Ranbaxy to resume generic Lipitor production for U.S

(Reuters) - Indian generic drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd said on Friday it will resume production of its version of Pfizer's cholesterol fighter Lipitor for sale in the United States after resolving the issues that led to a November recall.

Ranbaxy in November recalled its atorvastatin from the U.S. market and stopped manufacturing the widely used cholesterol lowering medicine after the company discovered contamination with tiny glass particles in certain lots of 10 milligram, 20 mg and 40 mg doses of the drug. Atorvastatin is the generic name for Lipitor.

"We are working with the U.S. FDA, and have identified and implemented multiple corrective and preventative actions," Ranbaxy spokesman Chuck Capriello said in an e-mailed statement.

"As part of the first step in initiating the manufacturing process to resume supplies to the U.S. market, we have commenced the production of the drug substance for our atorvastatin product," he added.

The recall and production halt did not affect Ranbaxy's atorvastatin supply for markets outside the United States, the company said.

During its first six months on the market, atorvastatin generated sales of nearly $600 million for Ranbaxy, according to industry analyst estimates.

Prior to expiration of Pfizer's patent, Lipitor was the world's top selling prescription medicine with annual peak sales of about $13 billion for the largest U.S. drugmaker.

Ranbaxy has been operating under heightened scrutiny to ensure it meets good manufacturing practices following a series of manufacturing problems that nearly derailed it ability to sell atorvastatin in the United States.

In 2008, the FDA banned the company from importing about 30 drugs after it found manufacturing deficiencies at two of the company's facilities in India, and Ranbaxy was later accused of falsifying data used in its drug applications.

Ranbaxy said on Friday that it was confident in the continuing safety and quality of its products.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot;editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ranbaxy-resume-generic-lipitor-production-u-172327604--finance.html

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China Slow to Start Fracking for Natural Gas in Shale

Technicians inspect a conventional gas well in China's Tarim basin, which is also rich in shale gas. Image: Redlink/Corbis

After more than a decade of spectacular growth fuelled by coal, China finds itself sitting on a bonanza of shale gas. Its reserves are the world?s largest, beating even those of the United States. But developing this vast resource won?t be easy, as a bidding last month for shale-gas leases made clear.

?The resource is huge,? says Jane Nakano, a fellow of the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. ?But the shale deposits are more complex than ours, and the above-ground challenges are probably even larger? than the geological ones.

To offset some of the coal use that contributes to its status as the world?s largest greenhouse-gas emitter, China wants to boost natural gas from around 4% of the country?s energy mix to 10% by 2020. Much of that gas will be imported. But in March 2012, the Chinese government estimated the country?s reserves at 25 trillion cubic meters, and an earlier estimate from the US Energy Information Administration was even larger. China?s leaders resolved to boost annual shale-gas production from near zero today to at least 60 billion cubic meters by 2020. The United States, by comparison, produced more than 150 billion cubic meters in 2010.

There, the abundant, cheap gas has displaced coal as a fuel for power plants, contributing to a nearly 4% fall in the country?s fossil-fuel emissions in 2012. If China could repeat that success, the emissions reductions could be globally significant. But its shale-gas auction ? only the second so far ? has bolstered skepticism. China?s Ministry of Land and Resources awarded leases in 19 areas, mostly in the nation?s central Sichuan Basin. Analysts were surprised to see national oil and gas companies, such as PetroChina and Sinopec, lose out to state-owned coal and utility companies, as well as to local government entities that have no expertise in the oil and gas arena.

Nakano says that the national oil firms may be playing it safe and did not truly compete to win. Price controls on natural gas may have reduced their appetite for risk, she says, and they have little experience with the hydraulic fracturing needed to release gas from shale.

Shu Jiang, a petroleum engineer who worked in China before moving to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, is more optimistic, pointing out that major oil and gas companies are investing in shale-gas wells in areas already leased for conventional oil and gas development. He says that early results from the Sichuan basin are promising and that ?China?s vast shale resources will be extracted?.

That is unlikely to happen quickly, however, says Julio Friedmann, chief energy technologist at the US energy department?s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. ?In the United States, it took 60 years and 200,000 wells? to lay the groundwork for the shale-gas revolution. China has drilled fewer than 100 wells, and its geology is different. Many of the Chinese shale formations have a high clay content, for instance, which makes them more pliable and less apt to fracture. Many are also deeper. ?We simply have no idea about whether or not the geology is going to produce,? Friedmann says.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=42343d1e266f80198e30f93acc2ba873

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Human heart tissue development slower than other mammals

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The walls of the human heart are a disorganised jumble of tissue until relatively late in pregnancy despite having the shape of a fully functioning heart, according to a pioneering study.

A University of Leeds-led team developing the first comprehensive model of human heart development using observations of living foetal hearts found surprising differences from existing animal models.

Although they saw four clearly defined chambers in the foetal heart from the eighth week of pregnancy, they did not find organised muscle tissue until the 20th week, much later than expected.

Developing an accurate, computerised simulation of the foetal heart is critical to understanding normal heart development in the womb and, eventually, to opening new ways of detecting and dealing with some functional abnormalities early in pregnancy.

Studies of early heart development have previously been largely based on other mammals such as mice or pigs, adult hearts and dead human samples. The Leeds-led team is using scans of healthy foetuses in the womb, including one mother who volunteered to have detailed weekly ECG (electrocardiography) scans from 18 weeks until just before delivery.

