Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/313332099?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, June 17, 2013
Teaching complete evolutionary stories increases learning
June 15, 2013 ? Many students have difficulty understanding and explaining how evolution operates. In search of better ways to teach the subject, researchers at Michigan State University developed complete evolutionary case studies spanning the gamut from the molecular changes underlying an evolving characteristic to their genetic consequences and effects in populations. The researchers, Peter J. T. White, Merle K. Heidemann, and James J. Smith, then incorporated two of the scenarios into a cellular and molecular biology course taught to undergraduates at the university's Lyman Briggs College.
When the students' understanding was tested, the results showed that students who had understood an integrated evolutionary scenario were better at explaining and describing how evolution works in general.
The results of the research, described in the July issue of BioScience, are significant because evolution is not usually taught in this comprehensive, soup-to-nuts way. Rather, instructors teach examples of parts of the evolutionary process, such as the ecological effects of natural selection or the rules of genetic inheritance, separately. It appears that this fragmentation makes it harder for students to understand the process as a whole.
White and his colleagues note that "surprisingly few" comprehensive evolutionary study systems have been described, although the number is growing. The two employed in the BioScience study were about the evolution of sweet taste and wrinkled skin in domestic garden peas, and the evolution of light or dark coat color in beach mice living on light or dark sand. Students were tested on the beach mouse coat color scenario as well as on evolutionary principles in general. Understanding the beach mouse example was a better predictor of good responses to questions about evolution in general than was performance on the course as a whole. This suggests that improvements in evolutionary understanding came mostly from studying the integrated evolution scenarios.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Peter J.T. White, James J. Smith, and Merle K.Heidemann. A New Integrative Approach to Evolution Education. BioScience, 2013 DOI: 10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.11
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/MOMF52XZBwA/130615152417.htm
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Police: OSHA to join La. blast investigation
DONALDSONVILLE, La. (AP) ? Federal investigators are expected in south Louisiana over the weekend at the site of an explosion that killed one worker a chemical plant in Donaldsville, La.
State Police Trooper Jared Sandifer said Saturday that officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were coming to the CF Industries facility as soon as the site was deemed safe. Sandifer said the state police's hazardous materials unit was at the plant overnight.
Police say 55-year-old Ronald "Rocky" Morris Jr. of Belle Rose, La., was killed in the Friday blast.
CF Industries identified its injured employees as Courtney Julien, Melvin Singleton, Jeramy Worsham and Kade Yarbrough. Three contractor employees also were hurt.
CF Industries manufactures ammonia and other nitrogen fertilizers at the Donaldsonville facility.
Officials say there were no hazardous materials at the site.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-osha-join-la-blast-investigation-163129224.html
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Sunday, June 16, 2013
LG Cosmos 3 (Verizon Wireless)
The original LG Cosmos came out over three years ago, and a lot has changed in the mobile phone?world since then. But not a lot has changed on planet Cosmos, which is still up to the same old tricks in its third iteration. The free LG Cosmos 3 is priced right, but just about everything else?from the lackluster camera, to the mediocre battery life, to the flat-out terrible keypad?is wrong. Don't be swayed by the price. You'll be a lot happier paying $50 bucks for the Samsung Intensity III.
Design and Call Quality
The Cosmos 3 is your standard slider phone. It measures 4.41 by 2.06 by 0.63 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.58 ounces. It's made entirely of a solid gray matte plastic, with a textured back panel. The phone slides open to give you a four-row QWERTY keyboard. They keys are little black plastic nubs, surrounded by a sea of silver plastic around the perimeter of the keyboard and around the middle of the phone. The keys themselves are nice and clicky, and I appreciate the dedicated number row at the top. But there's not much space between keys, making it easy to press the wrong one, and the Space bar?which is plunked down between the V and B keys?completely threw my typing game off. You'll probably get used to it, but it isn't ideal.
But while I can deal with the keyboard, I was barely able to put up with the phone's control and number pads, which are among the worst I've ever used. All of the keys are oddly shaped and poorly placed?the number keys themselves aren't even aligned to a straight horizontal line. On top of that, the Call Start and End keys are difficult to press, and LG has placed dedicated Speakerphone and Clear keys right on top of them, so you often press the wrong one. I never dialed a number right on the first try with this phone. It can be infuriating.
