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Emilio Masella, the buff Gold’s Gym trainer who almost proposed to Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, will travel from New York to California in search of a new guidette on Fist Pumping For Love, a new docu-series produced by The Hills’ Spencr Pratt and Heidi Montag.

After four months of dating, Masella was dumped by the guidette in a voicemail earlier this month when a furious Snooki discovered that he’d auditioned for MTV’s The Real World behind her back.

“It is the perfect partnership for me as a growing player in reality television,” Spencer — whose Pratt Productions will produce the feature — said in a statement to PEOPLE on Thursday. “You haven’t seen nothing yet,” the villain added.

Filming reportedly kicked off this week. No air date or network has been announced.

Here are the numbers for last week’s hardware sales (April 19 April 25, 2010), courtesy of Media Create. The PSP still holds strong at… well, a not so strong 28, 758 units, but given how every

A high-profile bill on extending the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse appeared in severe trouble Thursday night because of a lack of support in the state House of Representatives and Senate.

Lawmakers declined to declare that the bill was officially dead, but no one would say that the bill has enough votes to pass in either chamber in Hartford.

Rep. Beth Bye, a West Hartford Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, declined to say how many votes she has in favor of the bill in the House, but she said it was “certainly more” than the 58 that had been mentioned in recent days. She said Thursday night that she needed to speak to more legislators and victims, and an announcement on the bill’s fate could come as early as Friday.

“We’re not there yet” in the Senate, Bye said.

The bill is related directly to the allegations of sexual abuse against Dr. George Reardon, who worked at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford from 1963 to 1993. The bill, however, mentions no particular entity or individual by name.

Reardon died in 1998, but the case arose when evidence surfaced in 2007 after a homeowner renovating Reardon’s former West Hartford home discovered a cache of more than 50,000 slides and 100 movie reels of child pornography.

While the case and the bill have focused on Reardon and the hospital, other groups that are not directly involved in the case have lobbied against the bill at the state Capitol because of their concerns about changing the statute of limitations. Those include the Insurance Association of Connecticut and the American Tort Reform Association.

The high-profile bill has never had majority support in the legislature. One version failed last year, while this year’s version passed by 23 to 20 in the judiciary committee. Controversial bills traditionally need a wider margin of support in the judiciary committee if they are going to have a solid chance of being passed by both chambers.

The committee’s influential co-chairman, Sen. Andrew McDonald of Stamford, is opposed to extending the statute of limitations.

With less than one week left in the legislative session, McDonald said that the General Assembly’s overriding interest in resolving state budget issues might not allow enough time for the bill to be considered. While McDonald said that it’s impossible not to sympathize with the pain of the victims, he and others still oppose the bill that came out of his committee on broad legal grounds that relate to the essential function of statutes of limitation in society.

If the House passed the bill, he said, he would not use his chairman’s role to try to block its consideration in the Senate. But he said the likely length of the debate on the bill  – which he estimated at “10 or 12 or 14 hours” in each of the two chambers – might spoil its chances with so much other pressing business in so little remaining time before Wednesday’s scheduled legislative adjournment.

If the bill doesn’t pass, McDonald said that shouldn’t prevent St. Francis from creating a fund “to compensate those who might not have legal recourse.”  It’s not only a matter of legal recourse, he said, but also of “moral obligation.” 

The demise of the bill does not end the cases of the 56 plaintiffs who are 48 and older. Plaintiff attorneys are pursuing legal theories that could get around the statute of limitations for those cases, although those arguments could be difficult to win.

House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk said the bill was unfair because it was so narrowly written that it would apply only to St. Francis Hospital.

“If we truly want to be fair, then extend the statute of limitations to everybody,” Cafero said Thursday night. “Justice is supposed to be blind. In life, you can’t constantly be looking over your shoulder or you can’t move forward. Historically, that’s the purpose of the statute of limitations.”

While he described Reardon as “a piece of garbage,” Cafero said the bill “carves out this unique exception” that would become a bad law.

