the case may be, it's hard to say that you're the best," Sinclair said. "It's at the point where we're all done with the participation, and we want to get something out of it."

First comes Sunday's little tussle with the Americans. This will be the 51st meeting between the countries. Canada has won only three. Five have been draws.

The rest? Well, suffice it to say the Americans have a world power for more than two decades, while Canada has been trying to catch up.

"They don't frighten us," Herdman said. "But they're a team that we'd love to tip over on home side. They don't come up here very often, and I hope the whole of Vancouver rock on and give us a hand beating the Americans."

___

Joseph White can be reached at http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46175534/ns/sports-olympic_sports/

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Topless protesters detained at Davos forum (AP)

DAVOS, Switzerland ? Three topless Ukrainian protesters were detained Saturday while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders to call attention to the needs of the world's poor. Separately, demonstrators from the Occupy movement marched to the edge of the gathering.

After a complicated journey to reach the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos, the Ukrainians arrived at the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year.

With temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained. "Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso, while others held banners that said "Poor, because of you" and "Gangsters party in Davos."

Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi said the three women were taken to the police station and told that they weren't allowed to demonstrate. He said they would be released later Saturday.

The activists are from the group Femen, which has become popular in Ukraine for staging small, half-naked protests to highlight a range of issues including oppression of political opposition. They have also conducted protests in some other countries.

"We came here to Switzerland to Davos to explain the position of all poor people of the world, to explain that we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building," said Inna Schewcenko.

Protesters from the Occupy movement that started with opposition to practices on Wall Street held a separate demonstration in Davos on Saturday. A small group of protesters are camped in igloos in Davos to call for more help for the needy.

About 40 Occupy protesters gathered in front of the town hall. Some held placards with slogans such as "If voting would change anything, it would be illegal" and "Don't let them decide for you, Occupy WEF."

They then marched toward the forum, prompting about a dozen police officers to hastily erect a mobile barrier as Saturday shoppers looked on with bemusement.

The demonstrators chanted anti-capitalist slogans, remaining about 100 feet (30 meters) from police lines.

One member of the Occupy camp was invited to speak at a special event outside the forum on Friday night to discuss the future of capitalism; British opposition leader Ed Miliband was also speaking.

Soon after the panel discussion began, some activists in the audience jumped up and started chanting slogans, and the protester panelist walked off the stage.

Other members of the audience told the activists to "shut up" and arguments disrupted the panel for about 20 minutes. The discussion then resumed, without the Occupy panelist.

___

Anja Niedringhaus and Paolo Santalucia contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_eu/eu_davos_forum_protests

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Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac

You may have heard that mechanical keyboards are making a comeback. Correction: If anyone you live or work with has started using one, you?ve definitely heard. These are peripherals that return typing to its glory days, where you don?t just create letters from nothing, you summon a distinctive sound, and can feel a firm bounce beneath your fingertips as you do so. Few companies have hawked their wares as energetically as Metadot, which over the last several years has released a series of mechanical keyboards intended for use with PCs. Now that there?s the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac ($133 list), that?s all changed. Apple owners now have a substantial-feeling, legitimately clicky keyboard to call their own?provided they don?t care about how it looks.

We?ll get to that in due time. For now, let?s review what the Das Keyboard is and why you want it. It?s of fairly typical size for a desktop model (1 by 18 by 6.5 inches, HWD), but is heavier than most these days (about three pounds). That?s because, instead of using a lighter dome-switch (aka membrane) mechanism that creates electrical signals by pressing two circuit board traces together using rubber ?domes? beneath the keys, it uses honest-to-goodness mechanical switches like the ones you once would have found in a typewriter. This causes the keys, and thus the keyboard that contains them, to have a much sturdier and more responsive feel than you?ll find in even dedicated Mac keyboards.

Because the specific switches used in this version of the Das Keyboard are Cherry MX Blue, you also get outstanding feedback for both your hands (the unquestionable press down and a light bounce back up) and your ears (the satisfying ?click? that, until the advent of cheap PC keyboards, always told you typing was occurring). And because those switches are gold-plated, you also get unusual durability: Each key is rated for 50 million presses, several times more than on an average keyboard, and cannot rust.

But if you?re in for some chicly retro typing, everything else is sparklingly up to date. The keyboard works with all Mac operating systems, and requires no additional drivers. (We had to perform a brief setup procedure to help Mac OS X 10.7 Lion identify the keys, but it took just a few seconds, and the keyboard worked fine afterward.) It connects to your computer with a 6.6-foot USB cable that terminates in two connectors: one for transmitting the keyboard data, and one for driving the two-port USB 2.0 hub you?ll find in the keyboard?s upper-right corner. (It?s compatible with USB-based KVM switches as well.) The F6-F11 keys even double as media keys for Rewind, Play/Pause, Forward, Mute, Lower Volume, and Raise Volume, and F1 also functions as Sleep; to activate these functions, hit a blue-labeled function key in the lower-right corner.

Provided you?re disposed to this sort of typing?and, as it?s been a while since Macs went down this road, it?s possible you may need a little coaxing?you?re almost certain to find this ideal for whatever you want to do. In fact, aside from the price, which is admittedly high even for mechanical keyboards, this Das Keyboard has almost no significant drawbacks.

Except its design. We wouldn?t normally knock a product as good as this for something this mundane, but this keyboard is a special case. For better or worse, Macs are generally treated by Apple (and seen by its customers) as design statements, in which form exists in blessed union with function. Any company aiming an external piece of hardware at that audience must take that into account, and Metadot hasn?t. This keyboard is?sorry, there?s no other way to put it?black: matte on the keys and glossy everywhere else. And it's more distinctly angular and asymmetrical than you will ever see from an Apple product. On PCs, where keyboards can be (and frequently are) any color, this is less of an issue. But used with a Mac, this Das Keyboard stands out?and not in a good way.

True, Apple has occasionally utilized black in its keyboards in the past, and even does so on its current lines of laptops. In all these cases, however, it?s as part of a larger, more elegant design usually based on an abundance of silver and white. The complete absence of that here makes the Das Keyboard look like an out-of-place port from the PC, something that sends the wrong signal. We wish these things mattered less for Macs, but alas they do, and many people like the computers specifically for that kind of consistency. Metadot has cleverly demonstrated that in one unsuspected place: The keys (which contain Command and Option, of course) are labeled with lower-case letters, just like you?d see on an official Mac keyboard. So there?s no lack of attention to detail, and when we asked our contact about this, he said that white may be an option in the future; that?s definitely something to watch for.

