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With fifteen days to go before the world will come together to witness history, as the 2010 FIFA World Cup will take place for the first time in Africa. Celebrations are in motions, and one of the latest celebration is the “Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Album” titled “LISTEN UP”.

The album scheduled is said to be schedule for release on June 10, only 10 days before the big games begin. Although there has been major controversy surrounding this album, I’m glade that the team behind it was able to come to an agreement and in the process incorporate a vast line up of global artist.

Here is the “LISTEAN UP” artist and track line up:

1.R.Kelly featuring Soweto Spiritual Singers – “Signs of a Victory” ( The official 2010 FIFA World Cup Anthem)

2.Shakira featuring Freshlyground – Waka Waka” ( The official 2010 FIFA World Cup Song)

3.Nneka -”Viva Africa”

4.Matisyahu featuring Nameless – “One Day”

5.Ternielle Nelson, Jason Hartman, UJU, Louise Carver, Aya and Deep Level – “Shosholoza 2010″

6.J Pre, Wyclef, Jazmine Sullivan and B Howard – ” Ke Nako”

7. Angelique Kidjo and John Legend – “Move on Up”

8.Judy Bailey featuring UJU – “Spirit of Freedom”

9.Pitbull, TKZee and Dario G – ” Game on” (Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Mascot Song)

10.MISIA featuring M2J and Francis Jocky – “Maware Maware”

11.ClaudiaLeitte and Lira – “Mascaras”

12.Siphiwo featuring Message of Hope from Nelson Mandela – “Hope”

13.Soweto String Quartet – “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica (God Bless Africa) ”

Here is a sneak peak at the offical anthem: R.Kelly featuring Soweto Spiritual Singers – \”Sign of a Victory\”

The National Institutes of Health has proposed new guidelines to prevent financial conflicts of interest (COI) among researchers who receive federal funding. The move, which will affect more than 40,000 researchers, comes amid rising concern about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and other private-sector interests on scientific research. Among other changes, the guidelines will reduce from $10,000 to $5,000 the minimum payment that researchers will be required to report. It also mandates that universities, colleges, research institutes, businesses, and other entities that employ researchers who receive NIH funding monitor compliance with the new reporting requirement. Funding information would have to be posted on a publicly accessible website, and violators could lose their grants.

Although partnerships between NIH-funded researchers and industry are essential, “in order to preserve the public trust in the objectivity of biomedical and behavioral research, all research has to be conducted without bias and with the highest scientific and ethical standards,” NIH Director Francis S. Collins said in announcing the guidelines, which will be subject to 60 days of public comment and possible revision before they become final. Collins stressed that, in most cases, the integrity of scientific research has not been compromised by outside funding. But even the appearance of a conflict can undermine public trust, he said. Universities and professional organizations have been tightening their policies concerning outside funding in recent years to prevent conflicts of interests.

Source:  The Washington Post

Five associations, including the Association of American Universities (AAU), have submitted detailed comments to the White House on ways to address challenges and barriers to the commercialization of university-based research. The comments came in response to a request for information issued March 25 by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council. The comment letter — signed by AAU, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Council on Governmental Relations — stresses the importance of balancing knowledge creation with increased commercialization and described the ways universities contribute to economic development beyond technology licensing.

The letter focuses on the importance of maintaining the Bayh-Dole Act as the legal framework for university technology commercialization. The associations also suggested that policymakers reconsider government restrictions on the reimbursement of university research administrative costs, provide supplemental grants to support the translation of research with a high potential for commercialization, and expand federal tax credits to better promote research commercialization. The letter also called for university and industry representatives to “engage in a robust dialogue” to identify key factors in successful university-industry collaborations.

Source: AAU Weekly Wrap-Up

The coal mine that exploded last month in West Virginia — killing 29 workers and all but killing a 30th — may be shuttered in the wake of the blast, but federal regulators continue to find safety problems there. As The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reports today, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has issued dozens of safety violations at the Upper Big Branch in the last two weeks alone.