“It’s the sexual assault equivalent of spot zoning,” Cafero said.

Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, who oversees the agenda in the Senate, would not say whether the bill will be considered in the final days.

“That depends on the House,” Looney said Thursday night. “We’ll consider it if it’s taken up in the House. We have not caucused it in the Senate.”

The Australian has an update on BP’s disaster in the GOM – BP Gulf of Mexico oil slick declared a national disaster. More at BP under fire as Gulf of Mexico oil spill costs soar and Obama acts to mop up Lousiana oil spill overflow.

THE giant Gulf of Mexico oil slick has been declared a national disaster, as it nears the Louisiana coast and threatens economic and environmental devastation. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency and called for urgent help to prevent fragile wetlands and vital fishing communities along the coast from pollution on a massive scale.

The wind started to strengthen and blow the 1550 sq km slick directly onto the coast, where a rich variety of wildlife were at risk in the maze of marshes that amounts to 40 per cent of the US wetlands.

“Satellite imagery from this morning indicates the western edge of the oil is 7-8 miles from the (Mississippi) Delta,” the US government’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said. “Shoreline impacts become increasingly likely later in the day and into Friday with the strengthening onshore winds.”

Despite frantic efforts to stave off an environmental catastrophe many of those dependent on the region’s vital fisheries and nature reserves had already given up hope due to strong onshore squalls forecast for several days to come. “It is a question of when, not if, the oil is going to come on shore,” Doug Helton, NOAA’s incident operations coordinator, told AFP. …

With 11 workers dead and an environmental disaster brewing along the shoreline of four US states, dealing with the aftermath of the deadly blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig is likely to be the biggest challenge of his career – and one of the greatest in the 101-year history of Britain’s most famous company.

So far it is not going well. Anger is mounting in the US over BP’s refusal publicly to acknowledge the true scale of the catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

About 10 billion pounds has been wiped off BP’s value since the explosion, much of it yesterday, when its shares fell 40.8p, or 6.5 per cent, to 584p as investors took fright at the spill’s potentially enormous scale, costs and consequences.

Scientific American has an article on smart grid evolution in the US – U.S. Electrical Grid Undergoes Massive Transition to Connect to Renewables.

The U.S. electrical grid is the largest interconnected machine on Earth: 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines, linking thousands of generating plants to factories, homes and businesses. The National Academy of Engineering ranks it as the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. What it cannot do is support the massive shift to low-carbon power that scientists warn will be needed to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts.

To shrink the electricity sector’s carbon footprint, experts say, the nation needs to build thousands of miles of new transmission lines over the next 20 years to connect more renewable resources to electricity demand centers. A 21st-century grid will also have to balance fluctuating power flows from wind and solar generation, small-scale distributed sources, and plug-in electric vehicles. And it must be interactive so that customers can manage their electricity use.

The transition is already under way, although it means different things for different companies. Firms that operate long-distance transmission lines, such as the Independent System Operators that manage regional grids in New York, New England and the Midwest, are adding sensors, phasors, and other devices invisible to non-engineers, that give them much more precise control over the system. Better control will help utilities add more renewable power, a challenge now because wind and solar energy are intermittent sources, and grid operators can’t always react quickly when their output fluctuates.

“The whole power system is engineered to balance demand and supply at every second, which means that control over generators is really important,” said energy consultant Peter Fox-Penner, a principal with The Brattle Group and author of Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities (Island Press, 2010). “But if you have really up-to-date information on all the flows on your grid, you can tolerate a little more variability. The smart grid will monitor everything at a very, very fine level of detail and reacts really fast, so operators will have time to fire up another plant if wind speed drops or a big cloud formation reduces solar output.”

Suppliers such as utilities that deliver power directly to homes and businesses are focusing on a more visible element of the smart grid: meters. Today the grid transmits information one way – from utility to customer – and most meters only show power usage for the current billing period. What’s more, power companies charge the same rate for every kilowatt-hour of electricity that’s consumed, even though the cost of generating electricity can change dramatically during the day. Since users don’t see how much power they are using or how much it costs in real time to generate it, they have little incentive to conserve energy or shift their use to off-peak hours.