Whether the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac is ideal for you, then, depends on your personal taste and tolerance level. If you don?t mind having something on your desk that looks this astonishingly different from everything that surrounds it, you?ll have a hard time finding a better typing keyboard than this one. But if how your computer setup looks is just as important to you as how it works, you?re probably going to find the Das Keyboard an unwelcome interloper?though we?d encourage you to consider putting aside your prejudices so you can feel what you didn?t know your fingers have been missing.

More Keyboard Reviews:
??? Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac
??? Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition
??? Kensington KeyFolio Pro Universal Removable Bluetooth Keyboard for 10" Tablets
??? iLuv Portable Bluetooth Keyboard for iPad
??? Logitech Fold-Up Keyboard for iPad
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/t3RmJLMWu0Y/0,2817,2399442,00.asp

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Book Review: Distrust That Particular Flavor By William Gibson

William Gibson is the defining author of our digital age. More than any social media pundit or Popcorn futurist, he has defined the dystopia we can expect once we escape the dystopia we're in now. His fiction - a trilogy of trilogies that works backwards from the distant future to a world that is ours - is constantly approaching the present while exploring what it means to exist in a culture mediated by electronics. Although his early work owes more to Burroughs and Verne than anyone cares to admit, he was wildly prescient in his prediction that soon we would see the entire world - an entire world - through the lens of gadgetry. While the web isn't cyberspace yet and the East Coast isn't the Sprawl, we're headed in that direction. And that's just his fiction. Gibson's non-fiction writing is a peanut in the bland Cracker Jack of the dead tree publications where they first appeared. He's often graced the otherwise leaden pages of Wired with his unique style and many of the pieces in this book appeared elsewhere, whether in magazines or at public talks. His non-fiction is rare enough that we definitely want more, but do we want a whole book's worth?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7Z1slaxI2hg/

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Gingrich under fire from conservative media

Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accompanied by his wife Callista disembarks from a airplane Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, in Miami, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accompanied by his wife Callista disembarks from a airplane Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, in Miami, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Forget the so-called liberal media. Right now Newt Gingrich's most ardent critics are conservative pundits and columnists, many of whom have launched aggressive campaigns to discredit him and trip up his run for the Republican nomination.

This crew has largely been lukewarm about Gingrich's chief rival, Mitt Romney, considering him too moderate. But their open criticism of Gingrich is evidence that for all their misgivings about the former Massachusetts governor, they see him as a much stronger contender against President Barack Obama.

To hear columnists Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer and the conservative media aggregator Matt Drudge tell it, Gingrich is an inconsistent conservative who didn't fully support President Ronald Reagan and whose undisciplined nature mirrored that of President Bill Clinton, who was Gingrich's Democratic adversary in the 1990s.

The conservative media hits against Gingrich have come with force just as the GOP establishment seems to be rallying around Romney in earnest, perhaps out of fear that Gingrich may end up winning the nomination.

On Thursday, Romney's campaign released a scathing open letter from the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole, who served as Senate Republican leader when Gingrich presided over the House. In the letter, Dole glowingly endorses Romney and repudiates Gingrich.

"If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices," Dole wrote. "Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway."

Jacob Heilbrunn, in the conservative-leaning magazine The National Interest, mused that Gingrich "is essentially bragging that his prime credential to become president is that he's willing to debate for hours and bring a knuckle-duster. This is evidence of his sober judgment? This is supposed to induce swing voters to back him?"

Conservative radio titan Rush Limbaugh also weighed in, seemingly to defend Gingrich from some of the attacks. But, in doing so, he also vividly outlined many of the critiques against Gingrich from other conservatives.

Conservatives "are raising questions here about Newt and his mendacity, his forthrightness ? it's incredible," Limbaugh marveled on his show Thursday.

Gingrich stormed to a decisive win over Romney in the South Carolina primary last week fueled in part by two well-timed attacks on the news media. Both came during nationally televised debates, guaranteeing maximum exposure.

In a CNN debate, Gingrich pushed back at anchor John King when King questioned him about an interview Gingrich's second wife, Marianne, had given ABC News. In the interview, Marianne Gingrich suggested her husband had asked her for an open marriage so he could carry on with a mistress, Callista Bisek, now his third wife.

"I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that," Gingrich said. "I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans."

The audience rose in a standing ovation.

Gingrich also told King that his campaign had given ABC News the names of friends who would vouch for him but that the network had rejected the offer. On Wednesday, a Gingrich spokesman acknowledged that the claim was a mistake and that the campaign had offered only Gingrich's two adult daughters to defend him.

Gingrich drew raves at another Fox News debate before the South Carolina primary when asked about his oft-stated assertion that Obama is a "food stamp president." He angrily denied the statement had anything to do with race.

Mark Jurkowitz of the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism said Gingrich had tapped into longstanding resentment of many conservatives against mainstream news outlets.

"Running against the elite media ? we've seen now for a good 30 years ? certainly has resonance among Republican base voters. In conservative circles, there's been the perception that the media are tilted against them," Jurkowitz said.

Brent Bozell, founder of the conservative Media Research Center, announced Thursday that his group was set to spend $5 million on an advertising campaign to expose media bias in the 2012 election.

"You have a left-leaning media that's out of control. You've got to corral them," Bozell said in a news briefing, promising radio ads, billboards and an "unprecedented" effort in social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

Gingrich, for his part, promised in his South Carolina victory speech to keep up his attacks on the media. But the hits he took this week while campaigning in Florida came from other conservatives.

By Thursday, Gingrich was disparaging the Commission on Presidential Debates, suggesting he might not participate in debates the commission organizes if he becomes the Republican nominee.

"We've had enough of newsmen deciding what the topics would be," Gingrich told supporters in Jacksonville, many of whom waved "Don't Believe the Liberal Media" signs.

Later, Gingrich was asked about the attacks from conservative pundits, particularly from the American Spectator's Emmett Tyrell, who wrote that Gingrich has had "private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out."