Most of the citations related to violations MSHA inspectors found in the mine’s electrical systems — presumably problems that could be discovered without going underground — or to surface facilities at the Raleigh County operation.

Ward counts 23 new violations since May 14; we count 30. Regardless of the number, the mine is still seen as a safety threat, and it’s not yet clear how or why.

We’ve got calls in to MSHA. Hopefully we’ll have an update shortly.

(Photo: Gloria Dawson / The
Daily Green)

Want to know what a 1,600-plus-calorie meal looks like? It’s not what you think.

It could be covered with lettuce or served with a side of veggies. It’s lurking in many chain restaurants, waiting to sabotage your diet, raise your blood pressure, or worse.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has just released its 2010 “Xtreme Eating Awards” – their annual review of entrees with the most calories, fat, and sodium served at American restaurant chains. (See the 2009 ‘Winners’.) The full 2010 list will be featured in the June issue of Nutrition Action.

We took a closer look at some of the most surprising offenders. We suggest you read this before you tuck into your next meal.

The Daily Green wants to remind you that the recommended limit for daily maximum intake is 2,000 calories, 20 grams of saturated fat and 2,300 milligrams of sodium.

P.F. Chang’s Double Pan-Fried Noodles Combo
CSPI: You could eat 10 egg rolls and not top the 1,820 calories in this dish. “They fry these noodles to make them hard and crunchy, while you end up soft and flabby,” says CSPI nutrition director Bonnie Liebman. If this noodle dish does indeed have the 7,690 milligrams of sodium to which the chain confesses, that would be about three teaspoons of salt – a five-day supply.

The Nutrition Action HealthLetter article quips, “It’s always possible that you’re stopping at Chang’s before starting a three-hour bicycle ride or four-hour hike. But on the off chance that you’re not going to burn off the dish’s 1,820 calories after dinner, you’re going to need some place to store them. How does your belly sound?”

“Healthy” menu alternatives include anything that’s comes without noodles and is not fried, and keep in mind many of these dishes are meant to be split. If you’re craving a noodle dish try these Sesame Noodles. You can live with the 630 calories they’ll set you back.

California Pizza Kitchen Tostada Pizza With Grilled Steak
CSPI: With 1,680 calories, 1 1/2 days’ worth (32 grams) of saturated fat, and more than two days’ worth (3,300 mg) of sodium, ordering the single-serve pizza is like eating a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza topped with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos.

Don’t be fooled by this lettuce-covered monstrosity. It’s packed with nearly your entire day’s worth of calories. We looked around for alternative entrees at California Pizza Kitchen, but we found little for the under-1,000-calorie set.

And don’t think you’re saving tons of calories by ordering the honey-wheat crust for your pizza – you’ll be saving 12 calories. Yes, only 12, and that’s not going to put much of a dent in your 1,680 calorie meal. Still craving a tostada? Try this Grilled Vegetable Tostada, with only 580 calories.

The Cheesecake Factory Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake
CSPI: A tower of any food is rarely a good idea. This six-inch-long, three-quarter-pound slab of cake has 1,670 calories and two-and-a-half days’ worth (48 grams) of artery-clogging saturated fat. Feel like eating 14 Hostess Ho-Hos for dessert?

Okay, so we didn’t think a restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory was serving health food. But what scared us was how one splurge could leave such a huge dent in your diet.

When we looked for alternative dessert options we found Tiramisu and Fresh Strawberry Shortcake, but at 932 and 878 calories respectively we suggest sharing.

Another option is heading home for dinner, it will save you money and calories. Try making yourself this Rich Chocolate Layer Cake. It comes in at a slightly more respectable 618 calories with no saturated fat – this should still be an infrequent indulgence for sure.

More from The Daily Green

• 10 Foods With More Potassium Than Bananas
• 6 Food Scandals
• The Dirty Dozen: 12 Foods to Eat Organic
• Eat Right: 18 Tips That Really Matter
• 6 Surprising Facts About Organic Foods

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

by Randy Rieland.

