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Former adult film star Joslyn James — who claims she carried on a lengthy affair with golfer Tiger Woods — says she witnessed Tito Ortiz physically abuse his famous girlfriend, porn queen Jenna Jameson many times during the couple’s four year union, The New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

According to James, 32, Ultimate Fighter Tito Ortiz regularly roughed up his famous gal pal, despite Jenna’s protests that Monday morning’s brawl in their Huntington Beach home was the first time Tito ever attacked her.
The 36-year-old busty blonde claims he threw her into the bathtub and tore two ligaments in her shoulder.

“I saw three separate situations myself,” James says. “They would be partying, and she wouldn’t do anything in particular to set him off.”

Ortiz, on the other hand, has hit back at the abuse allegations, claiming that Jameson is addicted to the painkiller OxyContin and is blaming her drug use for his arrest. Jameson denies being addicted to the powerful prescription narcotic and decided to abandon her Twitter account after the incident, writing a final post saying: “I’m sorry to all of my fans, but I’m going to be quitting Twitter. I can’t take any more abuse from ANYONE.”

Ortiz is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion and started a relationship with the adult film star in 2006 before having twin sons together.

Materials: Regolit, Januari

Description: I was always a big fan of the simplicity of the Regolit lamp, so I’ve designed a very basic and clear lamp. It’s a combination of the pendant lamp Regolit and the table lamp base Januari fixed with cable clips. The result is this smart Bauhaus inspired lamp.

~ Daniel, Stuttgart, Germany

Luke Timmerman wrote:

Celladon has some tantalizing news today for the world of gene therapy. The San Diego-based biotech company is announcing that its experimental treatment, which delivers a gene to help people with heart failure pump blood more efficiently, has met its primary goal of showing the treatment is more effective than a placebo.

The trial enrolled 39 patients with advanced heart failure who were randomly assigned to get a single-shot infusion of Celladon’s gene therapy, called Mydicar, or a placebo. The study, called Cupid, was designed to compare the drug to placebo on a mixture of important factors, like whether patients on the drug could get out of the hospital sooner, how often they need heart transplants or implants, how far they could walk for six minutes, and how long they lived. Patients were followed for as long as a year.

Celladon isn’t revealing any details in today’s announcement about how much better its treatment performed versus placebo, so it’s impossible to say with certainty how big a deal this is. But CEO Krisztina Zsebo said her company’s drug showed a statistically significant advantage over the placebo group on the study’s primary goal. And there was no greater rate of adverse events among patients who got the gene therapy than those in the placebo. Detailed results will be presented at European Society of Cardiology’s Heart Failure Congress in Berlin on May 30, and will be published soon in a top peer-reviewed journal, Zsebo says.

“We’re very excited. This has been a long, tough program, and a lot of translational science has gone into making it a success,” Zsebo says.

If the European cardiologists agree that this is an important finding, it will be a major milestone for gene therapy and for heart failure patients. Gene therapy was hyped in the early 1990s as a cure-all for diseases that resisted conventional drug treatment. The idea is to deliver properly functioning copies of genes into cells where they can replace missing or faulty genes at the root cause of certain diseases. The field was plagued by safety concerns in the late 1990s, and many companies abandoned the field altogether. Even today, no such treatment has yet won FDA approval.

But Celladon likes its chances for a few reasons: Older gene therapy techniques used common viruses as the delivery mode to get those genes inside cells, which often failed. Celladon sought out what it thought was a better delivery tool with adeno-associated virus technology from Seattle-based Targeted Genetics, which engineered the viruses so they would be efficient without causing illness. Congestive heart failure was thought to be an ideal testing ground for gene therapy, partly because it’s a serious illness that kills 300,000 people a year, who have few treatment options other than beta-blockers and diuretics. And Celladon’s therapy can be delivered via a direct infusion into the heart, and doesn’t need to circulate effectively through the body—a distribution challenge that has tripped up other gene therapies of the past.