To crack this problem retail power suppliers are installing advanced metering systems (smart meters and wireless communications systems and databases to support them). Advanced metering lets utilities show customers how much electricity they use at different times of day and how much that power costs. With regulators’ approval, power companies can also use time-based pricing, charging customers based on the actual cost of power. There are many ways to structure time-based pricing: some suppliers charge more for certain blocks of time when demand is typically high, like weekday afternoons, while others raise prices sharply on selected days when the grid is under heavy stress, as on the hottest days of summer. But all of these programs aim to shift consumption away from high-demand periods. …

The main reason for peak-shifting is economic, Fox-Penner said: It reduces the utility’s cost to provide power at high-demand times. But peak-shifting can also reduce carbon emissions, although the climate impact depends on what kind of plants utilities would otherwise call into service to meet peak demand. BGE’s peak reductions, for instance, will reduce the need to call on old and relatively dirty coal plants, eliminating significant carbon emissions, Case said.

The bigger climate payoff from smart metering comes as customers reduce electricity consumption throughout the year. Studies in the U.S., Canada and Australia have shown that providing real-time information about electricity use and costs can reduce energy use, although some customers are more receptive than others to smart metering and time-based pricing.

Compact and puristic The Detroit showcar

Audi is showing an uncompromising purist compact sports car with all-electric drive at the first major auto show of 2010.

The Detroit showcar Audi e-tron is the name of this 3.93 meter (154.72 in) long and 1.78 meter (70.08 in) wide but just 1.22 meter (48.03 in) tall two-seater; just a few months after the debut of the Audi e-tron at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show, this is now the second electric concept vehicle from the brand with the four rings.

Coupled with the Detroit showcar Audi e-tron’s low gross weight of around only 1,350 kilograms (2976.24 lb), high-torque power units driving the rear wheels guarantee commensurate road performance.

Two electric motors with a combined output of 150 kW (204 hp) and 2,650 Nm (1954.54 lb-ft) accelerate the coupe with ASF-design aluminum body from 0 to 100 km/h (62.14 mph) in just 5.9 seconds. The Audi e-tron accomplishes the sprint from 60 to 120 km/h (37.28 – 74.56 mph) in a mere 5.1 seconds.

Photo gallery via Audi

Audi e-tron concept (video review)

Source: Audi

YouTube has just rolled out a new version of its video player to a lot more users, but it looks like it’s also getting ready for a brand-new feature it’s been working on for a few months. The YouTube Music Discovery project was introduced in TestTube, YouTube’s ‘Labs,’ in January. It is now getting ready for graduation, as it is integ… (read more)

What do you pay to watch television every month?  Are you really getting what you pay for?  How much do fees from set-top boxes add to your costs?

Earlier this month, we asked Red Tape readers to post details of their monthly bills, with a special focus on those tack-on fees. The response was overwhelming. There's a lot of money to be saved in making sure you aren't overpaying for cable or satellite TV — one Red Tape reader described his annual cable bill at $1,995 per year. After the mortgage payment and auto loan payment, television might be your largest annual budget-eater. With an investment like that, it's really worth spending time to get it right. This piece is designed to help by making it easier to see what your neighbors are paying.

While pay TV companies are offering unprecedented levels of service — hundreds of channels, better HD signals, digital video recorders — consumers are frustrated about the methods used to charge for them. For many, deciphering the monthly bill is like searching for buried treasure using an old, faded map.  In just about every case, the provider charges one price for the service and then a host of other fees for tools needed to use the service — fees so high they can double the cost.  Imagine if a rental car company charged extra for the license plate on the car! (Wait, some do just that.)