Here’s
something to fill you with confidence on the eve of BP’s risky “Top Kill”
gambit: Workers on the Deepwater Horizon
rig missed warnings that something was seriously wrong before the rig exploded.
BP itself, in a memo to a House committee, reveals that crewmen failed to heed signs
of a “very large abnormality” underwater. In fact, they apparently missed one warning
sign after another that day.

Third time’s the charm?

Or will it be three strikes you’re out? Later today, BP will try, try, try
again to—as the president put it—“plug the damn hole.” This latest attempt is the “top kill,” in which a mix of
heavy mud and cement is shot into the well to counteract the upward pressure of leaking oil and gas. If the top kill fails,
BP will move on to the “junk shot,” in which a gumbo of rope, tires, and golf balls
gets pumped into the leak. If the junk shot doesn’t work, it’s “top hat” time—the
smaller of the two containment domes will be lowered over the well to hopefully
capture leaking oil and pump it to the surface. 

And if that doesn’t work, well, we’re pretty much screwed.

Now that the oil giant relented to pressure from
the feds, we can watch it all go down on the BP webcam.

That’ll
show ‘em

A criminal investigation of BP is gaining
traction. The Justice Department now says
it will give “due consideration” to charges by a group of Senate Democrats that
BP misled the feds about its ability to respond to oil spills in the Gulf of
Mexico.

And in a ratcheted-up
campaign to show he’s pissed, President Obama will announce tomorrow that federal regulators
will stop being soft touches when they inspect offshore oil rigs.

Fox, henhouse … henhouse, fox

All of which raises more
stink about a system in which regulators don’t regulate. Maureen Dowd, writing in The New York Times, draws parallels with the
recent banking fiasco:

As when derivatives
experts had to help unravel the derivatives debacle, now the White House is
dependent on BP to find a solution to the horror it created. The financial
crisis and the oil spill are both man-made disasters brought on by hubris and
avarice.

And The Washington Post’s Steve Pearlstein says, “It’s time for the business community to give up its jihad against regulation.”

It
hardly captures the breadth and depth of these regulatory failures to say that
during the Bush administration the pendulum swung a bit too far in the
direction of deregulation and lax enforcement. What it misses is just how
dramatically the regulatory agencies have been shrunken in size, stripped of
talent and resources, demoralized by lousy leadership, captured by the
industries they were meant to oversee and undermined by political interference
and relentless attacks on their competence and purpose.

How bad is it?

You can now
place bets on which species will be the first to go extinct thanks to the BP
spill. According to gambling
website PaddyPower.com, the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is the odds-on favorite.

Related Links:

Will BP take responsibility, or squeeze profits from Gulf spill?

Cousteau dives into ‘nightmare’ U.S. oil slick [VIDEO]

What if the oil spill just can’t be fixed?

Travel broadens the mind. MIT students are recognized with Fulbright scholarships to further their studies abroad. A number of the students are pursuing the renewable energy challenge. …

… “Ian Rousseau, a native of South Hero, Vt., who is completing undergraduate studies in physics, will study Novel Solar Energy Conversion via Terahertz Rectification in Germany. ” …

Via MIT: Fulbright scholarships (Link).

US Dept of State, Fulbright Program: “Fulbright is the most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world … ”

Solar power rectification technology on the horizon plan, NREL (PDF).

Rendering of Nissan manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tennessee

Nissan today broke ground on the project that will eventually bring production of the Nissan LEAF electric-vehicle to the United States. The groundbreaking celebration marks the beginning of construction of the company’s Smyrna, Tenn., plant that will produce lithium-ion batteries that power the Nissan LEAF. The LEAF it self will be manufactured in Smyrna at the beginning of 2012.

“Nissan is committed to affordable, sustainable mobility. What we’re doing here will radically transform the automotive experience for consumers. Today is a major step in helping create a green economy in the United States,” said Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. “Production of Nissan LEAF and lithium-ion batteries in Smyrna brings the United States closer to its goal of energy independence, creates green jobs and helps sustain American manufacturing. Nissan is a leader in global manufacturing innovation, and this state-of-the-art battery plant will strengthen that leadership.”

Click here for more news on the Nissan Leaf.