The Celladon program began about five or six years ago, Zsebo says. The concept was to deliver a gene called SERCA2a into heart muscle cells. Once in the heart cells, it produces an enzyme that improves the heart’s ability to pump blood.

Everything is riding on the outcome of this trial for tiny Celladon, which …Next Page »

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

The Conrad Maldives Rangali Island is doing something special to celebrate the five-year anniversary of its small (12 seats) underwater restaurant, Ithaa. They are closing it. Well, to the public, anyway.

The restaurant will be converted into a private dining/hotel suite so you can act out your Jaws III fantasies four feet below sea level. One caveat (or bonus, depending on your outlook) is that the space gets so bright during the day that the waitstaff and diners need to wear sunglasses during the meal.

The Conrad Maldives – Good for oceanography, hell for hangovers.

More info on the conversion of the restaurant here.

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3. Find Out if a Woman Likes You: Look at Her Feet

One of the most frustrating things for smartphone users has to be that battery life notification warning you that you only have 10 or 20% battery life remaining.  When I first switched from a Blackberry Pearl to the Droid Eris, I realized just how much battery drain advanced capabilities like web surfing, Youtube and Twitter cause.  I used my Blackberry primarily for email because the Web surfing experience was so terrible.  As a result, my battery life was stellar.  I would routinely get at least two full days with normal (which I now know to be very limited) use.  During my first week with an Android device, I wasn’t sure if I could live with the poor battery life that i was experiencing.  After some soul-searching I decided to stay with Android in spite of the poor battery life because of the rich, vastly superior Web experience.  During the next month, I made several discoveries that helped me understand how the advanced functionality that makes these devices so useful affects battery life.  

First, I found that by turning GPS off, battery drain was much improved.  Because the Droid Eris is an Android 1.5 device, it doesn’t have Google Navigation capability and I don’t use any other apps that require GPS.  I do have a GPS toggle widget on my homescreen for the rare instance that I need it.  Unscientifically, I found that by turning GPS off, I save about 20% of my battery’s charge throughout a normal day.

Next, I experimented with mobile data.  I found that by toggling data off, I could still make calls and send and receive text messages, and my battery would still have a 95% charge at the end of the work day.  While no smartphone user would chose to use their phone like this on a daily basis, the ability to turn off data does come in handy when traveling in areas where your carrier’s data connectivity is sparse or non-existent.  Turning data off to save battery is also handy in situations where you are waiting for an important phone call, but your battery level is very low and you are not near a power source.  To be clear, I leave data on at all times, but knowing the effect the data connection has on battery life is valuable.

Finally, while task killer apps get a bad rap from those who assert (correctly) that Android is built to manage apps efficiently, my experience has been that by keeping open apps to a minimum, battery life (and lag) improves.  I use the Advanced Task Killer Free app and set system and email-related apps to be ignored (so they don’t get closed).  At random, periodic intervals throughout the day, I’ll kill open tasks. It’s quick and painless and even if it doesn’t actually help all that much with battery life, the placebo effect is comforting.

Other pointers are fairly obvious, but bear repeating:

• Set the data refresh in social networking apps to every half-hour or less often, or to manual refresh.  I found that I always hit refresh after I open these apps anyway in order to get the most up-to-date information.  

• If you use an email account other than an Exchange account or Gmail and need additional battery savings after implementing one or more of the other tips in this article, set your email download frequency to a less frequent setting.  

• Use use wifi when within range of a hotspot instead of mobile data.  Toggle widgets work well for this.  When not in range of a wifi hotspot, toggle wifi off

Another day, another Activision resignation. It’s not somebody from Infinity Ward, however. This time, Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith is the one who stepped down from his post.