Help other consumers

On a basic level, these fees are annoying. But the damage they do to the marketplace is much more significant. Hidden or tack-on fees obscure the true price of the service, thereby wrecking an essential tool in a free market.  Because it's so hard to determine what your monthly cost will be until that first bill finally comes, it can be nearly impossible to do honest comparison shopping when it comes time to pick a new service.  In the end, it's very hard for consumers to decipher which company provides the best service at the best price.  That leads to all sorts of market distortions. 

There's only one way to attack such a problem — with information.  The more you can learn about the price your neighbors pay for television (the price they really pay, not the monthly rate quoted in an ad), the more intelligent a choice you can make.  Pay TV firms, like all modern corporations, devour extensive research about you and your family in an effort to extract the highest price possible. Why shouldn't you do the same — devour data to help you get the lowest price? So here's a set of market research provided by Red Tape readers all around the country summarizing what they pay for tack-on fees. Compare your bill to these, to make sure you're not overpaying.

Before we get to specific provider prices, displayed alphabetically by provider, here’s some general observations.

1) Many consumers are getting killed in fees for second, third, and fourth set-top boxes.  Consider paying for service only on the family TV, and use rabbit ears to pick up over-the-air HD channels on the other sets in the house.  The savings can easily add up more than $500 per year. If you can't imagine going without cable in the bedroom TV, scale back to basic boxes on your secondary sets and you'll still save a bundle.

2) While we're on the subject of rabbit ears, an increasing number of consumers are cutting pay TV service altogether, and using a combination of over-the-air signals and TV-over-Internet programming — using Netflix or Hulu.com, for example — to fill the void. You might still want to pay for service, particularly if you are a sports fan. But you can use the option of over-the-air TV as a bargaining chip to get a lower rate from your provider.

3) When lease rates for set-top boxes go up, many consumers report great success by simply complaining about the increase. Dish Network, for example, is handing out service credits that negate a recent price hike. But watch carefully — the credits are usually temporary, while the increase is permanent. That’s a smart way for firms to ease the blow of price hikes. You'll have to stay on the company to make sure you keep getting the discount as time passes.

4) Different firms charge for different services in different ways.  Take DVR service: Some charge a lease-fee for the DVR box; some charge a service fee. Some charge both. That's why, when comparing services, the only price that matters is the bottom-line, what-number-will-I -write-on-my-check-every-month price.

Now, here's a sample of the fees reported by Red Tape readers.

AT&T Uverse

Readers from Wisconsin and Michigan chipped in to share that they pay $10 extra each month for HD signal, and pay $7 for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th DVR box.  Peter Fritz of Franklin, Wis., for example, was paying $21 every month for his four DVRs until recently, when he dumped the service for over-the-air TV.

Bresnan Communications

In Montana, Rachel Hofferman said she pays $6.50 per month for a DVR with a remote, and $11.99 for DVR service.  There's also a 25-cent broadcast TV surcharge.

Bright House Networks

From Orlando, Fla., a consumer wrote to say he pays $7.95 per month for his DVR.

Cablevision

Erin F. in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. says she spends $13.50 for two cable boxes ($6.51 for the box and 24 cents for the remote) each month.  She also pays $9.95 for DVR service, and a $1.50 "additional outlet" fee.

Charter Communications

Sean Ferguson of Wenatchee, Wash., says he pays $10 to rent his DVR box, and pays $29 to upgrade to HD signals.  Because he lives in a housing association, he had no choice of provider.

Comcast

Consumers from all corners of the country wrote in about Comcast rates.  They vary slightly. 

*In Deerfield, Ill., a consumer said he pays $15.99 each for two dual tuner DVRs.

*In Elk Grove, Calif., a consumer says he pays $8 per month for HD and $1.45 for a mandatory service plan.

*In Denver, a consumer says he pays $15.95 each for two DVRs and $10.45 in additional service fees, for a total of $42.35 per month.

*In Corvalis, a consumer who has two basic boxes reported paying nothing for the first box, and $3.40 for the second box and remote.