This functional data is incorporated into a 3D computerised model built up using information about the structure, shape and size of the different components of the heart from two types of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans of dead foetuses' hearts.

Early results from the project, which involves researchers from Leeds, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Nottingham, the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield, show that the human heart may develop on a different timeline from other mammals.

While the tissue in the walls of a pig heart develops a highly organised structure at a relatively early stage of a foetus's development, a paper from the Leeds-led team published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface Focusreports that the there is little organisation of the human heart's cells until 20 weeks into pregnancy.

A pig's pregnancy lasts about three months and the organised structure of the walls of the heart emerge in the first month of pregnancy. The new study only detected similar organised structures well into the second trimester of the human pregnancy. Human foetuses have a regular heartbeat from about 22 days.

Dr Eleftheria Pervolaraki, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds' School of Biomedical Sciences, said: "For a heart to be beating effectively, we thought you needed a smoothly changing orientation of the muscle cells through the walls of the heart chambers. Such an organisation is seen in the hearts of all healthy adult mammals.

"Foetal hearts in other mammals such as pigs, which we have been using as models, show such an organisation even early in gestation, with a smooth change in cell orientation going through the heart wall. But what we actually found is that such organisation was not detectable in the human foetus before 20 weeks," she said.

Professor Arun Holden, also from Leeds' School of Biomedical Sciences, said: "The development of the foetal human heart is on a totally different timeline, a slower timeline, from the model that was being used before. This upsets our assumptions and raises new questions. Since the wall of the heart is structurally disorganised, we might expect to find arrhythmias, which are a bad sign in an adult. It may well be that in the early stages of development of the heart arrhythmias are not necessarily pathological and that there is no need to panic if we find them. Alternatively, we could find that the disorganisation in the tissue does not actually lead to arrhythmia."

A detailed computer model of the activity and architecture of the developing heart will help make sense of the limited information doctors can obtain about the foetus using non-invasive monitoring of a pregnant woman.

Professor Holden said: "It is different from dealing with an adult, where you can look at the geometry of an individual's heart using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or CT (Computerised Tomography) scans. You can't squirt x-rays at a foetus and we also currently tend to avoid MRI, so we need a model into which we can put the information we do have access to."

He added: "Effectively, at the moment, foetal ECGs are not really used. The textbooks descriptions of the development of the human heart are still founded on animal models and 19th century collections of abnormalities in museums. If you are trying to detect abnormal activity in foetal hearts, you are only talking about third trimester and postnatal care of premature babies. By looking at how the human heart actually develops in real life and creating a quantitative, descriptive model of its architecture and activity from the start of a pregnancy to birth, you are expanding electrocardiology into the foetus."

###

University of Leeds: http://www.leeds.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Leeds for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126956/Human_heart_tissue_development_slower_than_other_mammals

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Homebuilding takes a breather, wholesale prices up

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. builders broke ground on fewer homes last month but a jump in permits for future construction to a 4-1/2-year high indicated the housing market recovery remains on track.

Another report on Wednesday showed wholesale prices rose for the first time in four months in January. However, the gain was smaller than expected and left scope for the Federal Reserve to keep buying bonds to stimulate the economy.

Housing starts dropped 8.5 percent in January to an 890,000-unit annual rate, pulled down by a sharp drop in the volatile multi-family unit category, the Commerce Department said.

But starts for single-family homes hit their highest since July 2008 and permits for future construction, which lead starts by at least a month, were at their highest since June of that year.

The drop in starts followed an outsized gain in December and was confined to the Northeast and Midwest, suggesting winter weather likely contributed to the pullback.

"The fundamentals are there and the drivers are looking good," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. "We see more new construction this year. The only question is whether it will be in the multi-family or single-family segment."

Housing has shifted from being a headwind for the economy to being a pillar of support, although mortgage rates have crept higher in recent weeks, cooling loan demand.

Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers on Wednesday reported disappointing quarterly results, hurt in part by lower selling prices, but other homebuilders have been able to take advantage of the recovering market.

A separate report from the Labor Department showed producer prices rose 0.2 percent last month as rebounding food costs offset declining gasoline prices. Wholesale prices had slipped 0.3 percent in December, and economists had expected them to rise 0.4 percent in January.

Food prices accounted for more than 75 percent of the rise in wholesale prices last month.

INFLATION PRESSURES MUTED

Away from the spike in food prices, the producer price report showed inflation pressures were generally muted.

In the 12 months through January, wholesale prices were up 1.4 percent and data on Thursday is expected to show consumer inflation below the U.S. central bank's goal of 2 percent.

"Inflationary pressures remain well contained," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. "The Federal Reserve would rather see inflation slightly higher in response to stronger economic conditions than benign because the recovery remains tepid."

In an effort to drive down borrowing costs and spur stronger growth, the Fed last year launched an open-ended bond buying program and said it would keep it up until it saw a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market.

But minutes of the U.S. central bank's January 29-30 meeting suggested that concerns over the costs of the program could compel it to slow or stop asset purchases before seeing an acceleration in job growth.

U.S. stocks fell on the minutes, while the dollar rose to session highs against the euro and the yen. U.S. Treasury debt prices trimmed gains.

Wholesale prices excluding volatile food and energy costs edged up 0.2 percent last month after gaining 0.1 percent in December. In the 12 months through January, those so-called core prices rose 1.8 percent, the smallest gain since February 2011.

A surge in the cost of fresh and dried vegetables pushed up food prices in January. Gasoline prices surprisingly recorded another substantial decline last month, even though prices at the pump have been rising almost every week this year.

