Judge won't step down in Fort Hood shooting case (AP)

FORT HOOD, Texas ? A military judge refused Wednesday to step down in the case of an Army psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shooting rampage, saying it had no effect on him.

Maj. Nidal Hasan's attorneys argued that the judge, Col. Gregory Gross, should recuse himself. They claimed there was an appearance of bias since he was on the Texas Army post the day of the 2009 shootings that left 13 dead and more than two dozen wounded.

Gross has said he was presiding over a trial on Nov. 5, 2009, when someone handed him a note instructing him to take a recess immediately. He said he then called his wife, who was shopping on the post with some other relatives, but they were fine and left before Fort Hood was locked down.

Gross said he hasn't read news articles about Hasan's background, hasn't heard statements made at different Fort Hood ceremonies by President Barack Obama and then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, and has never seen Fort Hood's memorial to the victims.

"I'm in my own little world over here," Gross said during the pretrial hearing, adding that he rarely left the courthouse.

Hasan, 41, faces a death sentence or life in prison without parole if convicted in the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military installation. He's charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

Hasan, who was arraigned in July, has not yet entered a plea. His trial at Fort Hood is to start in March and is expected to last at least two months. Military jurors will be brought in from Fort Sill, Okla., according to documents filed in the case.

Hasan's attorneys also urged the judge to remove the death penalty as a punishment option, citing constitutional issues. Gross did not rule on those motions.

Gross did not decide if the government will pay for two defense experts requested in motions at an October hearing. Defense attorneys have said Hasan needs a jury consultant and another expert to determine how potential jurors might be influenced by the extensive pretrial publicity. Prosecutors have urged the judge to deny both motions, saying the experts are unnecessary.

U.S. officials have said they believe Hasan's attack was inspired by the radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and that the two men exchanged as many as 20 emails. Al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September. Army prosecutors have never mentioned the cleric's name in any hearings in the criminal case against Hasan.

In early November before the second anniversary of the Fort Hood shootings, more than 80 people ? relatives of some of those killed and injured, as well as 10 who were wounded that day ? filed administrative claims seeking $750 million in compensation from the Army. They allege willful negligence and say the government had clear warnings that Hasan, an American-born Muslim, posed a grave danger to the lives of soldiers and civilians.

Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police that day. He remains jailed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_re_us/us_fort_hood_shooting

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Claims of affair emerge, Cain discusses quitting (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said on Monday a woman will soon emerge to accuse him of having a 13-year affair with her, hinting for the first time that allegations about his past might force him to quit the White House race.

The former pizza company executive, who has been dogged by several allegations of sexual harassment, told CNN he had nothing to hide and that he is staying in the race.

But asked if he would drop out of the campaign due to the stream of allegations, Cain said: "I would make that decision depending on the circumstances and how it is impacting my wife and my family."

A Fox television station in Atlanta is set to air a report on the woman and her allegations at 6 p.m. EST (1100 GMT).

This case would differ from prior claims in that the woman reportedly is claiming a consensual long-term relationship.

Cain's lawyer Lin Wood told the station it "appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public."

Cain denied having an affair and said he had considered the woman a friend. He said his campaign was contacted by the Atlanta station about the woman.

"I just wanted to give you a heads up," Cain told CNN. "I don't have anything to hide."

Cain, who rode a wave of support earlier this month and topped some national polls, has faced sexual harassment charges from several women. His support has flagged amid those charges and some gaffes on the campaign trail.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/pl_nm/us_usa_campaign_cain

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Obama condemns storming of British embassy in Iran (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Declaring himself "deeply disturbed" by the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran, President Barack Obama strongly urged the Iranian government to hold those responsible to account.

"For rioters to essentially be able to overrun the embassy and set it on fire is an indication that the Iranian government is not taking its international obligations seriously," the president said.

Obama made his remarks at the beginning of an Oval Office meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

"That kind of behavior is unacceptable," Obama said, adding that the Iranian government has a responsibility to protect diplomatic outposts.

Hard-line Iranian students stormed the embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag, burning an embassy vehicle and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the 1979 attack on the U.S. embassy there.

In a statement earlier, the White House urged Iran to condemn the incident, prosecute the offenders and ensure that no other incidents occur at either the British Embassy or any other mission in Iran.

The White House says the State Department is in close contact with the British government.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_re_us/us_white_house_iran

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All-American Muslim: A Muslin Goes to Washington

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Lawmaker challenges TSA on claims of ethnic profiling (Washington Post)

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PFT: Jets unimpressed by Johnson mocking Burress

Getty Images

This was a depressing day for the Texans in many ways, with Matt Leinart possibly lost for the season.