*In a Philadelphia suburb, a consumer said he pays $5 for an HD box, and $16.95 for DVR service.

*In Chelmsford, Mass., an HD-DVR costs $14.95 per month, according to a consumer there.

*In Gaithersburg, Md., a consumer named Walter lamented that he pays $496.80 in equipment rental fees every year.  He pays $28.45 to Comcast: $9.25 Comcast for an HD box, $15.95 for an HD-DVR, a $3 "digital additional outlet" fee, a 25 cent "digital remote rental fee," and then $12.95 to TiVo.

Cox Communications

Pam Hall of Las Vegas said she pays $7.50 per month for an HD converter, and $15.99 for a digital TV gateway box.

In Broken Arrow, Okla., Bruce subscribes to the least expensive level of service he can. He pays $5 to rent a basic digital cable box.

DirecTV

A wide range of consumers wrote in explaining their DirecTV box fees, but they were consistent around the country.  The first basic set-top box is free, and each additional box costs $5. The DVR fee is $7, and HD service costs $10 per month.

Dish

Dish consumers also reported consistent rates from around the country. The network recently changed its set-top rental fees. The first box is free. Additional boxes cost $7-$17, depending on capabilities.  For more, see this piece.

Insight Communications

Carl Pahler says he pays $15 monthly for the first HD-DVR box and $15.95 for the second, along with a $7.95 HD service fee.  He also laments that he can't get HD service without also paying for a DVR.

Knology

Brian in Montgomery, Ala. says he pays $12.95 monthly for his TiVo service.

RCN

Jinesh in Queens, NY. says he pays $8.95 per month for his HD converter box.

Time Warner

Customers who wrote in shared a variety of set-top box prices.

*In Austin, Texas, a consumer said she pays $7.99 per month for an HD-DVR and $10 for DVR service, 

*In Winston-Salem, N.C., a consumer reported paying nothing for the first digital cable box, and $8.95 per month for the second.

*In Charlotte, N.C., a consumer says he pays $10.95 for DVR service and nothing for the 1 box he uses.

*In Brooklyn, N.Y., Aaron says he pays $10 per month each for a regular HD box, and $20 per month for a DVR box.  "We pay $40 just to keep the boxes…it's ridiculous."

*In Los Angeles, a consumer reports paying $7.99 monthly for their first set-top box, $8.99 for each additional box, $10 for DVR service, but nothing extra for HD service.

Verizon FiOS

Most Verizon customers say they pay the same amount to rent their boxes: $5 per month for a basic box, $10 for an HD box, and $20 for an HD-DVR. But in Rockaway, N.J., Nik said he pays only $5.99 for HD boxes and $14.99 for his DVR.

As mentioned in the recent column on this topic, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have been trying for more than a decade to change the market dynamics for set-top boxes by encouraging the appearance of third-party alternatives.  There’s a new push to create a new kind of gadget, called a gateway, that will make it easier for consumers to combine TV and Internet-based video watching. 

While that debate drags on, and the high cost of box rental is still on your mind, here’s some parting food for thought: An anonymous comment left by a Red Tape reader who claims to work in the set-top box industry.

“I manage the building of set top boxes every day and it's a crime to charge rent for them,” the source writes. “The most expensive cost less than $200 in most cases with some even less than $100. In addition the companies that procure them usually will not even (return) them back to manufacturers if they are defective. They will either return to a service center or simply get tossed. You should be able to easily work your way out of these fees especially after 10 – 12 months because anything beyond that and they are making money.”

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Hopefully in the near a future majority of vehicles will be powered by electricity. Not only will these vehicles prove to be inexpensive to fuel, but will also ensure a healthier environment. However, this move towards cleaner highways will burden the grid, which is also striving to get those extra watts without polluting the environment. Several companies have sought a green approach to cater the problem, which comes in the form of charging stations that are fueled by abundant solar energy. Here are 11 such charging stations that won’t burden the grid to make you commute without emissions:

(more…)

A few years ago the whisper went around about cyanobacteria, saying that is was the next great biofuel.  Huge lakes of the stuff would be grown, harvested and then magically transformed into fuel to make our cars go broom-broom.