Nissan said that the production of the batteries and the LEAF will create up to 1,300 jobs when the plant is operating at full capacity. At full capacity, the plant will be capable of producing 200,000 advanced-technology batteries annually. The vehicle plant located adjacent to that will be retooled to make room for production of Nissan LEAF and will be capable of pumping out 150,000 electric cars annually.

The total investment in Smyrna comes out to $1.7 billion, which initially is being supported by a U.S. Department of Energy loan for 80 percent of that investment, up to $1.4 billion.

2011 Nissan Leaf:

– By: Omar Rana

After nearly a decade on the market, someone has finally gotten beer-goggled enough to plunk down the cash to purchase Pabst Brewing Co. According to reports, the deal went down for an ice-cold $250 million, though for only a dollar more they could have gotten a shot of Jameson to go along with it.

Pabst, which not only has the loved/loathed Pabst Blue Ribbon brand, but also Schlitz, Old Style, Lone Star and Colt 45, had been owned by the Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation, but federal law prohibits charities from owning for-profit businesses for more than five years.

The Foundation had been ordered to sell the company by 2005, but got a 5-year extension from the IRS.

The reported buyer of the brewer — the #5 suds supplier in the U.S. — is C. Dean Metropoulos, who has made his name managing big-time brands like Bumble Bee Tuna, Vlasic Pickles, Chef Boyardee, Duncan Hines and Ghirardelli Chocolates.

Woodridge-based Pabst Brewing to get new owner [Chicago Breaking News]

—Player X: Co-founder and CEO Tony Pearce is leaving to explore new opportunities. Six months ago he sold the company to Zed Worldwide.

—Smule: The company, responsible for such iPhone apps as “I am T-Pain” and “Leaf Trombone,” has appointed three new executives to its rankings. Scott Bonds is VP of engineering, Sunil Pareenja is CFO and Jim Routh is VP of business development. Despite any lack of musical talent, the company ensures that they are all rock stars at business. Bonds most recently served as senior development director at Electronic Arts; (NSDQ: ERTS) Pareenja previously served as VP of finance at Engine Yard; and Routh spent the first seven years of his career at Apple.

—Booyah: The MyTown app creator has closed a $20 million funding round and added Jim Breyer, a partner at Accel Partners, to its board of directors. Breyer is also the lead and presiding director of Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) Stores and a director of Dell. Last week Richard Yanowitch, a former News Corp (NYSE: NWS). senior consultant, joined as independent director to its board of directors.

As women celebrate a century of the bra (the undergarment we love to hate), a product is finally available for the ladies that insist on nuzzling their belongings up to their tatas so they don’t have to drag a bulky purse along for a big night out on the town. Admit it, Girls…We all do it — stuff a couple of dollars in there, or maybe your credit card or ID before a night of bar-hopping with the chicas. Hell, some of girls even keep leftovers close to their bosoms to munch on later! (I kid – I kid…)

For those occasions when your favorite clutch just won’t do, we present The Cleavage Caddy. It’s a bag in your boobs! You can put everything but the kitchen sink in this bad boy — designed by Laura McLauren, who created the wacky fashion must-have after searching for a low-maintenance way to transport life’s little essentials.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“An insert for your bra with or without an added lace accent to to enhance your attire with a feminine influence. If you choose the lace version, the lace covers your cleavage, adding an extra element of modesty, while still allowing you to carry all of your personal items discretely tucked in your bra. These are worn anchored to the bra by the elastic strap with a snap. Tuck away your keys, credit cards, lipstick and more….”

CLICK HERE To Order Your Cleavage Caddy — a $29.95 value — Grab One For Your Next Costume Party!

I’m sick and tired of hearing about how you should be producing “content” to attract a web following. Treating content as a category on its own is missing the point entirely. Nobody cares about content. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks, hey, I should read some content today.

What people want is opinions, analysis, techniques, experiences, and insights. The best of all these come as a bi-product from actually doing stuff. The closer you are to the topics, the more natural you’ll be able to extract the goodies.