That makes it easy to overlook some of the positive elements here, like the phone's tiny-but-crisp 2-inch display. With a resolution of 320-by-240-pixels, it has 200 pixels per inch, so text and images look sharp, and viewing angles are much better here than on the Samsung Intensity III.
The Cosmos 3 is a dual-band 1xRTT (850/1900 MHz) phone with no 3G or Wi-Fi. Reception and call quality are average. Voices sound extremely thin but loud and clear in the earpiece, if a little harsh at maximum volume. And calls made with the phone sound a touch muted and fuzzy, but still perfectly audible. The speakerphone gets very loud, so you should have no trouble hearing the phone outdoors. And calls sounded clear through a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset; voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth. The 900mAh battery was unimpressive, dialing in just 5 hours and 23 minutes of talk time.
Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions
Don't get this phone if you want it to do much more than your standard flip phone. There's a Myriad 6.2 Web browser, but it only reads WAP pages. Text is very small on the phone's 2-inch screen, and 2G data speeds are extremely slow.
You get all of the usual apps here, like an alarm, calendar, tip calculator, and a stopwatch. There's also email support for Gmail, Hotmail, Microsoft Exchange, Verizon.net, Windows Live, and Yahoo accounts, but you need to have a data plan to use it. And if you're going to pay to access data, you might as well be using a smartphone.
Multimedia support really just means audio, and the Cosmos 3 doesn't play video like the Samsung Intensity III does. But it played MP3, M4A, and WMA tracks fine over both wired 3.5mm headphones as well as a Bluetooth pair. Some hiss sneaks in around the track when it finishes playing, but only for a second or two. And if you want to listen to music you'll probably need to pop a microSD card into the slot underneath the battery cover, as the phone itself only has 56MB of free internal memory.
The 1.3-megapixel camera has no flash or auto-focus. Test photos look poor. The camera manages to capture images that are simultaneously soft at their default size, and extremely noisy if you zoom in even a little. You're not going to find many keepers here.
So while the LG Cosmos 3 is free, its many shortcomings mean that you'll be paying time and time again with your patience. A much better option is the Samsung Intensity III. It has a better keypad, better multimedia support, better battery life, better? well, you get the picture. If you don't need a keyboard, the LG Revere 2?is a pretty good choice for a flip phone. It's free, call quality is good, and it's easy to use.?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/UyE_IyIdEiI/0,2817,2420496,00.asp
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Saturday, June 15, 2013
How's your customer service? | Sage Consulting
Poor customer service sucks. In fact, it is my number one pet peeve, closely followed by drivers on their cells phones that don?t pay attention. That?s why I?m pleased to introduce this new service we are offering starting this month?Superior Service from Sage. Why? Because we are tired of seeing great businesses look crappy because they dropped the ball with service!
Seriously though, as a business owner,?what is the perception of your clientele or customer base as it relates to their customer service experience with you or your?company? If you could be?the proverbial?fly on the wall, listening in as your clients and customers shared their experience about doing business with you, would you be pleased with what you heard or feel?embarrassed??Does email, phone calls, faxes and other means of communication go unattended days on end? How about your P.O. Box, do you even remember or have the time to check it?
As a business owner, are you overwhelmed with the myriad of tasks involved in keeping your customers and clients contented? Have you ever started a new campaign or promotion and saw it go south because the after sales service you provided was less than stellar? Do you want to give your clients and customer the very best service experience but lack the time and the know how to deliver?
Who said you had to do it all?
Here?s where Sage comes in. Years before Sage, I worked as the Customer Service Manager for a small brokerage company for 3 years. I made sure that no phone, email or fax query went unattended beyond a business day. ?I also ensured that calls and queries relating to the company?s service were addressed within the same day 97% of the times and made it my point of duty to teach my small team the importance of good customer service and the value each client held to the company regardless?of their attitude or personality. In my regular training sessions with the team, I also taught basic principles such as conflict avoidance and the art to dealing with angry, frustrated, belligerent?or just downright rude clients (you know they are always right!). In a nutshell, I helped the company to look like a star to their clientele. Here at Sage, I?ve trained my team to offer that same stellar service, topped off with the Sage touch!
When?you?allow us to assist you with your customer service you gain two basic things:
- The freedom and time to focus on reaching new clients.