Gingrich tried to turn such criticisms to his advantage, suggesting they represent "establishment" thinking.

"Tyrrell has to write whatever Tyrrell wants to write," Gingrich said. "There's the Washington establishment sitting around in a frenzy, having coffee, lunch and cocktail hour talking about, 'How do we stop Gingrich?'"

While Gingrich relishes bashing the media "elite" in public, he is friendly with the reporters who cover his campaign and makes himself available for media questions daily on the campaign trail. He seems to relish the back-and-forth with journalists, sometimes labeling questions he dislikes "bizarre."

At a campaign stop in South Carolina, he wished a reporter covering his campaign a happy birthday, and he typically stops by to chat with reporters at dinner after a day of campaigning.

___

Associated Press writers Brian Bakst in Jacksonville, Fla., and Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta contributed to this report.

___

Follow Beth Fouhy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/bfouhy

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-27-Gingrich-Conservative%20Media/id-9ead3326679240dca40e48518a4024c0

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Poll ruling sparks street clashes in Senegal (Reuters)

DAKAR (Reuters) ? Protesters hurled rocks at police who retaliated with tear gas in Senegal's capital Dakar on Friday after a top legal body said President Abdoulaye Wade had the right to run for a third term in elections next month.

Reuters reporters saw youths set fire to tires in the street and overturn cars after a late-night ruling of the West African country's Constitutional Council.

Rivals to 85-year-old Wade say the constitution sets an upper limit of two terms on the president. Wade, who came to power in 2000 and was re-elected in 2007, has argued his first term pre-dated the 2001 amendment establishing the limit.

"Stop these displays of petulance which will lead to nothing," Wade, 85, told state television in an appeal for calm.

"The electoral campaign will be open. There will be no restrictions on freedom," said Wade, who faces 13 rivals in the February 26 election.

The Council validated 13 other candidates but rejected the presidential bid of world music star Youssou N'Dour, determining he had not gathered the necessary 10,000 valid signatures backing his candidacy.

It said authorities had been unable to identify around 4,000 of some 12,000 signatures gathered by N'Dour.

"The decision of the Constitutional Council has nothing to do with the law," said N'Dour campaign manager Alioune N'Diaye.

"It is purely political. Youssou N'Dour was a problem and they wanted to be shot of him," he told Reuters, adding that N'Dour planned an appeal.

All of the five judges on the Council are by law appointed by the president.

THREAT TO PEACE

The centrist Wade will face rivals including Socialist Party leader Ousmane Tanor Dieng and three ex-prime ministers - Idrissa Seck, Macky Sall and Moustapha Niasse.

Senegal is the only country in mainland West Africa to have not had a coup since the end of the colonial era. February's poll, and a possible run-off a few weeks later, are seen as major test of social peace in the predominantly Muslim country.

"We are here to protest against Wade," Yero Toure, a 26-year-old student at an opposition rally of a couple of thousand people in central Dakar. "If they don't reject him the people will rise up against him."

Critics say that Wade, who spent 26 years in opposition to Socialist rule, has done nothing during his 12 years in power to alleviate poverty in a country where formal employment is scarce, while dragging his heels on tackling official graft.

Wade points to increased spending on education and infrastructure projects such as roadbuilding as proof of his aim of turning Senegal into an emerging market country and a regional trade hub.

His candidacy has been controversial from the start, with rivals suspecting him of seeking to secure a new seven-year mandate only to hand over mid-term to his financier son Karim - who already has a "superministry" in the government. Both father and son have denied such a plan.

Wade backed down last June on planned changes to election rules after clashes between security forces and protesters who alleged the reforms were an attempt to ensure his victory.

His candidacy has raised eyebrows abroad. The senior U.S. State Department official for Africa, William Fitzgerald, told French RFI radio this month Washington viewed it as "a bit regrettable".

"From our point of view it was the right moment to go into retirement, to protect and support a good transition - democratically, peacefully, safely," Fitzgerald said.

(Writing and additional reporting by Mark John Editing by Maria Golovnina and Angus MacSwan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/wl_nm/us_senegal_election

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Nigeria police chief tarnished over 2001 violence (AP)

ABUJA, Nigeria ? Nigeria's president has selected a new officer to lead the nation's police as a radical Islamist sect increasingly targets the force, but that man already has a past tarnished by allegations he allowed religious and ethnic violence that killed 1,000 people to spiral out of control.

Mohammed D. Abubakar's first day in control of the Nigeria Police Force on Thursday came as authorities said unknown gunmen kidnapped a German working in the city of Kano, where the sect known as Boko Haram carried out an assault last week that killed at least 185 people.

Abubakar served as police commissioner in Plateau state in 2001, leading up to rioting that saw Muslim and Christian groups armed with machetes and firearms attack each other in the restive central Nigerian city of Jos. And while some victims burned to the death in the street, civil society groups said Abubakar refused to send officers out to stop the violence.

"The police commissioner kept saying everything was under control while the whole town was on fire," one local human rights activist told Human Rights Watch after the rioting.

Unrest in north Nigeria continued Thursday with the kidnapping of the German who worked for Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company Ltd. Local police spokesman Magaji Musa Majiya said two gunmen in a sedan abducted the man while he was at a construction site.

Telephone numbers advertised for the construction company did not work Thursday. The German Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, declined to comment.

Majiya said officers continue to investigate the abduction. No one claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but it came after Boko Haram's coordinated attack last week in the city that saw police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of the secret police bombed.

Abubakar took over Thursday as inspector general of the Nigeria Police Force, an agency still roughly organized and as maligned as it was when the British colonial government created it in 1861. Today, more than a fourth of its officers serve as personal attendants and drivers to the oil-rich nation's elite, while others extort bribes from motorists at checkpoints.

Abubakar, who previously served as police commissioner in Lagos, found himself appointed to the position after President Goodluck Jonathan forced Inspector Gen. Hafiz Ringim to retire several months early Wednesday. Criticism had grown over Ringim's management after a series of attacks by the sect known as Boko Haram, including one that saw the force's headquarters bombed in June. The final straw appeared to be the sect's coordinated assault last week in the northern city of Kano that saw at least 185 people killed.