This also means that it’s hard to schedule. You can’t put neatly into timeslots when you’re going to be annoyed, ecstatic, disappointed, have a great insight or discover a new awesome technique.

The great thing is that it doesn’t really matter that much anyway whether you follow a tight schedule. Between Twitter, RSS, and the aggregator sites, good stuff usually bubbles to the top regardless.

So no more content, please.

Scientists at a Korean research organization are in line for a financial windfall for developing a new process to make advanced compound metals used in everything from laptop computers to automobiles. The Korean Institute of Industrial Technology (Kitech) revealed that a 10-member team led by scientist Kim Se-gwang will receive 16.9 billion won ($15 million) for the successful transfer of the technology to the private sector. A midsize company called HMK has agreed to pay the Institute 28.2 billion won for access to the technology, which involves making magnesium and aluminum compounds in a safer, more environmentally friendly manner. HMK will pay five billion won in a lump sum and the remainder in phases over the next 15 years.

The deal ranks as the third largest in Korea for the transfer of technology from a government research institute to the private sector. According to Korean regulations governing tech transfer, at least half of the proceeds of such deals should be funneled to researchers. Some institutions are even more generous. For instance, Kitech grants its researchers 60% of the proceeds. As lead researcher, Kim will be responsible for distributing the 16.9 billion won in incentives to his team. He personally stands to receive 60% of the total, or roughly 10 billion won.

The research team’s process for developing magnesium compound metals could be a game-changer in the industry. Magnesium weighs one-fourth as much as steel but is six times as hard, making it ideal for portable electronics such as mobile phones and notebook computers as well as automobiles. However, magnesium also carries the risk of explosion, and it can rust easily when it comes in contact with water so it must be mixed with other metals to create alloys. Until now, harmful gases like sulfur hexafluoride, dubbed a “super greenhouse gas,” and sulfur dioxide — which is harmful to humans and corrodes steel — had been used to produce magnesium alloys. The technology developed by Kim and colleagues incorporates calcium oxide in the compounding process to create a protective layer, eliminating the risks of corrosion and explosion.

Source: JoongAng Daily

Recently, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz forecasted trouble for Google because search accounts for “99.9% of their business.” In a talk with Michael Arrington today, Google’s President of Global Sales Operations Nikesh Arora leveled this response. Giddyup. More »










Google – Search – Search Engines – Companies – Yahoo

A U.K. drug development firm has raised £9.6 million from private equity investors, including £2m from Scottish Enterprise, to fund partnerships with university researchers. TPP Global Development, founded by former Morgan Stanley fund manager Peter Trill and Oxford University scientist Dr. Tom Brown, has chosen Edinburgh’s BioQuarter as its base. The pair will assess molecules created by scientists in universities and research institutions and then license the substances that show the most potential for creating new drugs.

TPP will guide the molecules through the “biotech funding gap” between basic research and drug development before setting up spinout companies to refine the drugs or licensing them out to bigger firms. The firm’s focus includes oncology; nervous system disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis; and inflammations and immunology, including asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

Finance director Trill said TPP was attracted to Scotland because of its universities, contract research organizations, and the cluster being created at Edinburgh’s BioQuarter. Trill expects TPP to benefit from cutbacks in early-stage drug development work at major pharmaceutical groups. “There has always been a funding shortfall for early-stage research,” he adds. “This will become ever more acute as the pharma industry continues to reduce spending on preclinical research, instead looking to in-license late-stage preclinical drugs, and the economic environment puts pressure on government and medical charity research funding.”