- The assurance that comes from knowing that we are skilled and experienced in this field and well able to help you shine to your clientele or customer base.
Here?s how we can support you:
- Provide efficient phone, fax, social media online and email support
- Make and receive calls ?and faxes on your behalf
- Receive and process your incoming calls
- Receive and process faxes received from your clients and customers
- Handle client queries and support tickets
- General customer support:?Make follow up calls and send follow up letters, faxes and email to your clients and customers
- As well as a host of other customer service oriented support tasks.
Have we piqued your curiosity or interest? Then feel free to contact us for more details on this service.
Sage Consulting is a progressive small business boutique with a mission of empowering clients? and helping them leverage opportunities in any economy. Sage is headed by Carlana Charles-Young, whose professional experience and skills runs the gamut with 15+ years experience that covers small business marketing, online event management, customer support, sales, administration and project management.
Source: http://sageconsulting.gd/hows-your-customer-service/
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U.S. considering no-fly zone in Syria
By Parisa Hafezi and Matt Spetalnick
ANKARA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is considering imposing a no-fly zone in Syria, its first direct military intervention of the two-year-old civil war, Western diplomats said on Friday, after the White House said Syria had crossed a "red line" by using nerve gas.
After months of equivocating, President Barack Obama's administration said on Thursday it would now arm rebels, having obtained proof the Syrian government used chemical weapons against fighters trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
Two senior Western diplomats said Washington is mulling a no-fly zone close to Syria's southern border with Jordan.
"Washington is considering a no-fly zone to help Assad's opponents," one diplomat said. He said it would be limited "time-wise and area-wise, possibly near the Jordanian border", without giving details.
Imposing a no-fly zone would require the United States to destroy Syria's air defenses, entering the two-year-old civil war with the sort of action that NATO used to help topple Muammar Gaddafi in Libya two years ago.
The area near the Jordanian border contains some of the most densely-populated parts of Syria, including the outskirts of the capital Damascus.
Washington has moved Patriot surface-to-air missiles, war planes and more than 4,000 troops into Jordan in the past week, officially as part of an annual exercise but making clear that the forces deployed could stay on when the war games are over.
Syria's civil war grew out of protests that swept across the Arab world in 2011, becoming by far the deadliest of those uprisings and the most difficult to resolve, with powers across the Middle East squaring off on sectarian lines.
Western countries have spent the past two years demanding Assad leave power but declining to take direct action like that taken in Libya, because of the far greater risk of engaging with a much stronger country that straddles sectarian divides at the heart of the Middle East and is backed by Iran and Russia.
Just months ago, Western countries believed Assad's days were numbered. But momentum on the battlefield has turned in his favor, making the prospect of his swift removal or an end to the bloodshed appear remote without outside intervention.
Thousands of seasoned fighters from Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia joined the war on Assad's behalf in recent weeks and last week helped the Syrian government recapture Qusair, a strategic town. Assad's government says its troops are now preparing for an assault on Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, mainly in rebel hands since last year.
Activists reported an intensified assault on parts of Aleppo and its countryside near the Turkish border overnight, sparking some of the most violent clashes in months.
The use of chemical weapons provides a straightforward reason for Washington to intervene. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Washington now believed 100-150 people had been killed by poison gas.
"Our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year," he told reporters.
"The president ... has made it clear that the use of chemical weapons or transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups is a red line," he said. "He has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has."
Syria considers the rebels terrorists. Its foreign ministry called the U.S. decision to arm the rebels a "flagrant double standard" in its dealings with terrorism.
Syria's state news agency SANA said: "the United States affirmed once again its involvement in supporting the armed terrorist groups in Syria by announcing its intention to provide them with greater military aid".
COLLISION COURSE WITH MOSCOW
The implicit threat to openly join the conflict puts Washington on a diplomatic collision course with Moscow, which has used its U.N. Security Council veto three times to block resolutions that might be used to threaten force against Assad.
U.S. officials say Obama will try to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon support for Assad. Obama and Putin will meet at a G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond directly to the new U.S. posture but a Kremlin-allied Russian lawmaker said the chemical weapons data was fabricated and that Washington would use it to cook up a justification for joining the war.
"Information about the use by Assad of chemical weapons has been fabricated in the same place as the lies about (Saddam) Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," said Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign policy committee in the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, in a statement on Twitter.