Yet in 2001, Abubakar served as the top police official for Jos as the city edged closer to violence. Civil rights activists accused the commissioner of ignoring warning signs and their messages asking him to mediate the growing turmoil. On Sept. 7, 2001, the city erupted in violence, pitting Christians against Muslims in violence that has repeated itself in years since.

The attacks killed about 1,000 people, Human Rights Watch said, violence that went unnoticed on the world stage as the Sept. 11 terror attack happened soon after. Some of the violence could have been averted by the police ? including one instance where officers turned away a Muslim man trying to find protection for a Christian later killed, Human Rights Watch said. Officers also did not deploy to stop attacks at the city's university.

Abubakar was transferred to Abia state in November 2001. A later report by Plateau state officials on the incident called for him to be fired from the federal police.

In a statement Wednesday announcing Ringim's ouster, the presidency described Abubakar's appointment "as a first step towards the comprehensive reorganization and repositioning of the Nigeria Police Force to make it more effective and capable of meeting emerging internal security challenges."

Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati told The Associated Press on Thursday that officials had no concerns over Abubakar's handling of the Jos riots, as he had proved himself over the last decade in other assignments.

"The man was in fact promoted, so that means that the indictment had no effect whatsoever," Abati said.

It remains unclear what effect Abubakar's leadership will have on police, though he has been lauded for his anti-robbery campaigns in the time since the 2001 Jos violence. Nigeria's police force remains under-equipped and unable to investigate major terror attacks like those carried out by Boko Haram.

Abubakar himself acknowledged Thursday the challenges facing him, but said his administration "will not tolerate any act of indiscipline."

"Crime and criminality, whatever name you give it whether it is Boko Haram or armed robbery, we shall fight crime in all its ramifications," he said.

Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law and avenge the deaths of Muslims in communal violence across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people split largely into a Christian south and Muslim north. The group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, has now killed at least 262 people in 2012, more than half of the at least 510 people the sect killed in all of 2011, according to an Associated Press count.

Meanwhile, police in Kano said that a bomb blast hit a motor park Thursday in Sabon Gari, a largely Christian neighborhood. Majiya said the blast caused no injuries.

___

Associated Press writers Ibrahim Garba in Kano, Nigeria; Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria and Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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Zynga called out by company its new game rips off

Twitter

The opening of Ian Marsh's open letter to Zynga.

Zynga doesn't have the best name around the block, to put it mildly. Various folks across the video game spectrum were quite delighted by news of their recently introduced stock's failure to light Wall Street on fire. Equally satisfying has been reports that their users have stopped playing their offerings in droves.

Much of the animosity stems from the fact that their games are accused of being unoriginal and derivative. Proof can be found in Zynga's latest iOS release "Dream Heights," which strikes a very close resemblance to "Tiny Tower" by NimbleBits, for the same platform. It was actually Apple's pick for best iPhone game of 2011.

This copycatting did not go unnoticed by the makers of the original game, who have voiced their two cents via Twitter. Perhaps the most compelling opinion was shared by David Marsh, one of the co-founders of NimbleBits. He states: "Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anyway."

But it is his partner and brother Ian Marsh?who has gotten most of the attention, with side-by-side comparisons in a very tongue in cheek letter addressed to Zynga:

Twitter

Ian Marsh's open letter to Zynga in its entirety.

The open letter was first highlighted by the iOS-focused gaming blog?Touch Arcade, whichd?also reiterate the very hands-off approach Apple has when it comes blatant clones and other forms of copyright infringement in their App Store. But given how high profile the parties involved are, and especially since Apple itself also anointed "Tiny Tower" with high praise, perhaps Cupertino may be more proactive.

"Dream Heights" is currently available in the Canadian App Store. No word yet on when it'll appear in the U.S. variant, if ever.

Related stories:

Matthew Hawkins is a NYC based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, and Giant Robot. You can keep tabs on him via?Twitter?or his personal home-base,?FORT90.com.

Source: http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10236389-zynga-called-out-by-the-company-its-new-game-rips-off

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iPhone 5 counter claims: not going into production yet, not going to be longer or wider

Daring Fireball's John Gruber has weighed in on the supposed iPhone 5 leak from earlier today, saying the iPhone 5 has not yet gone into production, and throwing cold water on the idea that the overall form factor will be larger.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/5VXYpqjnEzk/story01.htm

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A daring raid, and US, Danish hostages on way home (AP)

MOGADISHU, Somalia ? Held captive since last fall, an ailing American woman and a Danish man are safely on their way home after a bold, dark-of-night rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs. The commandos slipped into a Somali encampment, shot and killed nine captors and whisked the hostages to freedom.

The raid's success was welcome news for the hostages and their families, for the military and for President Barack Obama, who was delivering his State of the Union speech as the mission was wrapping up Tuesday night. He did not mention it in his address but dropped a hint upon arriving in the House chamber by telling Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, "Good job tonight."

It was the second splashy SEAL Team 6 success in less than a year, following last May's killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The SEALs apparently encountered some degree of resistance from the kidnappers at the encampment. One U.S. official said Wednesday that there was a firefight but the length and extent of the battle were unclear.

Pentagon spokesmen said they could not confirm a gun battle, although one defense official said it was likely that the SEALs killed the kidnappers rather than capture them because they encountered armed resistance or the threat of resistance.

The Pentagon was mostly tight-lipped about details on Wednesday, citing a need to preserve the secrecy that can give SEALs and other special operations forces an edge against the terrorists, criminals and others they are ordered to kill or capture around the world under hazardous and often hostile conditions.

Special operations forces, trained for clandestine, small-team missions, have become a more prominent tool in the military's kit since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Obama administration is expected to announce on Thursday that it will invest even more heavily in that capability in coming years.

After planning and rehearsal, the Somalia rescue was carried out by SEAL Team 6, officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a secret mission. The same outfit did the bin Laden mission, the biggest counter-terror success of Obama's presidency. It was not clear whether any team members participated in both operations.

One official said the SEALs parachuted from U.S. Air Force aircraft before moving on foot, apparently undetected, to the outdoor encampment where they found American Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, a 60-year-old Dane, who had been kidnapped in Somalia last fall. The raid happened near the town of Adado.