Viewed in another light, Houston?s 20-13 win in Jacksonville was proof of how far this franchise has come. The Texans are now good enough to win on the road with their No. 3 quarterback, rookie T.J. Yates.

The Texans have had a lot of trouble beating the Jaguars in recent years. Things have changed. ?Here?s what else we learned:

1. Jaguars quarterback Blaine Gabbert was pulled in the fourth quarter for Luke McCown, who immediately started to move the ball for Jacksonville. If anything, the change came too late.

Gabbert completed 13-of-29 passes for 136 yards and a pick. His play was worse than the numbers indicate.

The rookie has zero pocket presence. He feels pressure when it?s not there and takes too long to make decisions. The talent around Gabbert isn?t great and there were drops Sunday, but you can isolate Gabbert from that. He?s looked poor.

2. If the Jaguars want to win games, McCown is the better option. ?At 3-8, however, we expect them to continue to give the ball to the rookie.

3. The Texans offense couldn?t operate with Yates at quarterback. Don?t be surprised if recent veteran pickup Kellen Clemens starts next week. ?Yates finished 8-of-15 for 70 yards. ? Another veteran pickup is possible.

4. The Texans offense had 17 drives Sunday. That?s an insanely high amount. Of those 17 drives, only two went longer than four plays. ?Jacksonville did a nice job on Houston?s running game, holding them to 88 yards.

5. Houston has come a long way because their defense can carry them. The Jaguars? only touchdown came on a fumble returned for a score. ?Connor Barwin had four sacks in the game. J.J. Watt had two more. Wade Phillips has done a great job developing his young guys.

6. Where can the Texans go with Yates? ?The playoffs, at the least.

Houston is 8-3. ?The Titans are 6-5. ?We aren?t sure the Titans even get to eight wins.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/27/jets-and-bills-react-to-stevie-johnsons-celebration/related

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Inspirationf: Twitter vs. Facebook: A Social Media Revenue Comparison - http://t.co/fiIeQ2a8

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Insert Coin: Prototype peripherals incorporate no moving parts, multitouch functionality and freaking lasers

When in doubt, strip out the moving parts and see what you wind up with. This is the idea inventor Jason Giddings is following as he turns to Kickstarter to help fund the prototype creation for a glass keyboard and mouse, both sporting multitouch functionality. The design uses the same biometric systems that currently capture fingerprints on assorted trackpads and keyboards, and uses a technique known as Frustrated Total Internal Reflection -- which incorporates a series of LEDs on the bottom of a device -- to bounce infrared light beams around the inside of the glass. This process is interrupted when a finger touches the glass, wherein a simple embedded camera captures the event, processes where the keystroke, mouse click or gesture took place and relays the signal to the computer.

Continue reading Insert Coin: Prototype peripherals incorporate no moving parts, multitouch functionality and freaking lasers

Insert Coin: Prototype peripherals incorporate no moving parts, multitouch functionality and freaking lasers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Egypt Islamists pull out stops in post-Mubarak poll (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egyptians voted for a second day on Tuesday in a parliamentary election that Islamists hope will sweep them closer to power, even though the army generals who took over from Hosni Mubarak have yet to step aside.

The poll, the first since a revolt ousted Mubarak on February 11, has unfolded without the mayhem many had feared after last week's riots against army rule in which 42 people were killed.

The United States and its European allies are watching Egypt's vote torn between hopes that democracy will take root in the most populous Arab nation and worries that Islamists hostile to Israel and the West will ride to power on the ballot box.

They have faulted the generals for using excessive force on protesters and urged them to give way swiftly to civilian rule.

The well-organized Muslim Brotherhood, banned but semi-tolerated under Mubarak, said its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), had done well in the voting so far.

"The Brotherhood party hopes to win 30 percent of parliament," senior FJP figure Mohamed El-Beltagy told Reuters.

The leader of the ultra-conservative Salafi Islamist al-Nour Party, which hopes to siphon votes from the Brotherhood, said organizational failings meant the party had under-performed.

"We were not dispersed across constituencies, nor were we as close as needed to the voter. Other parties with more experience rallied supporters more effectively," Emad Abdel Ghafour said in the coastal city of Alexandria, seen as a Salafi stronghold.

But he told Reuters the party still expected to win up to half of Alexandria's 24 seats in parliament and 70 to 75 nationwide out of the assembly's 498 elected seats.

Abou Elela Mady, head of the moderate Islamist Wasat Party, made no predictions, but said the party would accept the result despite electoral violations. "The big turnout was the main gain, regardless of the result," he told Reuters.