The core PPI was lifted by a jump in the cost of drugs, while passenger car and light truck prices fell.

(Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/housing-starts-drop-multi-family-permits-four-high-133325377--business.html

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iPad mini: 4 months later

Four months later, was the lack of Retina a deal-breaker, or has the iPad mini turned out to be the best tablet ever?

Back in October Apple introduced the iPad mini. We posted our iPad mini review, of course, and you told us how you felt about it in our iPad mini forums. But that was first blush. That was the romance and judgement of something new. It's been 4 months now. It's been a third of a year with a smaller, lighter form factor, and a non-Retina display. So it's time for a checkpoint. How has the iPad mini held up? If we dismissed it before, has it grown on us? If we embraced it, have we fallen out of love? How are we using, or not using, the iPad mini now, some 4 months later?

Chris Oldroyd

I don?t actually own an iPad mini, but we do have one in our household and so I have used it quite a bit. My first impression of the iPad mini still stands 4 months later -- I like it. As soon as I saw it revealed, I loved the thinness of it and the smaller size too.

Having now used it, I do feel that it is just a bit small for my personal needs; I watch a lot of video on my iPad 2 and take a lot of handwritten notes which is much easier to do on the larger screen. Having said that, the portability of the iPad mini is a really attractive option.

I will be replacing my iPad 2 when the next generation devices hit the market this year and I will have an important decision to make then. The whole Retina debate doesn?t bother me all that much but if the rumors are true, both devices will have it then anyway. The iPad mini is an awesome iPad there is no question about it but it may just be too small for me!

Derek Kessler

I picked up an iPad Mini on launch day and immediately fell in love. It's not a perfect tablet - there is no such thing - but I think it might very well be the best tablet out there.

I've already decided that come next generation I'll be grabbing a larger storage, LTE-enabled version and it's going to replace my in-car GPS (an aging and cranky TomTom unit - so sue me, I'm old fashioned) and my Verizon MiFi. I'm all for cutting back on the number of devices I carry around, and if I can take three devices and turn them into one, so much the better. I'm so much in love with my iPad Mini that I want it to do everything. That's the mark of a good product, no?

Ally Kazmucha

When I first purchased an iPad mini, I really wasn't too sure how I would take to using it in my everyday workflow. My iPad 3 had always done well for me and I didn't really see myself replacing it this early in its lifecycle. I figured if I didn't use the iPad mini, I could always sell it.

After a few months, I actually find myself using both iPads regularly. My iPad 3 now stays at my office and gets used strictly as a point of sale and work tablet. I'll take it with me to Starbucks occasionally in order to get some writing done but now that keyboard cases are available for the iPad mini as well, that may change -- the mini is much easier to carry around.

While at home, I never really used my iPad 3 a whole lot. I do find myself using my iPad mini quite often though. The size is perfect for reading and lounging. I just always found my standard-sized iPad not as convenient for casual browsing and always ended up using my iPhone. Now, unless I need to make a call, my iPhone typically goes on the charger once I get home, and I pick up my iPad mini to relax.

Everyone's mileage may vary and most people certainly won't have a need to use two iPads on a regular basis but the iPad mini will fit many people's needs just fine for the price and the size.

Leanna Lofte

When the iPad mini was first announced, I was excited about a smaller, lighter, more portable iPad, but since it wasn't given a Retina display, I assumed I would only be my "purse iPad". When I picked mine up at the Apple Store, my first thought was "the cutest iPad, yet!", but I still didn't see myself choosing it over the gorgeous screen of my iPad 3 while at home.

I was totally wrong. In fact, I rarely use my iPad 3 these days. Yes, the screen is far superior on the iPad 3, but the size and weight of the iPad mini wins me over every time. It's perfect.

The iPad mini is also perfect for my 2-year-old daughter. For younger kids, iPads are easier to use than iPhones and iPod touches, but have always been a little heavy for them to handle. The iPad mini, however, is just right. It offers developing motor skills a larger screen without too much added bulk.

The iPad mini is the best iPad I've ever owned.

Rene Ritchie

When Apple announced the iPad mini, I thought the lack of Retina display would be a deal-breaker for me. I'm a design diva and I was sure 163ppi would be like sandpaper on my pupils. During the course of my initial iPad mini review, however, I found out I was wrong. Most of the time, after a few moments, I didn't even notice the lack of Retina. Aside from small text, I grew to barely notice it at all. I was too busy doing stuff.

The big boy iPad was always a laptop or tabletop device for me. I carried it in my bag to use as a mobile hotspot for my MacBook, and I pulled it out and sat up with it to read, watch videos, and otherwise enjoy myself when I wanted to relax. But I couldn't use it in bed -- it was heavy enough to tire my arms and dent my face -- or while walking around, Star Trek crewmember-like.

The iPad mini isn't. Because it's lighter and smaller, it's even better to keep in my bag as a mobile hotspot, and even better to use while lying down and walking around. I've even used the iPad mini as a phone, not as ideally as my iPhone, but more than well enough.

I've grown to use the iPad mini as my primary tablet. I use it for everything now, from surfing the web to gaming to reading to light blogging... you get the idea. There are only 3 things I still break out the iPad 4 for: reading comic books, which are designed for a size closer to the iPad 4's screen, watching epic-level video, which is more engrossing at a larger size, and for those rare occasions when I want to travel and get a good amount of work done without a laptop.