Pentagon press secretary George Little said the captors were heavily armed and had "explosives nearby" when the rescuers arrived on the scene, but he was not more specific. He declined to say whether there was an exchange of gunfire and would not provide any further details about how the rescue was completed beyond saying all of the captors were killed by the Americans.

The American raiders caught the kidnappers as they were sleeping after having chewed the narcotic leaf qat for much of the evening, a pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told The Associated Press by phone. Hussein said he was not present at the site but had spoken with other pirates who were, and that they told him nine pirates had been killed in the raid and three were "taken away."

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby, said U.S. officials could not confirm that the kidnappers were engaged in piracy. He referred to them simply as "criminals."

Little said the decision to go ahead with the rescue was prompted in part by rising concern about the medical condition of Buchanan. He said he could not be specific without violating her privacy but did say U.S. officials had reason to believe her condition could be life-threatening. Mary Ann Olsen, an official with the Danish Refugee Council, which employed Buchanan and Thisted in de-mining efforts in Somalia, said Buchanan was "not that ill" but needed medicine.

Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Denmark's TV2 channel, "One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved." Soevndal did not provide any more details.

U.S. officials "within the last week or so" had collected enough information to "connect the dots" that led Obama to authorize the mission on Monday, Little said.

A Western official said the rescuers and the freed hostages flew by helicopter to Camp Lemonnier in the nearby Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been released publicly. Panetta visited Camp Lemonnier just over a month ago. A key U.S. ally in this region, Djibouti hosts the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, a U.S.-led group organized under U.S. Africa Command.

In a statement after the rescue, Africa Command said Buchanan and Thisted were being held for an undisclosed ransom. It said the rescue team managed to confirm the hostages' presence in the camp before launching the assault. The mission was directed by Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of Africa Command, from his headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Panetta and other members of Obama's national security team monitored the mission from the White House before traveling up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol for the president's annual message to Congress and the nation.

Obama, Panetta and Ham all praised the skill and courage of the SEALs and expressed gratitude for the safe return of the hostages.

"We should remember that Mrs. Buchanan and Mr. Thisted were working to protect the people of Somalia when they were violently kidnapped," Ham said in a written statement. "It is my hope that all those who work in Somalia for the betterment of the Somali people can be free from the dangers of violent criminals."

The Danish Refugee Council confirmed that Buchanan and Thisted were "on their way to be reunited with their families" on Wednesday.

Minutes after Obama completed his State of the Union address he was on the phone with Buchanan's father to tell him his daughter was safe.

"As commander in chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts," Obama said in a statement released by the White House on Wednesday.

"The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice."

The Danish Refugee Council had been trying to work with Somali elders to win the hostages' freedom but had found little success. The head of the council, Andreas Kamm, said he would have preferred to see the two hostages freed peacefully "but we're happy with the outcome. This is a day of joy indeed."

Buchanan lived in neighboring Kenya before Somalia, and worked at a school in Nairobi called the Rosslyn Academy from 2007-09, said Rob Beyer, the dean of students. He described the American as quick to laugh and adventurous.

"There have been tears on and around the campus today," Beyer said. "She was well-loved by all her students."

Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors seized from neighboring Kenya and an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.

___

Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier and Julie Pace in Washington, Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Patrick Walters in Philadelphia contributed to this report. Houreld reported from Nairobi and Burns from Washington.

___

Follow Katharine Houreld at http://twitter.com/khoureld and Robert Burns at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_af/af_somalia_raid

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Evolution of play: unsupervised bat and ball to today's screens

Kids used to use the bat and ball unsupervised and free; today play is all about screens or organized sport, hovered over by parents.

1950s:

Skip to next paragraph

? Outdoor play without adult supervision was common in both urban and rural US settings.

? Different ages played together.

? Bicycles and balls were the main outdoor toys, and board games were the most common inside.

? Much of play revolved around traditional games such as baseball, modified to fit space and materials.

1980s:

? Use of toys increased, and many were 'branded' ? connected to TV characters ? Barbies, Power Rangers, My Little Ponies, etc.

? Outdoor play was likely to be adult-supervised or part of an 'organized activity.'

? TV viewing was increasingly a part of free time.

? Athletics become more formal and age-based ? such as soccer camp for 7-year-olds rather than neighborhood pickup soccer in a vacant lot.

2010s:

? Toys are the center of play; most are connected to media characters and are somehow electronic.

? Most free time is screen time spent in front of the TV, computer, etc.

? Unsupervised outdoor time is almost nonexistent. Physical activity of any kind has decreased.

? Multi-age, cross-gender play is disappearing, even among siblings.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/RhTTDRIZbrw/Evolution-of-play-unsupervised-bat-and-ball-to-today-s-screens

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Q&A: Android Design Chief Details Google?s Mobile Future

Mike Isaac sat down with Android UX design chief Matias Duarte at CES for an exclusive pre-launch interview, and picked his brain about Android, design in general, and competing operating systems like Windows Phone and webOS ? the platform he architected for Palm years ago.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/UoWa6lZHWZg/

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MTV Movie Brawl 2012: Voting Ends Today!

It all comes down to this: the final push in the final round of the MTV Movie Brawl 2012! After weeks of match-ups and almost 40 fallen competitors along the way, we're down to just two films vying for the top spot in the brawl for it all: "The Hunger Games," the number-one ranked action [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/01/23/mtv-movie-brawl-2012-voting-ends-today/

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Iowa's celebrity hunting program criticized

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Some question whether Iowa needs to continue giving celebrities easy access to deer hunting in the state, but it appears unlikely that the promotional program will be scrapped.

The state program gives 75 celebrities, such as rocker Ted Nugent and former professional athlete Bo Jackson, an opportunity to buy a special out-of-state deer hunting permit each year. Other nonresidents might wait years to buy a similar permit.

The celebrity program began in 1998 to help promote the state as a top hunting destination.

Iowa Bowhunters Association President Randy Taylor tells the Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/wCWfLU ) that he's not sure the state really needs the promotion anymore.

"There is no deer hunter nationwide who doesn't consider Iowa one of the trophy hot spots in the nation," Taylor said.

Iowa routinely receives thousands more requests than can be filled each year from out-of-state hunters. So the program isn't popular with the people who sometimes wait years for one of about 6,000 nonresident permits to harvest deer of any sex.