No official turnout figures have been issued, but judges supervising individual polling stations in Cairo and other cities gave estimates varying from 30 to 60 percent of the 17 million people eligible to vote in the first round.

Les Campbell, of the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, one of many groups monitoring the election, said it was "a fair guess" that turnout would exceed 50 percent.

In one school-turned-polling station in Cairo, women in Islamic headscarves and others in Western clothes, queued with their children and grandchildren to vote, with banners overhead and posters of candidates on walls. Soldiers welcomed them and judges kept a good-natured eye on proceedings.

ISLAMIST VOTE-GETTERS

Islamists did not instigate the Arab uprisings that have shaken Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, but in the last two months, Islamist parties have come out top in parliamentary elections in Morocco and post-revolutionary Tunisia.

Egyptian Islamists want to emulate those triumphs, but it is unclear how much influence the previously toothless parliament in Cairo can wield while the generals remain in power.

If the election process goes smoothly, the new assembly will enjoy a popular legitimacy the generals lack and may assert itself after rubber-stamping Mubarak's decisions for 30 years.

"Real politics will be in the hands of the parliament," said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political analyst.

One member of the ruling army council has said parliament will have no power to remove a military-appointed government tasked with running Egypt's day-to-day affairs until a promised presidential election leads to civilian rule by July.

Another council member, General Ismail Atman, said the start of the election showed the irrelevance of protesters demanding an end to army rule in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere.

"This proves the demonstrations in Tahrir Square ... had no effect on building the first elected state institution since the revolution, especially since only a tiny few are in Tahrir," Al-Shorouk daily quoted him as saying at a Cairo polling station.

The army council assumed Mubarak's formidable presidential powers when it eased him from office on February 11. Many Egyptians praised the army's initial role, but some have grown angry at what they see as its attempts to retain its perks and power.

Many Egyptians had feared election violence after last week's bloodshed when frustration against army rule boiled over into the worst bloodshed since the anti-Mubarak uprising.

"I wasn't sure whether to vote yesterday for fear of violence that marred past elections. But the impressive order and security have encouraged me to venture out," said Fathi Mohammed, 56, a port employee in Alexandria.

ELECTORAL VIOLATIONS

The election is taking place in three regional stages, plus run-off votes, in a complex system that requires voters to choose individual candidates as well as party lists. Full results will be announced after voting ends on January 11.

Election monitors have reported logistical hiccups and campaign violations but no serious violence.

"To a great extent we did not violate election rules. There was no use of religious slogans on our part," the Nour Party's Abdel Ghafour said, noting that Salafis were new to politics.

Armed with laptops and leaflets, party workers of the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing and its Islamist rivals have approached muddled voters to guide them through the balloting system and nudge them toward their candidates.

In the Nile Delta town of Kafr el-Sheikh, Muslim Brotherhood workers were selling cut-price food in a tent where they also distributed flyers naming the FJP candidates in the area.

Some Egyptians yearn for a return to stability, uneasy about the impact of political turmoil on an economy heading toward a crisis sure to worsen the hardship of impoverished millions.

Smooth polling helped Egypt's benchmark share index to jump more than five percent.

Others worry that resurgent Islamist parties may dominate political life, mold Egypt's next constitution and threaten social freedoms in what is already a deeply conservative nation of 80 million people whose 10 percent Coptic Christian minority complains of discrimination from the Muslim majority.

As voting resumed in the chilly, rain-swept coastal town of Damietta, Sayed Ibrahim, 30, said he backed the liberal Wafd Party over its main local rival, the Islamist Salafi Nour Party.

"I'm voting for Wafd because I don't want an ultra-religious party that excludes other views," he said, in jeans and a cap.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad in Alexandria, Shaimaa Fayed in Damietta and Tom Pfeiffer, Patrick Werr, Peter Millership and Edmund Blair in Cairo.; Writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Peter Millership)

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111129/wl_nm/us_egypt_election

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Cyber Monday Deals at Amazon (Little green footballs)

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Timbuktu Chronicles: Investing in Health - Avenue Healthcare ...