So various highly scientific people rolled up their sleeves and got to work fiddling around with the little critters.  Before too long they’d worked out that the whisper was right.  The US Department of Energy chucked wads of cash at the researchers and we now have petri dishes of gloop which secrete the all important biofuel through their skin like some kind of … oozy fuelly thing.  Yum yum.

However there is a problem with cyanobacteria or, to use its devil-spawn name, blue-green algae.  Many of its forms are toxic, producing fatal poisons which stick around in the water long after the algae itself has been removed.  The hows and whys of this aren’t fully understood, but thankfully it doesn’t seem to occur in the green scummy stuff in your pool in the back yard.

This is where the tobacco comes in.

(more…)

Hyundai’s new Accent was the star of the companies exhibit at this year’s Beijing Auto Show, but the debut of two new engines and a new automatic transmission will have broader implications for the rest of the company’s lineup.

In addition to the 2.4L GDI four-cylinder in the Sonata (pictured above), two new gasoline direct-injection engines were unveiled at Beijing, a 1.6L four cylinder putting out 138 horsepower, a 28 horsepower bump over Hyundai’s current 1.6L four banger. The 1.6 GDI should appear in the Accent, Elantra, certain Kia models and the upcoming Veloster compact sports car.

Even more enticing was the mention in a product video that the 1.6 could potentially be turbocharged and paired up with a dual-clutch gearbox, though no timeline was given for either technology.

Hyundai’s long awaited GDI version of the Lambda V6 was also previewed, although the engine was only rated at 296 horsepower, which is a few ponies less than the current Lambda makes in Hyundai’s Genesis Coupe.

One can assume that there will be different variations, and that the engine will see a bump in power when it comes Stateside. Hyundai also joins Lexus in the elite 8-speed automatic club, and it’s a sure bet that the Genesis Sedan and Coupe will get the new 8-speed auto option.

Hyundai Lambda V6 GDI Engine

Source: Hyundai

Want to get closer to your local music scene? Want to have months of activity, hours of euphoria and the experience of a lifetime?

Then Oxjam could be just what you are looking for!

Feel the buzz of organising your own music event for Oxfam and be part of the UK’s biggest festival line-up.

Sign up to be an Oxjam Music Event Organiser where you live and make your ideas a reality.

Oxjam is Oxfam’s month long music festival around the UK in October. Organised by people who know and love their local music scene, all in aid of Oxfam.

Whatever you’re into from dance to dubstep, from pop to punk, Oxjam is your chance to organise an event and help fight poverty with music.

Sound like your thing? Apply to be a Music Event Organiser today!

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get_involved/fundraise/oxjam/article.php?ref=312

While Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is moving steadily along the space tourism trail, Space Adventures, Ltd, – featured regularly on Gizmag – is currently the only company skyrocketing people into space (and bringing them home again). It has even placed “privateers” in the International Space Station. The company has just announced that it has joined forces with Armadillo Aerospace, LLC, makers of reusable rocket-powered vehicles, to market and sell exclusive trips on Armadillo Aerospace’s future suborbital spaceflight vehicles, currently in development. ..
Continue Reading Companies join forces to offer more space tourism opportunities

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A few months ago I blogged a paper in PLoS Biology which suggested that a common Y chromosomal haplogroup, in fact the most common in Europe and at modal frequency along the Atlantic fringe, is not pre-Neolithic. Rather their analysis of the data implied that the European variants were derived from an Anatolian variant. The implication was that a haplogroup which had previously been diagnostic of “Paleolithicness,” so to speak, of a particular population may in fact be an indication of the proportion of Neolithic Middle Eastern ancestry. The most interesting case were the Basques, who have a high frequency of this haplogroup, and are often conceived of as “ur-Europeans,” Paleolithic descendants of the Cro-Magnons in the most romantic tellings. I was somewhat primed to accept this finding because of confusing results from ancient DNA extraction which implies a lot of turnover in maternal lineages, the mtDNA. My logic being that if the mtDNA exhibited rupture, then the Y lineages should too, as demographic revolutions are more likely to occur among men.