	Hey ladies: survey says it’s easier to get a guy if you get an eco-car first Go green!		Report: Ford Fusion Hybrid pays off quickest Takes just 5.6 years to pay off the hybrid premium. Then it’s all gravy.
	Lotus comes out swinging for lighter, more efficient vehicles Remove the pounds, reduce the gas required.	Other news: Better Place’s battery-swapping electric taxi test takes off in Tokyo Report: VW to shake up order of electric vehicles, mass-produced Golf coming first GM investing $890M in next-gen small block V8s, promises improved efficiency

AutoblogGreen for 04.28.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 05:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Greece will default on its national debt. That default will be due in large part to its membership in the European Monetary Union. If it were not part of the euro system, Greece might not have gotten into its current predicament and, even if it had gotten into its current predicament, it could have avoided the need to default.

Greece’s default on its national debt need not mean an explicit refusal to make principal and interest payments when they come due. More likely would be an IMF-organized restructuring of the existing debt, swapping new bonds with lower principal and interest for existing bonds. Or it could be a “soft default” in which Greece unilaterally services its existing debt with new debt rather than paying in cash. But, whatever form the default takes, the current owners of Greek debt will get less than the full amount that they are now owed.

Read the rest at Project Syndicate –>

Join the conversation about this story »

Tom Konrad’s latest peak oil investment article has a look at alternative fuels – the “methadone” for fossil fuel addicts – The Best Peak Oil Investments, Part IX: The Methadone Economy.

The first eight parts of this series looked into alternative fuels. I concluded that no alternative fuel listed could replace oil as we use it today fast enough to replace dwindling oil supplies. Conventional biofuels cannot be produced in enough quantity, and making hydrogen is an inefficient use of electricity or natural gas. Electric vehicles are too expensive or have too little range. There is not enough natural gas and there is too little fueling infrastructure to make natural gas vehicles practical on a large scale. Gas-to-liquids makes sense for stranded natural gas, but there are too many other high value uses for natural gas to make a large dent in declining oil supplies. Coal to liquids does too much environmental harm, and algae needs too much more technological development to achieve its promise in time.

The biggest problem with alternative fueled vehicles, however, is not the alternative fuels, the problem is the vehicles and how we use them.

Oil was a one-time bonanza of a readily available, easily transportable, durable, energy-dense liquid. With oil, humanity won a natural resources lottery ticket. Like a lottery winner who blows cash that could have lasted a lifetime in a few months, we now need to realize that we’ve spent most of our winnings. It’s unreasonable to expect that we’re going to win another such jackpot before we have to start watching our fuel budget again. The main question is how soon and how deliberately we will make the necessary adjustment. Will we act like the lottery winner who uses his last hundred thousand to tide him over while he looks for a job? Will we keep partying to the bitter end, until one day we wake up, hung over in the gutter? Will it be something in between?

The Methadone Economy

Switching to a drug analogy, most alternative fuels are the methadone to treat our petroleum/heroin addiction. Methadone is given to heroin addicts in treatment because it mitigates withdrawal symptoms and can block the euphoric effects of heroin, morphine, and similar drugs, reducing the urge to use.

Alternative fuels can be sufficient to allow our society to function, but we’re not going to feel the highs we felt when the oil was flowing freely. Alternative fuels cannot take us back to a “normal” pre-peak oil state because our use of petroleum over the last few decades as been far from “normal:” it has been one long, fossil-fueled high. We will eventually kick the petroleum habit with the help of alternative fuels not because alternative fuels are better than petroleum and can bring us something that petroleum cannot, but because our supplier will be getting smaller shipments over time, while the number of fellow junkies knocking on his door will keep going up with big increases in petroleum demand from emerging economies.

There are several competing visions of a future powered by alternative fuels, ranging from wildly optimistic to gloom-and-doom, with variations depending on how effectively the prognosticator thinks we can replace fossil fuels with alternatives.

A high-technology optimistic vision includes smoothly running efficient pods in mass transit systems powered by renewable energy. High speed bullet trains network the land, making overland air travel unnecessary. The low-technology optimistic vision involves a peaceful return to local economies where food is grown locally, and increasing local interdependence fosters strong local community ties, and people grow happier as they become more connected to the land and each other. The low-technology pessimistic vision is a free-for-all scramble for dwindling resources like the vision out of Mad Max referenced above.