Investing in Health - Avenue Healthcare (Kenya) receives a $2.5m investment

In African Capital Markets News:

Aureos Africa Health Fund invested $2.5 million in a Kenyan hospital and health insurance company, the Avenue Group , which offers affordable healthcare cover, integrated with quality healthcare provision. It has a 70-bed full-purpose hospital in Nairobi, 7 clinics through Kenya as well as in-house clinics for corporate clients, a home-based care service for elderly, terminally ill or otherwise dependent patients, rental and sale of wheelchairs and other rehabilitation equipment for home use, and First Aid training schemes. It combines healthcare cover with quality, affordable outpatient and inpatient medical services. The group?s corporate medical schemes are designed to be accessible to businesses with as few as 10 employees and around 70% of the staff covered are in non-managerial roles. With Aureos investment, Avenue Group will expand into other regions in Kenya, building 2 more clinics in smaller towns and expanding existing in-patient facilities in Kisumu and Mombasa. The funding will ensure the group can continue non-profit activities, such as free medical camps across Kenya and public health screening days at Avenue clinics...[continue reading]

Source: http://timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/11/investing-in-health-avenue-healthcare.html

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China tycoon slams Iceland investment rejection

BEIJING (AP) - A Beijing businessman says anti-Chinese prejudice and double standards are behind Iceland's decision to turn down his proposal to build a vast nature retreat in the north Atlantic island nation.

Iceland's interior ministry said Friday it had rejected an application by Huang Nubo's Zhongkun Group to buy 120 square miles (30,639 hectares) of land on the north shore of Iceland in a deal that would have been worth about 1 billion Icelandic kronur ($8.8 million).

While the country's prime minister previously said she would welcome Huang's investment, the ministry said it could not lift the country's restrictions on the purchase of land by foreigners to allow the deal to go ahead.

However, in an interview in the official China Daily newspaper appearing Sunday, Huang said the rejection was indicative of anti-Chinese attitudes in the West.

"There are still double standards," Huang was quoted as saying.

Western countries wish to "encourage the opening of the Chinese market while they close their doors to Chinese investments," he said.

Huang complained he had received little help from the interior ministry and speculated the rejection may have resulted from a power struggle among the country's politicians. He said he would not be renewing his interest in Iceland and would instead take on new projects in the U.S. and in other Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland.

Huang's proposed project had been seen by some as a lifeline for Iceland's struggling economy as it battles back from the collapse of its banking industry in 2008.

He had hoped the site in Iceland's northeast - which would have represented about 0.3 percent of the island's land mass - would attract about 10,000 guests a year and create scores of new jobs.

Since its financial meltdown, Iceland's economy has begun to recover - with the International Monetary Fund predicting economic growth of 2.5 percent in 2012, far better than some of its struggling European neighbors.

Some critics of the proposed deal had raised concerns that allowing Huang to purchase the land could give China a strategic toehold in the Arctic Circle, where nations are scrambling to claim natural resources and melting ice caps are expected to eventually open up new, faster global shipping lanes.

Huang earlier rejected those claims and insisted that he planned the Icelandic site would be part of a chain of nature resorts in China, the United States and Scandinavia.

Halldor Johannsson, Huang's representative in Iceland, said he was surprised by the government's rebuff and claimed Icelandic law did not include limits on the size of a parcel of land an investor could purchase.

Source: http://www.kboi2.com/news/business/China-tycoon-slams-Iceland-investment-rejection-134562348.html

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Police: Utah man viewed child porn on Mass. flight (Providence Journal)

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Video: Shoppers Looking For a Bargain

A check on the Black Friday shopping buzz this morning, with Cory Scott, Tyons Corner

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Russia secures ownership of Belarus gas pipelines (AP)

MOSCOW ? Russia's state-controlled natural gas company bought the remaining stake in Belarus' gas pipeline system Friday to become its sole owner in a move that strengthens Moscow's control over gas exports to the West.

Russia is the main ally and sponsor of Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, but he had been reluctant to yield control over the pipeline network and other Belarusian economic assets in the past, accusing Russia of trying to erode his nation's sovereignty.

Lukashenko's stance, however, has been softened recently by a severe economic crisis that has weakened his power and made him more prone to compromise.

Russia's Gazprom already had owned 50 percent in Belarus' pipeline operator, Beltransgaz, and wanted to gain full control. It said in a statement after the signing that it agreed to pay $2.5 billion for the remaining 50 percent stake.

Russia provides about a quarter of the natural gas that Europe consumes, with 80 percent of it going through Ukraine. The rest is shipped through Belarus and Turkey.

Moscow has sought to win control of existing transit routes and build new export pipelines bypassing its neighbors in order to secure its hold on energy supplies to Europe, its main export market.

Past pricing disputes between Ukraine and Belarus have led to disruptions in energy supplies to customers in the European Union, prompting EU nations to intensify a search for alternative supply routes.

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said after the signing Friday that the deal has brought an end to the energy wars between Russia and Belarus.