If I weren't still bound to my MacBook Pro. If I didn't still use Photoshop and Final Cut Pro far too much to cut my truck cord any time soon, I might find the full-sized iPad a better replacement. With my current use case, however, as something I need to fill the gap between laptop and phone, the iPad mini remains my go to.

Your iPad mini review, 4 months later?

Head on over to the iPad mini forum and give us your 4-months later review. We'll pick a few of the best ones and feature them on the blog this Saturday. The more opinions, the better, so hurry on over!

• iPad mini 4 months later thread

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/ggg90FtcGWU/story01.htm

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Bob Milne: Four Songs, One Mind.

Every musician?s dream is to travel the world, be critically acclaimed, and be able to listen to four different pieces of music simultaneously.

Alright, so maybe that last part is a bit more of a pipe dream than the first two. However, this highly unusual simultaneous listening ability is a skill that ragtime pianist Bob Milne possesses. This ability is so uncommon that it lead to Milne being a topic of study for Penn State neuroscientist Kerstin Bettermann.

Milne was playing a gig at a California social club when he caught the eye of a neuroscientist who had once been Bettermann?s colleague.

Milne said was showing people how he could play in three different time signatures at once ? 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4. Playing one on his left hand, another with the thumb of his right hand, and the last with the rest of his right hand.

Keeping track of notes aside, to put it in some perspective, here?s how tough that is. Try counting to three over and over in your head, keeping a steady beat: 1,2,3-1,2,3. Now start counting to four at the same time, over and over. (It should be impossible by now.) Now keep a five-count beat on top of the other two.

Impossible? For most people, yes. In fact, the doctor there that day thought it was supposed to be impossible for everyone.

?He starts yelling, ?It?s not possible what you?re doing. You?re using both sides of your brain at the same time. And for you to sit there and do this while you?re talking to me is not possible.? He said, ?Bob, I want to do MRIs.??

You can read the rest of Scott Atkinson?s fascinating profile of Milne at Mlive.com. And if you?d like to hear about Milne in podcast form, Radiolab featured him in 2011.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=0cef8790a00ad7a205c33d41735a765b

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Woodland High grad stuck in Gulf of Mexico for days on Carnival cruise

Cindel Pena had just enjoyed a day full of tequila tastings and Mardi Gras festivities in Cozumel, Mexico.

"We were having such a good time," said the 2002 Woodland High School graduate. "We were eating so much food."

After having fun on land, Pena and her two friends from Missouri's Cottey College returned to sea aboard the Carnival Triumph. They were sleeping when, at about 5 a.m. Sunday, an announcement went over the loud speaker, "Engine team to station."

"You could smell smoke so you knew something wasn't normal," Pena said Saturday.

The cruise ship's engine room had caught fire, cutting off the vessel's power, sewage, heating and air-conditioning systems, according to media reports this past week.

"Even when the fire happened, I don't think we realized what was ahead," she said.

Pena was stuck in the Gulf of Mexico on the cruise ship that was supposed to return to land Monday, then Tuesday, until finally the ship and its 4,200 passengers and crew arrived in Mobile Bay, Ala., Thursday night. This was a week after it initially departed for a four-day cruise from Galveston, Texas to Mexico.

The ship's crew told everyone not to panic, Pena said, but this was before days of rotten conditions, which included waste everywhere with no working toilets or showers.

"It was a very scary situation," she said.

The remaining food was served buffet style with people either using tongs or their unwashed fingers, which Pena said "was a giant

illness waiting to happen." She felt nauseous at times while according to wire reports, other passengers became ill.

Even though Pena is "definitely not feeling great" now that she is home in Sacramento, she said it's "manageable. She will be returning to her work in real estate Monday after she was supposed to be back last Wednesday.

Pena said it was strange sleeping in the Hilton after arriving on dry land Thursday. She had a working toilet and shower for the first time in five days.

"It was really weird," she said. "Coming back to civilization was surreal."

Carnival has refunded the passengers their four-day fare, which Pena said was inexpensive ($1,018 for three). In addition to paying expenses on board, the cruise line offered a voucher for another trip.

"Absolutely not," she said. "You cannot pay me to go on another cruise."

Pena had been on a cruise to Catalina Island with her husband and stepchildren before her trip to Mexico. So she didn't expect anything to go wrong.

There are "so many things that Carnival needs to answer," she said. "Could this have been prevented?"

The Triumph had experienced mechanical issues before the journey and will be idle through at least April.

Follow Katherine Jarvis at twitter.com/katherinejarvis

Source: http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_22609328/woodland-high-grad-stuck-gulf-mexico-days-carnival?source=rss_viewed

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Orbitz

My history with travel booking site Orbitz (free) goes back to 2002, according to my account details. Orbitz has long served as the most convenient hub for finding low fares, pinpointing convenient travel options, and paying for reservations. Because of its long reputation, Orbitz is the best and most trustworthy place to find and book travel, start to finish. In terms of speed, and specifically I mean how quickly you can find and book suitable travel arrangements that meet your basic criteria, Orbitz whizzes you through its system. In a pinch, you can nab a flight, hotel room, and car rental, and have it all paid for in minutes.