I’m long on optimism about technology, but short on optimism about our will to make the necessary sacrifices to implement that technology quickly or efficiently. I’m betting on a pessimistic, high-technology future. In this future, we manage to cobble together a hodge-podge of last-minute, jerry-rigged solutions to keep the economy functioning at a basic level, but not at all smoothly or evenly. In it, we lurch from a crisis caused by financial melt-down, to a crisis caused by peak-oil to one caused by climate change. We’ll tackle each crisis with incredible ingenuity, staving off total chaos, but at the cost of mis-allocated resources and a deteriorating standard of living. We hold out in the belief that after just this one more fix, the world will be back to normal and we can stop worrying. But that day will never come.

Forward thinking planners in some municipalities and communities will work on implementing true, long-term solutions. But they will not have enough money or resources to do more than ameliorate the next crisis. The large-scale, system wide solutions of better mass transit, algae biofuels, and continent-wide electricity transmission of the high-technology optimistic vision will be implemented too slowly, on too small a scale to achieve the economic stability the techno-optimists hope for. But these half-built systems will still bring considerable benefit, and keep the succession of crises from being the complete disaster that would come with a complete lack of planning.

This is the Methadone Economy. Alternative-fuel oil replacement therapy is necessary because oil supply will not keep pace with demand; we must replace oil or do without. But alternative fuels are not oil, and will require more effort devoted to energy production to produce the same effect. The Methadone economy will function, but it won’t give us the highs we got from the cheap, concentrated, easily accessible energy of oil.

Not this year but maybe next, that plastic wrap in your kitchen drawer could be made of sustainable bioplastic from algae instead of petroleum.  Bioplastics manufacturer  Cereplast, Inc. has just announced that it should be ready to take its new Cereplast Algae Plastics to market by the end of 2010.

Cereplast’s move into algae could make a huge difference in the bioplastics industry, which until now has drawn its feedstock mainly from conventional food crops like corn and potatoes.  Among other benefits, the use of algae opens up the possibility of siting carbon-consuming algae “farms” where they can neutralize greenhouse gas emissions from factories or power plants.

(more…)

Portugal isn’t Greece. In many ways it is far better off than Greece.

The Economist highlights how Portugal has a smaller budget deficit, less debt relative to GDP, and has actually had a pretty-reform-minded government for some time already.

The government has already been working on fixing the country’s pension system and opposition to spending cuts is far less severe than in Greece.

So why are some such as Nouriel Roubini, and debt markets, worried about the nation’s finances?

Economist:

One answer is that Portugal’s biggest problem is not primarily fiscal. It concerns growth—or the lack of it. Real GDP growth over the decade since Portugal joined the euro has been the slowest in the zone, despite a boom in Spain, its main trading partner. The country avoided a property bubble of the kind that burst so disastrously in Spain and Ireland. Though it doesn’t help much, Portugal’s already slow growth also made it less vulnerable to the global recession. “Spain was the wild tiger of Europe and had much further to fall when the recession came,” says João Talone, a private-equity manager. “Portuguese companies were already used to extracting value in a difficult climate.”

Low growth reflects a disastrous loss of competitiveness since the country joined the euro. Portugal has lost export-market share to emerging economies (including those of eastern Europe) that churn out similar low-value products. This is largely due to a steady rise in unit labour costs, as wage increases outstripped productivity growth (see chart). One consequence is that the Portuguese, once exemplary savers, have been borrowing heavily abroad. Household debt is now the equivalent of almost 100% of GDP and the debt of non-financial companies is nearly 140%.

So Portugal is still in deep trouble, just for different reasons.

Join the conversation about this story »

Art Daily

With photograph

LONDON – The Science Museum will stage an Egyptian style makeup workshop at its next Lates evening on Wednesday 28 April. The workshop is one of the highlights of the programme, which celebrates the science of beauty through a series of fun and interactive workshops, talks and other activities.