A state committee ranks celebrity applications on a point system. The applicants most likely to win a hunting tag are the ones the state believes will garner the most media exposure for Iowa.

The celebrities pay the same $551 fee that other nonresidents pay for the hunting tag. Iowa residents pay $89 for theirs.

A few of the special celebrity tags are given to nonprofit conservation groups that often auction them off to nonresidents. Those auctions can raise $6,000 to $10,000, and the proceeds are split with the state.

Steve Dermand, who helps oversee the program for Iowa's Department of Natural Resources, says he's heard the complaints, but he doesn't think anyone is ready to eliminate the program.

"When this started, Iowa was just becoming recognized as having a good deer resource. This came along during that growth time," Dermand said. "Now, Iowa is high-enough profile, the state is in all the hunting magazines and where to go for whitetail."

State Sen. Dick Dearden of Des Moines, chairman of the Senate natural resources committee, said he doubts the program will be eliminated. He also doesn't expect a change in the number of general out-of-state tags.

So it's likely that celebrities like country singers Toby Keith, Aaron Tippin and Miranda Lambert will continue to get access to deer hunting in Iowa along with professional hunters like Mark Luster.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-22-Hollywood%20Hunters-Iowa/id-ecc3cd1923e14889985d8a21b34f7173

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Rosenthal: They believed, Alex Smith delivered

49ers quarterback is 2 victories away from ultimate football glory after nearly being left for dead

Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images

49ers quarterback Alex Smith runs in for a touchdown during his team's victory over the Saints in the divisional playoffs last Saturday.

updated 6:06 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2012

Gregg Rosenthal

?We want Carr. We want Carr!?

It was the lowest moment of Alex Smith?s seven-year career in San Francisco, Oct. 12, 2010. The winless 49ers hosted the Eagles on Sunday Night Football, and the crowd was looking for blood.

After his fourth-quarter fumble, thunderous boos poured down on Smith. He was hearing it all game from the crowd, but this matched anything I?ve ever heard ? even in Philadelphia. The unmistakable chant that came with the booing was even more depressing.

?We want Carr. We want Carr!?

The home crowd wanted Smith benched in favor of backup quarterback David Carr. The fan base collectively waved the white flag. They were tired of their No. 1 overall pick bust and wanted to try another. It was only Week 5 of a rapidly devolving season.

Coach Mike Singletary tried to remove Smith from the game, but the quarterback barked back. He talked his way into staying in the contest. He wound up throwing for more than 300 yards with three touchdowns in a comeback attempt that fell just short, like so many other 49er games during Smith?s tenure.

The fans got their wish two weeks later when Carr replaced an injured Smith during a loss to the Panthers. Troy Smith wound up starting six games for the 2010 49ers. Alex Smith?s beleaguered run in San Francisco was all but over. If nothing else, that gave the fans something to smile about.

Between rare and extinct
David Carr tells us a lot about Alex Smith. Just like Smith, Carr was a No. 1 overall draft pick viewed as a franchise savior. Like Smith, Carr fell flat on his face.

Carr didn?t face the same injury struggles as Smith. Carr didn?t have two head coaches question his toughness. But after five years in Houston, Carr was beat up mentally and physically. When Carr hit free agency, he wanted to take a break.? He wanted out.

"I need to take a deep breath and be around a good environment and just start enjoying the game again,'' Carr said in 2007. ?I wanted to be on a team that was fun and exciting and whether I had a chance to play right away, it didn't matter to me.''

Smith had his chance to take a deep breath last offseason. His family wanted him to leave San Francisco, toasting to new beginnings after this season. Smith didn?t want to go anywhere.

That desire to finish what he started won over new 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh.

"I wanted to get to know him. I had never met him," Harbaugh said last week of his first meeting with Smith in January 2011. "I was just kind of looking in through the keyhole. But I guess the things that I wanted to know, if you boiled it down to one thing, was, did he want to start? Did he want be in the fire? Or did he want to wear the ball cap backward and backup somewhere??

Harbaugh was asking if Alex Smith wanted to be David Carr. (Or Vince Young. Or Matt Leinart. Or JaMarcus Russell.)

"I really felt that he had the competitive drive, the (desire) to prove himself, him wanting to do it here. That's the thing that probably intrigued me the most. That character of wanting to come back and do it here in San Francisco, which is pretty rare ? probably somewhere between rare and extinct. That's not just for football players. That's about anybody. ... And I thought we could really work with that character. To me that was special."

Smith?s seven fourth-quarter comeback victories this season are special. His league-leading interception percentage says a lot. But the most impressive part of Smith?s season is that he?s there at all. He survived.

The things Alex carries
Alex Smith carries his six seasons through the professional football meat grinder everywhere he goes. He carries the old playbooks; the losses; the chants; the manipulative coaches; the shoulder surgeries.

Smith has gone through this 14-3 season hesitant to look back. It?s as if he doesn?t want to jinx what?s happening.

Seven offensive coordinators
Smith?s first offensive coordinator was Mike McCarthy, who pushed the team to draft Smith over Aaron Rodgers with the No. 1 pick in 2005.

One touchdown, 11 interceptions by Smith later, McCarthy scored the Packers' head coaching job before his coaching stock sunk any further.

Norv Turner came next and guided Smith to a promising second season. Smith appeared to have turned a corner. It?s a reminder what good teaching can mean for a young quarterback.? Smith wouldn?t learn that lesson again until 2011.? Turner left after ?06 for the Chargers head coaching job.

Jim Hostler, Mike Martz, Jimmy Raye, and Mike Johnson followed Turner to disappointing results. Each man had a new idea of how an NFL offense should look and how Smith fit into their system. Some liked Smith more than others. Every spring meant a new playbook.

Smith?s seventh coordinator was the charm. Jim Harbaugh knows the quarterback position as well as any head coach, but he also brought in a terrific staff to help him. It?s one of the most underrated skills a head coach can have. Can he choose the right men to assist him?

Offensive coordinator Greg Roman and quarterbacks coach Geep Chryst have both done a fabulous job with Smith. It was Chryst who took over the play-calling late in the divisional round win over the Saints. Along with Harbaugh, the three men collaborate on one of the smartest offensive attacks in the league.

They create big-play opportunities without taking much risk. They accentuate what Smith does well and limit his weaknesses being exposed. They put Smith in position to succeed. That?s coaching.