While Orbitz remains an excellent resource, it's no longer at the head of the class for pure search and finding the best prices, however. When time's on your side, and you need to be very detailed about the specifics of your flight and how much you're willing to pay, Kayak (5 stars), our Editors' Choice, should be your travel search site of choice?and note I said "search" and not "booking." Kayak's primary limitation is that customers can't pay for much at all directly on Kayak.com, although that seems to be changing. Instead, Kayak typically ships you off to another booking site, such as Expedia or even Orbitz, or an airline's website, before you can lay down your credit card. You have nothing to lose by doing a search on Kayak before booking on Orbitz. Purely for booking, though, and the range of additional tickets and packages you can buy outside of flights, hotels, and car rentals, Orbitz is the best. Other big-name competitors like Expedia (3.5 stars) and Travelocity (3.5 stars) just don't offer the same perks of Orbitz, such as price guarantees, much less stability in their sites (both have flaked out on me often).

Orbitz's Special Features
The biggest win Orbitz gives customers is its Price Assurance policy. If another Orbitz customer books the exact same flight or pre-paid hotel reservation as you for less than you paid, the company will issue you 110 percent of the difference in Orbitz credit. The credit ranges from $5 to $250 per airline ticket, and $5 to $500 per hotel booking. In all my years using Orbitz, I've never received a credit (Orbitz says it keeps an eye out for you, so you don't have to know the customer who got the better deal), but it's nice to know it's there.

Orbitz's homepage offers a range of very basic search starting points at the top of the screen. Are you looking to book a flight only? Flight, hotel, and car rental combo? Perhaps a cruise? There are nine possibilities all told, and the rest of the search criteria change based on which option you tick. For flights, you can search for round-trip, one-way, and multi-city journeys, all of which appear in a search panel that shows you very straightforward options. Most of these options are standard in all the big name travel search sites: Kayak, Expedia, Travelocity. Some more niche site neglect a few of these options, though. Google Flights only searches flights, and Hipmunk focuses solely on flights and hotels.

One new feature that Orbitz customers will positively adore is a box that states "I only need a hotel for part of my trip" for flight-and-hotel combo searches. What a monumental improvement for people who want the discount associated with comb bookings but are planning overnight trips outside their primary destination. You can't yet book more than one hotel in this fashion, but this new feature is still a huge improvement and is implemented in a way that keeps the search criteria simple to define.

Not long ago, if you searched for a flight and hotel together, Orbitz took you through the flight options first and then the hotels, a two-step process that the site has finally condensed into one. The first results page now puts hotel options vertically down the left side and flights across the top (see the slideshow for an example). You can sort the hotel listings by price, star rating, location, overall value, distance (usually from the city center), name, and reviewer scores. There are even drop-down selection boxes that let you filter on multiple criteria, like "sort by price, and show hotels near downtown, and have at least a four-star rating." You can also select a hotel from the left side and then choose to see more flight options afterward when you need to be picky about the airline, departure times, number of connections, and so forth.

Another of Orbitz's strengths and signature features comes from its vast array of vacation packages, which include everything from family trips to Disneyland to last-minute Hawaiian getaways. You can find tickets to the theater, music concerts, sporting events, as well as those city package tickets that bundle the best museums and tourist sites in any major city into one convenient pass. Some of these deals come from partner site Cheap Tickets, and Orbitz will bump you off to that site when it can't actually handle the transaction for you.

Flexible Options
Flexible travelers have a few options for using Orbitz to their advantage. First, from the "flight only" starting point, you can search for a trip of your choice and tick a box that reads, "search three days before and after." The search results appear as a price matrix, with no options yet about airlines or departure times?only the lowest quoted fare for each date pair. When booking an expensive flight, you can easily save hundreds of dollars. For example, I searched for fares between New York and Santiago, Chile, and found the lowest fare in my date range to be $1,083, while the highest was $1,374!

More spontaneous travelers will find a lot to explore among Orbitz's other last-minute deals, although the site doesn't make it especially easy to see options leaving from your city. Sure, you can find hotel deals for a Caribbean beach holiday or ski lift tickets in Vail, but the flight from your originating city may not make the trip so accommodating. Orbitz does have a section for last-minute airfares and other air ticket deals, but they're all scattered around the site in a way that I don't find terribly useful. If I log into my account and surf over to Orbitz's deals page, I expect to see deals that fit my account profile in some way?at the very least, deals that originate from my city of residence. Orbitz doesn't offer this kind of functionality. It's really best for searching and finding deals based on what you already know you want.

Limited Orbit
As much as I love Orbitz for its search functionality, it doesn't include a few excellent options that Kayak uses to help you narrow down exactly what you want.

Both Orbitz and Kayak let you search flights departing from an area, rather than a specific airport, but Kayak gives you complete control over the filter. For example, you can use the airport code NYC to include all three major New York City airports, or on Orbitz, type in San Francisco and tick a box to "include airports within 80 miles" to ensure your options take Oakland and San Jose airports into consideration, too. But when you get to the results, you may find airports are included that you don't want. Kayak lets you deselect airports so that they disappear from the results entirely, and seeing as it's never in my financial interest to schlep all the way to Newark airport, I really appreciate this option. On Orbitz, though, I'll sometimes think I've found an awesome price on a flight, only to realize that the return journey puts me back in New Jersey, a two-hour commute from my home. There's no fine filtering.

Another sorely missed feature in Orbitz, but one that pops up in Kayak and Bing Travel, is a "wait-vs-buy" recommendation. It's a relatively new addition to Kayak, where it appears as an insightful chart showing price trends next to the advice and a percent confidence rating. Bing doesn't always have a recommendation depending on the route (it seems to be for U.S. domestic travel primarily), but when you do, it also includes the amount by which the price will likely rise, but no graph.