As part of the deal, Russia has also reduced the price of gas it sells to Belarus. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday that Gazprom will now charge Belarus $164 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas in the first quarter of next year, down from the $280 per 1,000 cubic meters it was paying in the third quarter of this year. The gas price for Gazprom customers in Europe hovers around $400 per 1,000 cubic meters .

"We are making a significant discount for our Belarusian friends and partners," Putin said. He added that Russia also agreed to restructure Belarus' debt for previous supplies.

The low gas price is essential for the Belarusian economy, most of which has remained in state hands. Belarus has been hit by its worst financial crisis since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, which has led to sharp devaluation of the national currency and triggered high inflation that has eroded public savings.

"Cheap gas and oil are like drugs for the Soviet-style Belarusian economy," said Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent analyst in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. "It's a lifebelt for Lukashenko who has driven the country into a deep crisis and 100 percent inflation."

Belarus' first post-Soviet leader, Stanislav Shushkevich, said that surrendering control of the pipelines "will mean the loss of a significant part of Belarus' sovereignty."

He described the gas deal with Belarus as part of efforts by Putin, who is all but certain to reclaim the Russian presidency in March's vote, to create a new, stronger alliance of ex-Soviet nations.

Putin, who has lamented the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, has recently proposed forming a "Eurasian Union" of former Soviet nations, saying the bloc could become a major global player competing for influence with the United States, the European Union and Asia.

"Putin is going to the vote with a geopolitical plan of a new empire, and he's ready to pay the devil or Lukashenko to achieve that," Shushkevich told The Associated Press.

Putin said Friday that Moscow will also provide Belarus with a $10 billion loan that will be spread over the next decade to help it pay for a nuclear power plant that will be built by Russia.

____

Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Yuras Karmanau in Minsk, Belarus, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_russia_belarus

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They call it 'guppy love': Biologists solve an evolution mystery

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Guppies in the wild have evolved over at least half-a-million years ? long enough for the males' coloration to have changed dramatically. Yet a characteristic orange patch on male guppies has remained remarkably stable, though it could have become redder or more yellow. Why has it stayed the same hue of orange over such a long period of time?

Because that's the color female guppies prefer.

"Sometimes populations have to evolve just to stay the same," said Greg Grether, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and co-author of a study published Nov. 23 in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, a major journal for research in evolutionary biology.

"In this case, the males have evolved back over and over again to the color that females prefer," said Grether, who noted that there are many examples in which there is less variation among populations of a species than life scientists would expect.

The new study, funded by the National Science Foundation, "provides a neat solution to a mystery that has puzzled me for years," he said.

The orange patches on male guppies are made up of two pigments: carotenoids (which they ingest in their diets and are yellow) and drosopterins (which are red and which their bodies produce). Carotenoids are the same pigments that provide color to vegetables and fruits. Plants produce carotenoids, but animals generally cannot; guppies obtain most of their carotenoids from algae.

UCLA's Kerry Deere, the lead author of the study, conducted experiments in which she presented female guppies (Poecilia reticulata) with a choice of males with low, medium and high levels of drosopterin to see which males they preferred. In her experiments, the females were given a wider range of pigment choices than they would find in the wild. Deere, who was a graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology in Grether's laboratory at the time and is currently a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in human genetics, conducted more than 100 mate-choice trials.

The females strongly preferred the intermediate males, those whose patches, or spots, were the right hue of orange ? not too red and not too yellow.

"The females preferred the males with an intermediate drosopterin level by a highly significant margin," Deere said.

"Males that are closer to this preferred hue probably have more offspring," Grether said.

If guppies were dependent only on carotenoids for their orange coloration, one would expect to find large changes in the color of their orange patches because the availability of algae varies by location. Guppies are native to Trinidad and Venezuela; the ones in this study were from Trinidad.

(Unlike the colorful guppies sold in pet stores, female guppies in the wild do not have bright coloration like the orange patches. Males are not as ornate, or as large, as the pet-store variety either.)

"A pattern I discovered 10 years ago, which was mysterious at first, is that in locations where more carotenoids are available in their diet, guppies produce more of the drosopterins," Grether said. "There is a very strong pattern of the ratio of these two kinds of pigments staying about the same.

"To human eyes at least, as the proportion of carotenoids in the spots goes up, the spots look yellower, and as the proportion of drosopterins goes up, the spots look redder. By maintaining a very similar ratio of the two pigments across sites, the fish maintain a similar hue of orange from site to site. What is maintaining the similar pigment ratio across sites and across populations? The reason for the lack of variation is that genetic changes counteract environmental changes. The males have evolved differences in drosopterin production that keep the hue relatively constant across environments. As a result of Kerry's experiment, we now have good evidence that female mate choice is responsible for this pattern."