2 misguided head coaches
Alex Smith?s rookie season was Mike Nolan?s rookie season as a head coach. Both men looked comfortable in their new role.

Nolan ran the 49ers through fear. He often seemed unnecessarily paranoid and played misguided mental games. When Smith?s shoulder was hurt in 2007, Nolan implied publicly that Smith wasn?t fighting through the injury. Nolan came out told the 49ers team behind closed doors that Smith was using his shoulder injury as an excuse for poor play. Smith fought back by speaking out.

?I felt it was trying to undermine me with my teammates,? Smith said back then.

Smith had shoulder surgery after the season.

The next 49ers head coach was a defensive-minded motivational speaker: Mike Singletary. Singletary said multiple times he didn?t think quarterback was the most important position on the field. He once called Smith ?meek.? After Singletary was fired, he was asked what he learned from the experience.

"You gotta have a quarterback," Singletary said.

These were the men in charge. They never believed in Smith.

Harbaugh saw something different in that first meeting with Smith. Most importantly, he saw a quietly improved player on film. Harbaugh?s effusive and immediate praise of Smith almost seemed comical. (He once said Smith had ?armadillo skin .?)

Smith, a free agent, publicly expressed doubt he?d return to San Francisco before Harbaugh started recruiting Smith with regular meetings. No one in San Francisco knew what to make of it. Why would the new hot shot coach stick out his neck for Smith?

?I?ve been studying Alex Smith and watching him and I believe that Alex Smith can be a winning quarterback in the National Football League,? Harbaugh said. ?Very accurate passer. Very athletic. And a guy that has played and been durable.?

This was January 2011. Harbaugh embraced the quarterback no one wanted. The message hasn?t changed since. The love affair has only grown.

The teammates
Smith was benched for the following quarterbacks during his 49ers career: Tim Rattay, Ken Dorsey, Trent Dilfer, Shaun Hill, J.T. O?Sullivan, and Troy Smith.

Guys like Carr and Cody Pickett replaced Smith when he was hurt. Only Hill went on to a modicum of success after leaving San Francisco.

The following wide receivers have started games during Smith?s tenure in San Francisco: ?Brandon Lloyd, Arnaz Battle, Johnnie Morton, Kevin McAddley, Antonio Bryant, Bryan Gilmore, Darrell Jackson, Ashley Lelie, Isaac Bruce, Bryant Johnson, Jason Hill, Josh Morgan, Michael Crabtree, Braylon Edwards, Ted Ginn, Kyle Williams, and Brett Swain.

Change was the only constant in San Francisco?s passing attack. Personnel objectives changed annually with the rotating offensive systems. Players past their prime were brought in like Morton, Jackson, and Bruce. Failed draft picks from other teams were given a second chance like Lelie, Johnson, Edwards, and Ginn. Very little stuck.

Even today, San Francisco?s wide receivers struggle to beat man coverage. It?s a concern this week going against a Giants defense that can get pressure with their front four and played great man coverage last week in Green Bay.

Harbaugh knows all this. He built an offense around the run game, his tight ends, and carefully orchestrated ?shot plays? the wideouts wouldn?t have to win consistently on the outside. He relied on Smith?s accuracy and decision making.

When Harbaugh has asked Smith and his receivers to carry the offense ? against the Giants and Saints ? they have found a way.

Bad habits
Smith deserves his share of blame for struggling until Harbaugh came along. He doesn?t have the big arm you?d expect of a top pick. He?s smart but has struggled to translate those smarts into instinct. He was deliberate making decisions.

Going back through five years of my game notes, the same word came up repeatedly describing Smith: tentative. He took the safe play. He didn?t have enough confidence in himself, his receivers, or perhaps his offense to make the difficult throw.

That slowly started to change this year. The 49ers are not an aggressive passing team, but Smith has played his best with the game on the line.

Back-to-back fourth-quarter comeback wins in Cincinnati and Philadelphia kick-started things. Smith threw a fourth-and-goal game-winner to Delanie Walker in Detroit. An insane 41-yard toss to Michael Crabtree set up the game-winning field goal in Seattle.

In most of those games, the 49ers still coached around Smith. Their wins were more about the defense, running game and short, safe passes. Last Saturday against the Saints, the 49ers coaching staff gave the keys to Smith.

"The winning touchdown to Vernon Davis ... and I'm taking nothing away from Vernon Davis's catch ... the throw made that play, not the catch," NFL Films guru Greg Cosell said on KNBR this week. ?He threw that ball before Davis even got past the underneath linebacker.?

The 49ers could have played for the tie, but they went for the win because of the confidence they had in Smith. It was the type of instinctive, anticipatory, gutsy throw we haven?t seen from Smith. Smith is starting to mix in aggression with his smarts. That could be a championship combination.

The other side
Alex Smith is Mark Sanchez if Sanchez went through another three years like the one he just had.

Smith took all the abuse we could hurl at him and emerged on the other side. He will never be Joe Montana, but that?s not the point. He?s here. He is one game away from playing in the Super Bowl. After what Smith has been through, he deserves to enjoy this moment.

Perhaps Smith will take a deep breath during the national anthem on Sunday and allow himself a peak at the opposing sideline. Giants backup quarterback David Carr will be standing there, representing the road more traveled.

When the anthem ends, Carr will reach to put on his backward hat. Smith will grab his helmet.

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Belichick the greatest coach ever?

CSN: We revere Noll, Shula, Lombardi, Walsh and Brown, but Bill Belichick could wind up the greatest coach ever ? and it's a lot harder now.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46067758/ns/sports-nfl/

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The leap second lives on after a tiff over time

Our annual Weird Science Awards pay tribute to the strangest scientific tales of the past year, and you just know the 2012 edition had to be a doozy. While we're waiting for the Maya apocalypse ? and we may be waiting a long, long time ? let's count down the top 10 Weird Science stories, as determined by an ironically unscientific Live Poll.

No. 10 is the discovery that having a painful need to urinate can impair your judgment. "When people reach a point when they are in so much pain they just can't stand it anymore, it was like being drunk," says Brown University neurologist Peter Snyder. "The ability to hold information was really impaired." To say nothing of the ability to hold water.