Search and Book
Over my many years of experience with Orbitz, the travel resource has been, and continues to be, the most reliable and convenient place to search for and book flights, hotels, and car rentals in one shot. But nowadays, Kayak, our Editors' Choice, is my first stop for searching for travel deals, even though I may very well end up on Orbitz to seal the deal.

Orbitz reputation and price assurance policies leave you feeling secure when you put in your credit card information to seal the deal on your next holiday. The site's shortcomings, which are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, relate to its missing a few detailed features you can get with Kayak?but the devil may be in those details. It never hurts to make a comparative search on Kayak for your own safety, because you could end up on Orbitz after all when it's time to make the reservation, since Kayak only minimally offers booking services.

More Internet Sites and Services Reviews:
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London Marathon runner died after using supplement | MNN ...

In the final stretch of the 26.2 miles of the London Marathon last April, 30-year-old runner Claire Squires collapsed and died. At an inquest Wednesday, Squires? boyfriend Simon van Herrewege said she had included a scoop of the supplement Jack3d in her water bottle, which she intended to drink from if she felt her energy lagging.

?

?She said she was going to take one scoop, as recommended. In her own words: 'If I hit a bit of a wall, I might take this drink and see if it pushes me through the end of the marathon,'" van Herrewege said.

?

Jack3d contained the amphetamine-like stimulant DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine), which has been linked to psychiatric disorders, heart attacks and strokes.

?

Coroner Dr. Philip Barlow said Squires, ?had taken a supplement containing DMAA which, on the balance of probabilities, in combination with extreme physical exertion, caused acute cardiac failure, which resulted in her death.?

?

Although banned now, DMAA was legal for sale at the time. Squires purchased the sports nutrition supplement ? which was advertised as workout aid or a weight-loss supplement that boosted energy, concentration and metabolism ? online.

?

In August 2012, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) advised people not to consume products containing the stimulant. It said DMAA could be fatal and linked it with high blood pressure, nausea, cerebral hemorrhage and stroke. DMAA is also listed on packaging as geranium extract, geranamine, methylhexanamine and 4-methylhexane-2-amine. DMAA was banned by the U.S. Army following the deaths of two soldiers who had taken it.

?

"My hope is that the coverage of this case and the events leading up to Claire's death will help publicize the potentially harmful effects of DMAA during extreme exertion," said van Herrewege.

?

Squires, a hairdresser from North Kilworth, was running in memory of her brother and had aimed to raise $700 for charity with the run. Following her death, donations soared to more than $1.5 million in her name.?

Related stories on MNN:

Source: http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/london-marathon-runner-died-after-using-supplement

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Pope will play no role in running Church after he resigns: Vatican

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Former world number one Rafa Nadal has renewed his attack on hard courts as he prepares for the second tournament on his comeback trail at the Brazil Open. The 26-year-old Spaniard, who returned to competitive action at the Chile Open last week after a left knee condition sidelined him for seven months, said the number of tournaments played on hard surfaces would limit players' careers. He also criticized a move to speed up matches by strictly enforcing the 20-second rule between points at grand slams. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-play-no-role-running-church-resigns-vatican-124912381.html

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1,000s honor ex-Navy SEAL Kyle at Cowboys Stadium

Christopher Kyle's wife, Taya, and his two children follow behind his casket during the recession of a memorial service for Kyle at Cowboys Stadium, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Arlington, Texas. Thousands attended the public memorial service for Kyle, the former Navy SEAL sniper who was shot to death at a Texas shooting range. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

Christopher Kyle's wife, Taya, and his two children follow behind his casket during the recession of a memorial service for Kyle at Cowboys Stadium, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Arlington, Texas. Thousands attended the public memorial service for Kyle, the former Navy SEAL sniper who was shot to death at a Texas shooting range. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

Patriot Guard Riders line the sidelines of the field during a memorial service for Christopher Kyle at Cowboys Stadium, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Arlington, Texas. Thousands attended the public memorial service for Kyle, the former Navy SEAL sniper who was shot to death at a Texas shooting range. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

A photo of Christopher Kyle is displayed on the large screen before the start of a memorial service for the former Navy SEAL at Cowboys Stadium, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Arlington, Texas. Thousands are expected to attend the public memorial service for Kyle, the former Navy SEAL sniper who was shot to death at a Texas shooting range. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

Bagpipers proceed Christopher Kyle's casket during the recession of a memorial service at Cowboys Stadium, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Arlington, Texas. Thousands attended the public memorial service for Kyle, the former Navy SEAL sniper who was shot to death at a Texas shooting range. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

People wait in line to attend a memorial service for Christopher Kyle at Cowboys Stadium, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Arlington, Texas. Thousands are expected to attend the public memorial service for Kyle, the former Navy SEAL sniper who was shot to death at a Texas shooting range. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) ? Surrounded by her husband's military friends, one who offered a glove to wipe away her tears, Taya Kyle stood in front of the flag-draped coffin, her voice trembling as she described to a crowd of thousands what ex-Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle meant to his family, friends and country.

"Chris, there isn't enough time to tell you everything you mean to me and everything you taught me," his widow said Monday at Cowboys Stadium during a two-hour memorial service for her husband, a decorated sniper and best-selling author who was slain earlier this month at a gun range in North Texas.

Kyle's funeral service is scheduled for Tuesday. He will be buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin after a 200-mile funeral procession starting in the Dallas area. Drivers along Interstate 35 will not be allowed to pass the procession, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Nearly 7,000 people, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, attended the service Monday. Dozens of military personnel and others were seated in front of the podium near the Dallas Cowboys' star at midfield, where Kyle's coffin was placed.