While there are many cases in nature in which genetic variation in a trait masks environmental variation, there are very few examples where the cause is known.

"I originally assumed if there was variation among populations in drosopterin production, it would be the populations where carotenoid availability was lowest that were producing more of these synthetic pigments to compensate for the lack of carotenoids in their diet. But we found the opposite pattern," Grether said. "They're not using drosopterins as a carotenoid substitute; they're matching carotenoid levels with drosopterins. Why they are doing that was a mystery. The answer appears to be that it enables them to maintain the hue that female guppies prefer."

###

University of California - Los Angeles: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu

Thanks to University of California - Los Angeles for this article.

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NASA's biggest Mars rover poised for blastoff (AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? NASA is all set to launch the world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer.

A six-wheeled, one-armed Mars rover is due to blast off Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral. The unmanned Atlas V rocket will put the spacecraft on an 8 1/2-month trek to the red planet.

The rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is the size of a car. It's a mobile laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right there on the surface. There's a drill as well as a stone-zapping laser machine.

Curiosity will spend two years looking for evidence that Mars may once have been ? or still is ? suitable for microbial life.

The mission costs $2.5 billion.

Forecasters expect decent launching weather.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_sc/us_sci_mars_rover

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Black Friday shoppers get bargains, less brouhaha

Anna Staab gets her ticket at Walmart for a $199 Xbox with Kinect and a $50 gift certificate.

By Eve Tahmincioglu

Extended Black Friday hours may have angered those store employees who had to work before their turkey dinners were digested, but many shoppers were happy with this year's earlier store opening times because they found fewer raucous crowds and shorter lines as a result.

?This was the absolute calmest Black Friday I have ever experienced,? said Nathan Luna, 24, who began his shopping trek at 12:08 a.m. this morning and headed to Best Buy in Wheaton, Md.

While things may have been more relaxed, projections for the number of consumers heading out on the biggest shopping day of the year are up.

According to?data compiled for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch, up to 152 million people plan to shop over the Black Friday weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), that's higher than the 138 million people who planned to do so last year. According to the survey, 74 million people say they will definitely hit the stores and another 77 million are waiting to see if the bargains are worth braving the cold and the crowds.

Overall, electronics and clothing were among the biggest scores for many consumers, especially video game players and high-end fashions. And many shoppers said they found the sales items they wanted, unlike past Black Fridays that offered slim pickings; and lots of sales people to help them navigate the stores.

Here are some first-hand accounts of the day and deals from Black Friday aficionados:

?The crowds were very well-behaved,? said Brad Williams, 39, an analyst for Duke University who headed out at 9:15 p.m. last night with his wife Wendy. ?The line at Target, as I said, was enormous, but my wife said that the people there were jovial and pretty Zen about the wait. No pushing or shoving whatsoever.?

The couple has two young kids, but grandparents take the kids after Thanksgiving dinner to their house so Brad and his wife can shop unfettered.

"The crowds seemed to be bigger this year at Target and Kohl's, but smaller elsewhere," Williams added. "I think that has to do with when we arrived. We were in the teeth of the initial rush at those two places, but by the time we got to Crabtree, about 3 a.m., that had subsided and the second rush, when non-crazy people are getting up, hadn't yet begun."

?

Brad Williams

Orderly crowds at the Tanger Outlets in Mebane, N.C.

The deals overall were good, he said, but his ?best bargains? were ?a pair of Lucky Brand jeans for my wife, which were $18 (original outlet price was $69.50, they were on clearance for $30, and 40 percent off that), and a Brooks Brothers sports shirt, which was $29.90.?

Wendy Novicenskie

Brad Williams shows off his Black Friday loot.

Anna Staab, 51, Metamora, Il., hit the stores around 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving and found lots of merchandise available at Walmart and Menards, a regional department store chain. ?After seeing plenty of merchandise left at Walmart at this hour we wondered if it had something to do with the economy or if people were just avoiding it due to the earlier hours,? she surmised.

Staab, a retired Post Master who has seven kids living with her, some foster, some adopted and some biological, said she needed to be out early to get the big bargains and ended up with quite a few.

Her biggest complaint was where Walmart placed the sales items.

?Big box items, i.e. trampoline, ping pong table, power ride on toys, were all at the back of the store. Customers had to fight the crowds with the huge boxes,? she explained. ?They need a better system for those.?