"Obama is taking the same path as George Bush."
The arrival of thousands of seasoned, Iran-backed Shi'ite Hezbollah fighters to help Assad combat a revolt led by Syria's Sunni majority has shifted momentum and raised the prospect of sectarian violence spreading across the Middle East.
The United Nations now estimates at least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria and millions driven from their homes.
Western powers have been reluctant in the past to arm the rebels, worried about the rising strength of Sunni Islamist insurgents among them who have pledged their loyalty to the global militant network al Qaeda.
The White House said Washington would now provide "direct military support" to the opposition. It did not publicly specify whether this would include "lethal aid", which would mark a reversal of Obama's previous resistance to arming the rebels. But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the package would include weapons.
Syrian rebels already receive light arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They have asked for heavier weapons including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. European countries, in particular France, have argued that the solution is to provide more weapons for mainstream rebels to marginalize extremists.
U.S. and European officials are meeting the commander of a main rebel fighting force, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), on Friday in Turkey. FSA chief Salim Idriss is expected to plead urgently for more help.
Obama has been more cautious than Britain and France, which forced the European Union this month to lift an embargo that had blocked weapons for the rebels. French officials already said a week ago that they had firm proof Assad used nerve gas, while Washington continued to say it was unsure until Thursday.
REBELS DEMAND WEAPONS
Syrian rebel and political opposition leaders immediately called for sophisticated weaponry.
"We want anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons," George Sabra, acting leader of the National Coalition political opposition bloc, told Al-Arabiya television. "We expect to see positive results and genuine military support."
U.S. Senator John McCain, a hawk on Syria, said America needed to neutralize Assad's air power: "They (rebels) have enough light weapons. They've got enough AK-47s. AK-47s don't do very well against tanks," McCain told CNN. "They need anti-tank weapons and they need anti-air weapons."
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed what he said was a "clear U.S. statement". "The international community has made clear that any use of chemical weapons is completely unacceptable and a clear breach of international law," Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels.
Syria is not a signatory to the international treaty that bans chemical weapons but has said that it would never use them in an internal conflict. It has accused the rebels of using them, but Washington said it does not believe that the insurgents have access to them.
FIGHT FOR ALEPPO
Assad forces tried overnight to storm the rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and commercial hub, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based, pro-opposition monitoring group.
The move sparked some of the fiercest battles in months. Activists also reported artillery and air strikes in the rebel-held countryside in the north of the province.
Syrian state media have been touting plans for "Northern Storm," a looming campaign to recapture the rebel-held north.
Aleppo would be a far more difficult target than Qusair. Assad's forces only hold a few routes and pockets of territory in the province, mostly in isolated Shi'ite villages.
Assad's main advantage so far has been the ability to use air power to resupply troops and bomb rebel areas, along with its use of long-range missiles. But Western support or a no-fly zone would change the current balance of power.
(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut, John Irish in Paris; Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman,; Roberta Rampton, Mark Felsenthal, Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Erika Solomon and Peter Graff)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-says-assad-forces-used-chemical-weapons-against-000953375.html
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Saturday, June 8, 2013
Jonah Lehrer has deal for new book
NEW YORK (AP) ? Jonah Lehrer, the best-selling author who has acknowledged using fake quotes and had two books pulled, has reached agreement on a new book.
Simon & Schuster announced Thursday that it will publish a book by Lehrer with the working title "The Book of Love." No publication date has been set.
Lehrer, 31, had written three previous books for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, but one of them, "Imagine," was withdrawn last year after he acknowledged inventing and distorting Bob Dylan quotes. Houghton later announced it would no longer sell "How We Decide," citing "significant" problems.
Lehrer, who also resigned from The New Yorker last year, had been a popular writer and speaker specializing in the life of the mind and the interplay between science and the arts. Before leaving The New Yorker, Lehrer had been reprimanded by the magazine for recycling material he wrote for other publications.
Simon & Schuster publisher and president Jonathan Karp said Thursday that Lehrer's new book would be a "meditation on and exploration of love through different prisms ? psychological, scientific, historical, literary. "
"We acquired it because we believe Jonah Lehrer is an unusually talented writer with a distinctive approach to a subject with enormous appeal," Karp said. "In fact, it's arguably the subject with the greatest appeal in history."
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