Visitors will also have an opportunity to view rare and beautiful items from the Wellcome collection of personal care – showing how beauty accessories and techniques have changed throughout history.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

UC Berkeley News

A media preview of “The Conservator’s Art: Preserving Egypt’s Past,” a new exhibit opening Thursday, April 29, at the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The exhibit features exceptional artifacts from the Hearst Museum’s vast Egyptian collection – including crocodile mummies, mummy portraits, statuary, amulets and unusual “reserve heads” used in Egyptian burial practices.

The exhibit examines how technology and the humanities work together to enhance the conservation and understanding of ancient objects. It also aims to demystify the work of archaeologists and conservators, and to promote a dialogue with the public about their work and how museums help preserve cultural heritage.

Hearst Museum

The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley will display rare artifacts from its vast Egyptian collection in a fascinating exhibition that will explore the conservation of our cultural past. We are pleased to announce this highly anticipated look into how museums blend technology and the humanities to conserve and understand ancient objects. Included are crocodile mummies that recently underwent CT scans at Stanford Medical School as well as statuary, mummy portraits, amulets, and one of only 30 known “reserve heads” used in Egyptian burial practices. Of the 3.8 million objects in the Hearst’s collection, the Egyptian artifacts represent some of the most important.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Lexus Hybrid Bicycle Concept

Here is a new hybrid concept from Lexus called the Lexus Hybrid Bicycle. According to Lexus, the Hybrid Bicycle is a “design concept the captures the fundamental engineering and design values of the brand, but with two wheels rather than four.”

The concept coincides with the announcement of Lexus’ title sponsorship of the Great British Bike Ride, a four-day charity ride that will see hundreds of cyclists following a course from Land’s End to the home of English rugby at Twickenham.

Power comes from the pedal of the rider increased by help of the front wheel with a 240W electric motor, kept running by a 25.9V lithium-ion battery. The Lexus Hybrid Bicycle Concept has a choice of Eco or Power modes and, as with Lexus Hybrid Drive, there is an energy regeneration function that helps recharge the battery by capturing kinetic energy generated under braking.

Lexus says that “there are no current plans for the Lexus Hybrid Bicycle to become a production model.”

Lexus Hybrid Bicycle Concept:

– By: Kap Shah

The Titanic wasn’t the only one affected by melting glaciers and breaking ice bergs. The fluffy white fish-eating polar bears are suffering too. Global warming is sure taking its toll on the glaciers, melting them away like an ice-cream in the sunshine. So, to spread awareness of this disaster, Jovana Bogdanović came up with an idea that will remind you of melting glaciers and polar bears every time you sip coffee.

Recently showcased at the Milan Design Week, these polar bear shaped sugar cube, known as the Sugar Bear, slowly melts away into your coffee, reminding you of the melting glaciers and the endangered polar bears. Ice is what polar bears love living on, and losing ice due to global warming is sure depleting their numbers. These white cousins of brown and black bears are in danger. It’s about time we take emission reductions and recycling more seriously and control global warming.

[Inhabitat]

Construction began in December for what will be China’s largest sports park, the Hangzhou Sports Park. It’ll be green, sustainable, and will span around 400,000 square meters. Did I mention how it looks like a space city? More »

The search for ET continues in the skies above. The guys at SETI have spent hours and hours on searching and scanning the skies for any extra terrestrial life. It’s been 25 years, and SETI has allowed people from around the world to contribute to its search-the-sky-for-ET program. Though, no such evidence has been found yet. So SETI is now turning to open source. A website known as setiQUEST.org is being established. This site will display data gathered and the search code being used. Hopefully the guys at SETI do manage to contact extra terrestrials with knowledge that will help save our planet as it is being subjected to various exploits everyday, endangering it little by little as days go by. Maybe the extra terrestrials will help us with a greener future.