Source: Scotsman.com Business

Social media is fast-becoming an integral part of the marketing landscape, and the relatively low cost and wide reach — when used effectively — can be a godsend for cash-strapped tech transfer offices. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Plaxo, and many other social medial avenues offer near limitless opportunities to push your available innovations in front of an eager audience. To help you effectively utilize these new marketing tools, our Distance Learning Division has brought together an international panel of experts who are successfully employing social media to garner attention for their technologies, create an active community surrounding their innovations, and bring more licensees in the door. Join us on June 8th for TTOs: Use Social Media Effectively to Market Your Innovations, an interactive, 90-minute webinar that’s chock full of best practices for effectively utilizing a myriad of social media platforms. You’ll see real-time online examples, plus dozens of planning techniques and execution strategies that are guaranteed to successfully showcase your IP. CLICK HERE for complete program and faculty details >>

PLUS: Check out these additional upcoming distance learning programs:

• Every Thursday beginning June 3: SPECIAL 6-PART SERIES: Start-Up Boot Camp for University TTO Professionals and Inventors >>
• Tuesday, June 15: The Perfect Elevator Pitch: Sell Your IP in 3 Minutes or Less! >>
• Tuesday, July 13: Prevent Faculty Disputes from Turning Into a Declaration of War >>

Greenpeace’s relentless march toward reminding us that we’re killing the planet continues. The organization released its annual “Who’s Green?” list yesterday, and Nokia and Sony Ericsson get A+ marks, while Lenovo and Nintendo are, apparently, the dregs of society. Also on the wrong side of Greenpeace: Dell. The Texas-based company found itself on the wrong end of a rather impressive Greenpeace action yesterday. Oh, dear…

Greenpeace’s main issue with Dell is that the company promised, some time ago, to eliminate certain toxic chemicals from its manufacturing processes. Dell hasn’t honored its promise, said Greenpeace, so out comes the giant yellow scroll on the Dell building in Round Rock, TX.

It should be noted that no company is 100 percent green yet in the eyes of Greenpeace. Nokia is the closest with a score of 7.5/10.

The very worst? Nintendo with a score of 1.8/10.

Microsoft gets a 3.3/10 and Apple gets a 4.9/10.

The entire report is available for you to read here [PDF alert!]. Better make some tea beforehand: it’s a long one.

Flickr’d

Here’s a fantastic chart showing the performance of the various equity markets in Europe. Hedgeye analyst Matthew Hedrick warns of a “contagion drag” and how as Germany is forced to foot the lion’s share of the bill for European bailouts, the situation will continue weigh on Germany’s capital markets.

Hedgeye: As part of our Q2 theme Sovereign Debt Dichotomy, we advised that one possible play on sovereign debt risk in Europe is to be paired off long Germany and short Spain.  Our bullish thesis on Germany included a tighter fiscal balance sheet than many of its European peers, the advantage of a weaker Euro for an export-heavy economy, low inflation, and a stable rate of employment. While we’ve seen significant divergence in the underlying German and Spanish equity markets over the last weeks, including a spread as wide as 2000bps between the DAX and IBEX 35 on May 7th, the increasingly larger share of the ‘bill’ that Germany will bear for the Eurozone’s collective bailout is bearish for German capital markets (see chart 1 below). 

While the German unemployment rate remains positive, declining in the latest reading to 7.8% (versus the Eurozone average of 10% and 20% in Spain) and is underpinned by the government’s successful part-time labor programs, contagion from European sovereign debt risk persist despite the $1Trillion European loan/debt buy-up facility issued on 5/9. Additionally, Germany’s unilateral ban on naked short selling on 5/25 is adding fuel to the fire and enhancing market volatility.

On the margin, the fundaments we’re following in Germany and the broader stock market suggest a downward reversion to the mean, especially as risk in Europe (and globally) is pushed further out. One area to look to for confirmation of this is the bond market (chart 4), where we’re starting to see German yields rise.

Join the conversation about this story »

At our peak auto purchasing capacity, Americans bought an average of 17 million cars almost every year from 1997 to 2007. That means in just ten years, 170 million cars were added to the road, and far fewer were scrapped. In fact, 2009 was the first year in four decades where Americans scrapped significantly more cars than they bought. 14 million autos were sent to the scrapyard (helped in no small part by Cash for Clunkers), while Americans bought just 10 million new vehicles.

Over in China though, the auto industry is going through unprecedented growth. After outpacing U.S. sales in 2009, analysts are estimating Chinese consumers could buy between 15 and 17 million new cars in 2010. And that number is only going to grow.

(more…)