Nathan Luna

Nathan Luna grabbed an iPad for $454.

And?Staab didn't like that many retailers staggered sales throughout the night.

"Certain things went on sale at 10 p.m. Thursday, then midnight, then 8 a.m.," she noted.

Besides a few annoyances, she was able to get the one thing she really wanted. She's most proud of the Xbox with Kinect she got at Walmart for $199 and a $50 Walmart card included, about half the price it was last year.

The iPad 2 was the only thing Nathan Luna was looking for.

He arrived at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., at 12:20 a.m. and found the parking log jammed and a line of more than 700 people.

?Less-experienced Black Friday shoppers would have probably turned around in horror, but I pressed on,? said Luna, a TV photographer who has been Black Friday shopping since he was a kid when he shopped with his mom and grandmother.

Nathan Luna

Lines formed at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., and police were on hand to keep things moving smoothly.

Despite the crowds, he said, a group of police officers helped shuffle shoppers into the store and the line within 20 minutes after the store opened.

Nathan Luna

There were big crowds at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., but lines moved quickly, according to one shopper.

?I was greeted by a wall of Dynex 32-inch TVs and thousands of people jamming up the aisles,? he described. ?I asked the greeter where the iPads were, and he directed me to the back of the store. I had to bump a few elbows to get back there, but when I did, I noticed something new.?

Instead of a line snaking around the entire store, he said, there were check-out lines scattered throughout the store near key items.

?When I got in the iPad line, I literally had eleven people in front of me,? he said, adding that it took about a half hour to check out, compared to the hours it has taken during past Black Fridays.

He eventually got his iPad for $454.

Erin Mellini was happy she paid $10 for VIP parking through Livingsocial for the Rockaway Townsquare Mall in Rockaway, N.J., because she ended up with a prime parking spot.

?The VIP parking was nice and close, and it gave me peace of mind my car was in good hands because the mall security was in charge of it,? she said.

Erin Mellini

Erin Mellini with the hard drive for $30 she was able to snag.

Mellini, 25, a zookeeper and educator from Randolph, N.J., found the mall relatively quiet when she got there at 5 am.

?The stores were not really picked clean,? she added, but ?any deep discount item, which you needed a ticket for, was gone.

For example?a $199, 42-inch HDTV from Best Buy was gone, but I got an external Toshiba hard drive that I was intending to buy and didn?t have to deal with the mad rush at midnight. I got it for $30 which is a very good price.?

The best deal, she noted, was a $40 WiFi streaming media player from Walmart.

?I was happiest to get that, which was a door-buster deal,? she explained, adding that most of the stores had a great supply of advertised merchandise.

Mellini acknowledged that she and her friend Erica, who joined her on the shopping excursion, didn?t have the same "adrenaline rush" they had on previous Black Fridays because the crowds seemed to be so spread out given the extended hours.

?We still had a great time and intend to maybe go out at midnight next year if that is going to become the norm for stores,? she added.

Related stories:

Black Friday turns ugly:?Two shot, 15 pepper-sprayed

Why Black Friday shopping is crucial for retailers

Source: http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/25/9015767-black-friday-shoppers-find-bargains-with-less-brouhaha

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Libyans recover looted Roman antiquities (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya ? Libyan authorities unveiled on Saturday ancient Roman figurines and pottery fragments that they said were seized by revolutionary forces from Moammar Gadhafi's soldiers during the battle for the capital Tripoli.

The director of the state antiquities department, Saleh Algabe, showed the 17 objects to reporters. He hailed the find as an important recovery of national treasures.

The pieces included a striking female figurine and several small human heads in marble, as well as two ornamental clay fragments. Algabe said the figurines were likely used in pagan worship and dated back to the second and third centuries A.D., when a swathe of North Africa belonged to the Roman Empire.

Algabe said the pieces were seized from a truck on the road to Tripoli's airport on August 20, as revolutionary forces were entering the capital. It appeared Gadhafi's forces wanted to smuggle them out of the country and sell them at auction to fund their fight, he added.

The pieces probably do not represent a major component of Libya's wealth of artifacts from the Roman era. Still, officials played up their recovery as significant.

Khalid Alturjman, a representative from the country's National Transitional Council, said the rebels' seizure of them stands as "a great example of the sacrifice of these revolutionary men for this country."

Algabe stressed that although they dated to the Roman era, they exhibited clear signs of local influence.

"This confirms the role of Libyans in civilization," Algabe said.

The conference was held in Tripoli's main archaeological museum, which boasts a collection of ancient Roman statues and mosaics. The museum is housed within the Red Castle, a Crusader fort that faces the Mediterranean Sea.