[NetworkWorld]

Press release: 28 April 2010: Dorchester, UK

Biotech crops continue to make important contributions to sustainable farming and to global food affordability 

Two new studies show biotech crops continue to deliver significant global economic and environmental benefits and make important contributions to global food production, food security and lower real prices for food and feed crops

“Since 1996, biotech crop adoption has contributed to reducing the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, decreased pesticide spraying, significantly boosted farmers’ incomes and resulted in lower real world prices for corn, canola, soybeans and the main derivatives of these crops,” said Graham Brookes, director of PG Economics, co-author of the reports. “The technology has also made important contributions to increasing crop yields, reducing production risks, improving productivity and raising global production of key crops. The combination of economic and environmental benefit delivery is therefore making a valuable contribution to improving the sustainability of global agriculture and affordability of food, with these benefits and improvements being greatest in developing countries”

Previewing the findings of the two studies, the key findings are:

• Biotech crops have contributed to significantly reducing the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices. This results from less fuel use and additional soil carbon storage from reduced tillage with biotech crops. In 2008, this was equivalent to removing 15.6 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or equal to removing 6.9 million cars from the road for one year;

• Biotech crops have reduced pesticide spraying (1996-2008) by 352 million kg (-8.4%) and as a result decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on the area planted to biotech crops by 16.3%;

• Herbicide tolerant biotech crops have facilitated the adoption of no/reduced tillage production systems in many regions, especially South America. This has made important contributions to reducing soil erosion and improving soil moisture levels;

• There have been substantial net economic benefits at the farm level amounting to $9.4 billion in 2008 and $52 billion for the thirteen year period. The farm income gain in 2008 is equivalent to adding 3.65% to the value of global production of the four main biotech crops of soybeans, corn, canola and cotton;

• Of the total farm income benefit, 50.5% ($26.25 billion) has been due to yield gains, with the balance arising from reductions in the cost of production. Two thirds of the yield gain derive from adoption of insect resistant crops and the balance from herbicide tolerant crops;

• The share of the farm income gains, both in 2008 and cumulatively (1996-2008) has been about 50% each for farmers in developing and developed countries;

• The cost farmers paid for accessing GM technology in 2008 was equal to 27% of the total technology gains (a total of $12.8 billion inclusive of farm income gains ($9.4 billion) plus cost of the technology payable to the seed supply chain ($3.4 billion ));

• For farmers in developing countries the total cost of accessing the technology in 2008 was equal to about 15% of total technology gains, whilst for farmers in developed countries the cost was 36% of the total technology gains. Whilst circumstances vary between countries, the higher share of total technology gains accounted for by farm income gains in developing countries relative to the farm income share in developed countries reflects factors such as weaker provision and enforcement of intellectual property rights in developing countries;

• Since 1996, biotech traits have added 74 million tonnes and 79.7 million tonnes respectively to global production of soybeans and corn. The technology has also contributed an extra 8.6 million tonnes of cotton lint and 4.8 million tonnes of canola;

• If GM technology had not been available to the (13.3 million) farmers using the technology in 2008, maintaining global production levels at the 2008 levels would have required additional plantings of 4.6 million ha of soybeans, 3.5 million ha of corn, 2.2 million ha of cotton and 0.3 million ha of canola. This total area requirement is equivalent to about 6% of the arable land in the US, or 21% of the arable land in Brazil;

• World prices of corn, soybeans and canola would probably be respectively 5.8%, 9.6% and 3.8% higher than 2007 baseline levels if the technology was no longer available to farmers. Prices of key derivatives (eg, soymeal) would also probably be 5% to 9% higher and prices of related cereals and oilseeds (eg, wheat, barley, sunflower) would be 3% to 4% higher;

• The global cost of consuming cereals and oilseeds would probably increase by $20 billion (+3.6%) relative to the 2007 baseline cost of consumption if biotech traits were no longer available to farmers;

• Average global yields would probably fall 1.5%, 4.3% and 0.65% respectively for corn, soybeans and canola if biotech traits were no longer available to farmers.

For additional information, contact Graham Brookes Tel +44(0) 1531 650123. www.pgeconomics.co.uk