The research won Snyder and his colleagues a share in one of 2011's Ig Nobel Prizes, which honor science that makes you laugh, and then makes you think. Watch Snyder explain the study in this YouTube video, then click the "Next" button for more laugh-provoking science ? or scroll quickly all the way down to the bottom if you have a painful need to go.

? Alan Boyle, msnbc.com science editor

9. Flies hooked on meth ... and sugar

When researchers noticed that meth addicts often take in large amounts of sugary drinks, they decided to do a little experiment: First, they got fruit flies hooked on methamphetamine. Then the scientists fed some of the flies a diet heavy on trehalose, an insect blood sugar. They found that the sugar-gobbling flies outlived the flies who didn't get the sweet stuff. Maybe sugar metabolism plays a role in meth's toxic effects. "Hopefully, some of these insights might lead to opportunities to deal with the problems associated with the drug," says University of Illinois toxicologist Barry Pittendrigh. But more research is required to trace the effects on mammals. In the meantime, watch out for those meth-head fruit flies.

8. Monster pictures make a splash

2011 saw a double-header (so to speak) in the marine-monster category. The most popular Loch Ness monster-like picture came from Alaska, where Andy Hillstrand of the "Deadliest Catch" TV show captured the footage for the Discovery Channel. Some might suggest that the creature is an eel, or a fish, or even a trick of light on the water. Not Hillstrand. "I've never seen anything like it," he told Discovery News. He suspects that the picture shows a Cadborosaurus, a legendary beast that has long been said to frequent Alaska's waters. Meanwhile, another picture purporting to show a creature that's been nicknamed "Bownessie" made waves in England.

7. Glowing dog has an on-off switch

In past years, our Weird Science Award winners have included glow-in-the-dark kitties and glow-in-the-dark puppies. How could scientists possibly top that? Would you believe a dog with a gene that turns the fluorescence under UV light on or off, depending on whether a particular drug is added to its food? That's exactly the kind of dog that South Korean scientists produced in 2011. Why, you ask? Well, the ultimate aim of these glow-in-the-dark exercises is to splice in genes that can help treat diseases ? and having an on-off switch would give physicians more control over the treatment. That feat would make other researchers turn green ... with envy.

6. Just this once, Samoa skips a Friday

For more than a century, Samoa was on one side of the International Date Line, and Australia and New Zealand were on the other. When the Samoans were at Sunday church, the Aussies were starting their business week on Monday. And when Samoa was trying to finish up its own business week, the Kiwis were settling into the weekend. To remedy that, the Samoans switched over to the Australia-New Zealand side in 2011, going directly from Thursday, Dec. 29, to Saturday, Dec. 31. To top it all off, workers were paid for the non-existent Friday. If only we could all get to the weekend that quickly ... and spend it on a tropical island.

5. Pole shift forces airport makeover

Might as well face reality: Shift happens. Earth's shifting magnetic poles are not a sign of the apocalypse. They're just a fact of life on our dynamic planet. We do have to cope to the shift that life throws at us, though. For example, in early 2011, Tampa's airport had to repaint the numbers on its runways to reflect their shifting orientation with respect to magnetic north. The good news is that even dramatic changes in the poles' position would have no effect on life on Earth, despite what the doomsday prophets say.

4. Corpse-dissolving machine invented

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." Does that old saying apply to building a better corpse-dissolving machine as well? Resomation Ltd. hopes so. The Scottish company installed its machine in a St. Petersburg, Fla., funeral home and hopes the system will be legalized in other jurisdictions. The alkaline hydrolysis unit liquefies a body's soft tissues and flushes the sterile liquid into the municipal water system. The bones and other hard parts are left behind to be crushed. Company founder Sandy Sullivan says the machine lets people express their environmental concerns "in a very positive and I think personal way." Sounds good, as long as they don't put a Soylent Green factory next door.

3. Preacher gets doomsday wrong ... twice!

First, figure out exactly when Noah's Ark was floated by the Flood, and exactly when Jesus was crucified. Then come up with an arcane biblical numerology to add 7,000 years to the former, and 722,500 days to the latter. That was California preacher Harold Camping's formula for determining that May 21 was the date for the beginning of an apocalyptic Rapture. When May 21 didn't work out, he said Oct. 21 was the fallback date for the end of the world. And when that didn't work out ... well, now Camping says he's rethinking this whole doomsday business. But what about the 2012 apocalypse? That's too kooky, even for Camping. "Mr. Camping does not believe the Mayan calendar holds any significance at all," a spokeswoman says. Camping's mathematical acumen earned him a share in one of 2011's Ig Nobel Prizes.

2. 'Aflockalypse' is for the birds

The year 2011 was rung in with a series of reports about mass die-offs, involving blackbirds (the so-called "Aflockalypse" in Arkansas), fish, crabs and other creatures. Some wondered whether a global environmental crisis was in the offing, but experts said the Aflockalypse was simply a case of people connecting the dots between unrelated events, facilitated by global communication systems. Die-offs can happen for a variety of reasons. The Arkansas blackbird deaths, for example, took place after the birds were spooked by New Year's Eve fireworks. And wouldn't you know it? The Aflockalypse happened again to kick off 2012.

1. Fungus turns ants into zombies

If books like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and video games like "Resident Evil" can generate billions of dollars in sales, it shouldn't be surprising that the top Weird Science honors go to a story about zombie ants being taken over by a brain-controlling fungus. The fungus apparently uses temperature cues to decide when to have the ant clamp down on a cool leaf with a death grip. Pennsylvania State University's David Hughes speculates that the fungus does its thing to ensure it "has a long cool night ahead of it, during which time it can literally burst out of the ant's head to begin the growth of the spore-releasing stalk." It's the perfect plot for a horror movie directed by one mean mother: Mother Nature.

Honorable (?) mention

Other weird tales that almost made the top 10:

Does 13th zodiac sign mean your horoscope is wrong?
Was the Shroud of Turin created in a blinding flash?
Science reveals how to win at 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'

Previous Weird Science winners:

Cricket testicles and 2011's other Weirdies
Kinky fruit bats and other Weirdies from 2010
2,700-year-old marijuana and other 2009 Weirdies
Glow-in-the-dark kitties and other Weirdies from 2008

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46072453/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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