A museum employee said the recovered objects had once been part of the public collection. However, members of Gadhafi's regime had taken them, saying they were to be exhibited in European museums ? and never returned them.

Libya boasts many ancient Roman structures, including the famed seaside ruins of Leptis Magna, east of Tripoli.

Almost all of Libya's ancient archaeological sites and museums were spared damage during the recent civil war. NATO made a point of avoiding them during its bombing campaign, and Agabe said that the revolutionaries also made an effort to protect them.

"The Libyan people decided to protect their heritage," Algabe said.

(This version CORRECTS Adds details, quotes, byline. Corrects the spelling of Algabe's name.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/fossils/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_libya_recovered_antiquities

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NJ lawyer's murder case ends in mistrial (AP)

NEWARK, N.J. ? A mistrial was declared Wednesday in the federal case against an attorney accused of murdering an informant when jurors said they couldn't reach a verdict after six days of deliberations.

The judge declared the mistrial in Paul Bergrin's case, saying the jury was hung.

Bergrin faced one count each of murder and conspiracy for allegedly ordering the killing of an informant in 2004 to prevent him from testifying against one of Bergrin's clients. The government claimed Bergrin was involved in the drug trade himself.

Bergrin represented himself and accused the government of getting witnesses to change their stories in exchange for lighter sentences.

Bergrin once represented rappers and other celebrities such as Queen Latifah. He faces racketeering and drug charges that will be the focus of a separate trial.

In a note to U.S. District Judge William J. Martini on Wednesday morning, the jury foreperson said that after numerous votes, "At this point we see no avenue to reaching a unanimous decision."

The verdict likely won't spell an end to Bergrin's legal troubles. He faces a litany of charges including drug trafficking, racketeering and prostitution in an indictment unsealed in May 2009, when Bergrin and several alleged associates were arrested. He will remain in federal detention in Brooklyn awaiting a second trial scheduled for Jan. 4.

The 2009 indictment contained the murder charges stemming from the 2004 killing of Deshawn "Kemo" McCray, a low-level drug dealer who had been providing evidence to the FBI about one of Bergrin's clients, but Martini severed those charges for this trial.

The government's case was built on testimony from several convicted drug dealers ? some of whom Bergrin once represented ? who testified Bergrin was involved in illegal drug trafficking through Hakeem Curry, the kingpin of one of Newark's most notorious gangs.

That gave Bergrin a personal motive to want McCray dead, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gay contended.

Bergrin countered that all of the witnesses ? particularly confessed shooter Anthony Young ? changed their stories multiple times in an attempt to fit the prosecution's theory of the case and earn lighter sentences in exchange. Young testified Bergrin uttered the phrase, "No Kemo, no case" at a meeting a few months before McCray's death; Bergrin denied making the statement or attending the alleged meeting.

In a nearly five-hour summation, he begged jurors: "There is no tomorrow for me. You are my last line of defense."

Bergrin began his career as a prosecutor, first at the Essex County prosecutor's office and later at the U.S. attorney's office ? the office that tried him in this case. He gained a reputation as a no-holds-barred advocate for defendants others attorneys might shy away from. But privately, many lawyers suspected he may have become too close to the criminal element he represented.

Two weeks before his 2009 arrest in New Jersey, Bergrin pleaded guilty in New York to misdemeanor conspiracy to promote prostitution in exchange for probation in a case involving a high-priced Manhattan escort agency run by one of his clients. He was sentenced to three years' probation.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111123/ap_on_re_us/us_attorney_witness_killed

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AT&T, Deutsche Telekom withdraw FCC application for T-Mobile merger, look toward DoJ

Now that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has called for an administrative hearing on AT&T's proposed buyout of T-Mobile, the two parties have decided to formally withdraw their application to the Commission. The confirmation came today, with an announcement from AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, which owns T-Mobile USA. In a statement, the two companies reiterated their commitment to the deal, adding that they're looking to receive final approval from the DoJ: "This formal step today is being undertaken by both companies to consolidate their strength and to focus their continuing efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for the transaction from the Department of Justice." AT&T also reaffirmed that it would incur a $4 billion hit should the deal fall through, and that it expects to take out a pretax charge for that amount during the fourth quarter of this year. Of course, Genachowski's decision must still obtain approval from the full Commission, but it certainly looks like both parties are gearing up for a courtroom battle.

AT&T, Deutsche Telekom withdraw FCC application for T-Mobile merger, look toward DoJ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 04:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/QZp5hgtEEqE/

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