Taya Kyle described herself as broken but said the family will "put one foot in front of the other" to get through their grief. She told her two children that they will remember Kyle's silly side, Texas twang and prayers they prayed together.

After her eulogy, country singer Randy Travis sang "Whisper My Name," which he said Taya Kyle had told him was a meaningful song for the couple, and "Amazing Grace." At the conclusion of the service, bagpipers played as military personnel carried out the coffin and many in the crowd saluted.

His fellow service members told mourners that Kyle was more than an excellent sniper ? he was a devoted family man known for his sense of humor, compassion, selflessness and generosity. Kyle completed four tours of duty in Iraq and wrote the best-selling book "American Sniper."

Childhood friends recalled his mischievous side, and one said he and Kyle played with BB guns as kids ? but Kyle "wasn't a good shot back then."

Bo French, an executive at Craft International, the security training company Kyle started after he left the Navy, said Kyle had a passion for helping others. Kyle also founded a nonprofit, FITCO Cares, that provides at-home fitness equipment for emotionally and physically wounded veterans.

Pictures of Kyle with his family and SEALs were shown on a large screen in the stadium. The back page of the memorial service program included copies of handwritten notes from Kyle's young kids: "I will miss your heart. I will love you even if you died" from his daughter, and "I miss you a lot. One of the best things that has happened to me is you" from his son.

Iraq War veteran Eddie Ray Routh, 25, has been charged in the Feb. 2 killings of Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a North Texas gun range. Routh is jailed in Erath County on $3 million bond.

Taya Kyle also paid tribute to Littlefield during the service Monday, saying he was the "effortless, no expectations" friend that her husband needed.

Many said before Monday's service that they didn't know the 38-year-old Kyle. Air Force Master Sgt. Kevin Phillips said he came from his Fort Worth home to honor "a brother in arms."

Steven O'Bryan and his wife, Carol, drove more than two hours from their home in Marshall in East Texas because "he's just an American hero," Carol O'Bryan said.

FITCO's director has said the men apparently had been helping Routh work through post-traumatic stress disorder.

Kyle, Littlefield and Routh arrived together at the Rough Creek Lodge shooting range, about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth, authorities say. Routh later fled in Kyle's truck and went to his sister's home.

According to a search warrant, Routh told his sister and brother-in-law that the men "were out shooting target practice and he couldn't trust them so he killed them before they could kill him." Routh's sister called the police, describing her brother as "psychotic." Routh was arrested after a short police chase.

Routh's brother-in-law told authorities that Routh had recently been diagnosed with PTSD.

One of Routh's attorneys, J. Warren St. John, said his client had been released from the Dallas Veterans Affairs hospital against his family's wishes just two days before the shootings.

Littlefield's funeral was held Friday in Midlothian. Afterward, Littlefield's relatives said the outing with Routh was intended to be therapeutic.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-12-Sniper%20Author-Shooting-Memorial/id-19f19f9954824765904dd7cfcf1130b5

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The Wham Spot | Real Estate Investment Property Management

Have you purchased real estate but don?t have the time to provide the appropriate management for your real estate needs? The process of owning real estate can be a great business venture, but it can also be difficult and time-consuming, especially if you operate other businesses. We can provide you with necessary services to get the most from your real estate. We can collect payment, find quality tenants, and handle other important tasks. We have developed several fail-safe procedures that are very productive in properly operating your property. Get an estimate today and find out how we can help you with your property management needs. Property Management Alpine

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Source: http://www.thewahmspot.com/real-estate-investment-property-management-3/

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Missouri GOP now pushing the legitimate rape of science (Americablog)

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Iran says it cracked U.S. drone data, airs images

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's state TV has broadcast footage allegedly extracted from the advanced CIA spy drone captured in 2011, the latest in a flurry of moves from Iranian authorities meant to underline the nation's purported military and technological advances.

Iran has long claimed it managed to reverse-engineer the RQ-170 Sentinel, seized in December 2011 after it entered Iranian airspace from the country's eastern border with Afghanistan, and that it's capable of launching its own production line for the unmanned aircraft.

After initially saying only that a drone had been lost near the Afghan-Iran border, American officials eventually confirmed the Sentinel had been monitoring Iran's military and nuclear facilities. Washington asked for it back but Iran refused, and instead released photos of Iranian officials studying the aircraft.

The video aired late Wednesday on Iranian TV shows an aerial view of an airport and a city, said to be a U.S. drone base and Kandahar, Afghanistan. The TV also showed images purported to be the Sentinel landing at a base in eastern Iran but it was unclear if that footage meant to depict the moment of the drone's seizure.

In addition, the TV also showed images of an Iranian helicopter transporting the drone, as well as its disassembled parts being carried on a trailer.

In another part of the video, the chief of the Revolutionary Guard's airspace division, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that only after capturing the drone, Iran realized it "belongs to the CIA."

"We were able to definitively access the data of the drone, once we brought it down," said Hajizadeh.

He described the Sentinel's capture as a huge scoop for Iran, saying that at the time, Tehran did not rule out a possible punitive U.S. airstrike over the drone.

Iranian officials have accused the U.S. of stepping up its espionage activities against Iran as part of intensified Western efforts to force Tehran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, a key aspect of its disputed nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran may be trying to develop atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

In an attempt to embarrass Washington, Iran has claimed to have captured several American drones, most recently in December, when Tehran said it seized a Boeing-designed ScanEagle drone ? a less sophisticated aircraft ? after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf.