But perhaps not. A new paper in PLoS ONE takes full aim at the paper I blogged above. It is in short a purported refutation of the main finding of the previous paper, and a reinstatement of what had been the orthodoxy (note the citations to previous papers). A Comparison of Y-Chromosome Variation in Sardinia and Anatolia Is More Consistent with Cultural Rather than Demic Diffusion of Agriculture:

Two alternative models have been proposed to explain the spread of agriculture in Europe during the Neolithic period. The demic diffusion model postulates the spreading of farmers from the Middle East along a Southeast to Northeast axis. Conversely, the cultural diffusion model assumes transmission of agricultural techniques without substantial movements of people. Support for the demic model derives largely from the observation of frequency gradients among some genetic variants, in particular haplogroups defined by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the Y-chromosome. A recent network analysis of the R-M269 Y chromosome lineage has purportedly corroborated Neolithic expansion from Anatolia, the site of diffusion of agriculture. However, the data are still controversial and the analyses so far performed are prone to a number of biases. In the present study we show that the addition of a single marker, DYSA7.2, dramatically changes the shape of the R-M269 network into a topology showing a clear Western-Eastern dichotomy not consistent with a radial diffusion of people from the Middle East. We have also assessed other Y-chromosome haplogroups proposed to be markers of the Neolithic diffusion of farmers and compared their intra-lineage variation—defined by short tandem repeats (STRs)—in Anatolia and in Sardinia, the only Western population where these lineages are present at appreciable frequencies and where there is substantial archaeological and genetic evidence of pre-Neolithic human occupation. The data indicate that Sardinia does not contain a subset of the variability present in Anatolia and that the shared variability between these populations is best explained by an earlier, pre-Neolithic dispersal of haplogroups from a common ancestral gene pool. Overall, these results are consistent with the cultural diffusion and do not support the demic model of agriculture diffusion.

Their main trump cards seem to be that they used a denser set of markers, and, they claim they have a more accurate molecular clock. Ergo, in the latter case they produce a better time to the last common ancestor, which is twice as deep as the paper they’re attempting to refute. Someone like Dienekes or Polish Genetics can tackle the controversies in scientific genealogy here (I know Dienekes has a lot of interest in mutational rates which go into the molecular clock for these coalescence times). Rather, I would suggest that usage of Sardinians concerns me for an obvious reason: they’re genetic outliers in Europe. A lot of this has to do with being an island. Islands build up uniqueness because they don’t engage in the normal low level gene flow between adjacent populations because they’re…well, islands. You would know about Sardinia’s position because they’re one of the populations in L. L. Cavalli-Sforza’s HGDP sample and they show up in History & Geography of Human Genes as on the margins of the PCA plots. But here’s a figure from a more recent paper using a much denser market set, constrained to Southern European populations. I labelled some of the main ones so you’d get a sense of why I say Sardinians are outliers:

Over the two largest independent dimensions of genetic variation you can see a distribution from the southeast Mediterranean all the way to the northwest (in fact, the Basques are an Atlantic group). The Sardinians are out of the primary axis, and that’s why I say they’re an outlier. A few other European groups, like the Icelanders and Sami exhibit this tendency. As I suggested above I think the fact that the Sardinians are on an isolated island relatively far from the European and Africa mainland means that they’ll “random walk” in genetic variation space toward an outlier status naturally, just as the Icelanders have since the year 1000. So though I grant the authors their rationale for using the Sardinians as a reference against the Anatolian source population, the fact that we know that they’re peculiar in their variation in total genome content makes me wary of drawing too many inferences from their relationships to other groups where they are seen as representative of a larger set.