U.S. officials said there was no evidence that the latest claims were true.

Also Thursday, the semi-official Fars news agency published photos reportedly depicting a domestic production line of ScanEagle drones. The photos show several drones in a workshop.

Iran has said before that it's making ScanEagle copies and putting them into service, but has not offered proof for those claims.

Fars also quoted deputy defense minister, Mohammad Eslami, as saying that Iran has also established a "production line for the drones in foreign countries." He did not elaborate, and it was not clear if he was referring to Syria or Lebanon's Hezbollah group, Iran's top regional allies.

The latest Sentinel footage came as the U.S. tightened sanctions to pressure the Iranian government to limit its nuclear program and restrictions on institutions that Washington says are stifling political dissent and censoring speech.

Among the expanded measures announced Monday by the Treasury Department is a move to deny Iran access to revenue garnered from its oil exports. Under the latest sanctions, Iran would only be able to use revenue from its oil sales in a country that purchased its crude ? now mostly big Asian economies such as China and India ? which would significantly limit its access to the money.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-airs-images-allegedly-extracted-us-drone-080028556.html

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Reminder: Hi-Lo BBQ Opens Tonight -- Grub Street San Francisco

The inside of Hi-Lo, with its charred cedar paneling that looks like charcoal.Photo: Grub Street

It was softly open over the weekend, but Hi-Lo BBQ is making its official public debut tonight. As we showed you last week, the burnt-wood paneled temple of BBQ is in a vaulted ceiling space in the former Filipino community center at 3416 19th Street between Mission and Valencia ? right across the street from Hog & Rocks, which has the same owners, Scott Youkilis and Dave Esler. The chef is Texas-born Ryan Ostler, and the opening menu is here. It's counter service place, with big communal tables and some smaller ones upstairs, but servers deliver your food and drinks and take orders for more drinks as well. Be sure and check it out, and let us know if you think this is ushering in a new era for California barbecue, or what. [Earlier]

Source: http://sanfrancisco.grubstreet.com/2013/02/reminder-hi-lo-bbq-opening-menu-19th-street.html

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Griffin beats out Luck, Wilson

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins has won The Associated Press 2012 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award, beating out two other sensational first-year quarterbacks.

Griffin, whose thrill-a-minute combination of running and passing skills led Washington to its first NFC East title in 13 years, pulled away from Andrew Luck of the Colts and Russell Wilson of the Seahawks in a lopsided vote announced Saturday.

RG3 earned 29 votes from a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league. Luck was next with 11 and Wilson got 10.

All three led their teams to the playoffs.

Griffin, who severely injured his right knee in a wild-card round loss to the Seahawks, set the NFL record for best passer rating by a rookie QB.

He accepted his award at the "2nd Annual NFL Honors" awards show on CBS saluting the NFL's best players, performances and plays from the 2012 season.

__

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-02-FBN-NFL-Offensive-Rookie/id-d758dee98cf34722a5ebac7eb77b5698

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Endowment returns flat for universities

After two strong years, college and university endowments lost ground slightly during the fiscal year ending last June 30, with their investments declining 0.3 percent on average, according to a new study.

U.S. stock markets have risen around 10 percent since then, and many global markets are also higher, so recent performance is likely stronger.

Endowments are the assets owned and invested by universities, who typically spend about 4 to 5 percent of their values annually to support things like financial aid, faculty salaries and other expenses ? and then try to replenish the payouts through fundraising and investment returns.

The survey of 831 schools, conducted by NACUBO, a university business officers group, and investment adviser Commonfund, found that at the average university, the endowment kicks in about 9 percent of the operating budget.

But the figure is higher at richer universities, averaging more than 16 percent at institutions with endowments of at least $1 billion. The endowment provides about one-third of the budget at Harvard, whose endowment of $30.4 billion is the largest of any university in the world ? though still well off its peak of nearly $37 billion before the recession hit.

To beat inflation (higher for the goods and services colleges purchase than for the overall economy) and replenish payouts to support university spending, endowments have needed to return about 7.4 percent annually, said Verne Sedlacek, president and CEO of Commonfund.

Larger endowments, over $1 billion, have managed that, averaging 7.6 percent over the last decade, the survey found. But endowments under $100 million have returned on average less than 6 percent (the average return for all schools in the survey was 6.2 percent).

Returns averaged 19.2 percent in fiscal 2011. Poor performances in international equities and hedge funds dragged down returns last year, the report found.

Overall, there are 71 U.S. universities with endowments higher than $1 billion, down from 76 in the survey a year ago.

Here are the top 10 university endowments, their 2012 value and the percentage change from 2011:

1. Harvard University, $30.44 billion, down 4.1 percent.

2. Yale University, $19.35 billion, down 0.1 percent.

3. University of Texas System, $18.26 billion, up 6.5 percent.

4. Stanford University, $17.04 billion, up 3.2 percent.

5. Princeton University, $16.95 percent, down 0.9 percent.

6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $10.15 billion, up 4.5 percent.

7. University of Michigan, $7.69 billion, down 1.8 percent.

8. Columbia University, $7.65 billion, down 1.7 percent.

9. Texas A&M University System, $7.64 billion, up 9.1 percent.

10. Northwestern University, $7.12 billion, down 0.9 percent.

Changes from 2011 reflect combined impact of fundraising, investment returns and spending out of the endowments.

___

Follow Justin Pope at http://www.twitter.com/JustinPopeAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-01-University%20Endowments/id-37b8d10bcd5b407ba00cb01ccbb24321

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