Citation: Morelli L, Contu D, Santoni F, Whalen MB, & Francalacci P (2010). A Comparison of Y-Chromosome Variation in Sardinia and Anatolia Is More Consistent with Cultural Rather than Demic Diffusion of Agriculture PLoS ONE : 10.1371/journal.pone.0010419

The makers of what has been described as the “world’s greatest weapon”, the Russian Kalashnikov machine gun, were also pretty handy at constructing motorbikes, selling around 11 million of them since their formation in 1927. For many years, this Soviet motorbike factory ran second only to Japan in production numbers. One of its most popular bikes was the 1929 Izh-1, and this is a 2012 take on the motorcycle by designer Igor Chak. The concept design comes with more safety features than 10 Volvos combined and is aimed at making riding on the highways and byways safer than walking. ..
Continue Reading Russian motorbike concept is BIG on safety

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Though it was only sold in limited quantities over a handful of sporadic years in North America, Land Rover’s Defender – a direct descendant of the first 1948 Land Rover – continues to thrive in many markets across the world. Our illustrator has now created what is believed to be an accurate representation of the reportedly codenamed Project Icon – the next generation Land Rover Defender, to be released for the 2012 model year.

Based heavily on the T5 steel platform chassis currently used in the Range Rover Sport and LR4, according to Britain’s Autocar, the Project Icon replacement will be capable of meeting the ever-stricter emissions and safety laws that have spelled doom for the Defender as U.S. laws outlawed the sale of new Defenders beginning in 1997 due to the lack of airbags.

The chassis will allow the next-generation rig to be offered in a multitude of bodystyles, including hard- and soft-top variants and a utilitarian pickup style.

Our illustrations show the likely move towards a slightly longer, slightly more modern design when compared to the original which remained virtually unchanged for decades.

Expect the LR4’s 195 horsepower 2.7-liter diesel V6, which isn’t offered in North America, to be the standard powertrain in the next-generation Defender for global markets. If the model is earmarked for North American consumption, the advanced 5.0-liter V8 developed with Jaguar used in the LR4 and Range Rover Sport seems like a match made in heaven.

   

Source: Leftlane

General Motors has confirmed that the Orlando will not come to market in the U.S. despite previous plans to sell the seven-seat crossover. GM says the move was made to allow it to focus on its existing core brands.

According to the Kansas City Star, GM has announced that it will limit the Orlando’s sales to Canada, Europe and Asia, canceling previous plans to begin selling the CUV in the U.S. in 2011.

Bloomberg is reporting that auto dealers are to be notified of the change today, according to an interview with Margaret Brooks, Chevrolet’s product marketing director for small cars and crossovers.

“The best thing to do for Chevrolet is to focus on the brands we’ve already brought to market: the Traverse, Equinox, Malibu and, soon to come, the Cruze,” Brooks said. “We feel that with those vehicles, Chevrolet has plenty of options for the modern family.”

The Orlando had been unveiled at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, and was intended to effectively replace the HHR in Chevrolet’s lineup. The Orlando was based on the same Delta platform as the Chevrolet Cruze and Volt, but was configured to seat seven.

The Orlando was originally planned to be built in the U.S. at the Hamtramck, Michigan, plant, but those plans were canceled in late 2008.

References
1. ‘The consumer memo, 4/30…’ view
2. ‘GM scraps plan to sell seven…’ view

   

Source: Leftlane

If you’re constantly on the move and switching between browsers and devices, then you’re probably using some sort of bookmark-sync option, and if you’re not, you should. Mozilla has the Weave project and Google Chrome has built-in bookmark and preferences sync.

But if you’re looking for cross-browser compatibility, Xmar… (read more)

The use of remotely-controlled robots to perform delicate surgery is growing. The approach offers benefits to both patients and doctors including reduced fatigue, quicker recovery times and a reduced risk of infection. Now another breakthrough in the field has been reported in the U.K., where doctors have performed a first in remote-controlled heart surgery…
Continue Reading Heart surgery first uses RC robot

Tags: Robot,
Surgery

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