Stem cells have been the subject of worldwide scrutiny for years, yet they remain a puzzle. Although they carry the same DNA as regular body cells, they have a uniquely flexible identity that lets them develop into a wide variety of different tissues.

A team led by Joseph Ecker of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California recently made significant progress in discerning how stem cells keep their options open. He compared embryonic stem cells with cells from the lung called fibroblasts by analyzing their epigenetics—chemical changes that affect how genes behave without altering their DNA code. One major difference was in methylation, the way in which chemical structures called methyl groups cling to the rungs of DNA…

For years an obscure doctor hailing from Australia’s hardscrabble west coast watched in horror as ulcer patients fell so ill that many had their stomach removed or bled until they died. That physician, an internist named Barry Marshall, was tormented because he knew there was a simple treatment for ulcers, which at that time afflicted 10 percent of all adults. In 1981 Marshall began working with Robin Warren, the Royal Perth Hospital pathologist who, two years earlier, discovered the gut could be overrun by hardy, corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Helicobacter pylori. Biopsying ulcer patients and culturing the organisms in the lab, Marshall traced not just ulcers but also stomach cancer to this gut infection. The cure, he realized, was readily available: anti­biotics. But mainstream gastroenterologists were dismissive, holding on to the old idea that ulcers were caused by stress.

Unable to make his case in studies with lab mice (because H. pylori affects only primates) and prohibited from experimenting on people, Marshall grew desperate. Finally he ran an experiment on the only human patient he could ethically recruit: himself. He took some H. pylori from the gut of an ailing patient, stirred it into a broth, and drank it. As the days passed, he developed gastritis, the precursor to an ulcer: He started vomiting, his breath began to stink, and he felt sick and exhausted. Back in the lab, he biopsied his own gut, culturing H. pylori and proving unequivocally that bacteria were the underlying cause of ulcers.

Marshall recently sat down with DISCOVER senior editor Pam Weintraub in a Chicago hotel, wearing blue jeans and drinking bottled water without a trace of Helicobacter. The man The Star once called “the guinea-pig doctor” can now talk about his work with the humor and passion of an outsider who has been vindicated. For their work on H. pylori, Marshall and Warren shared a 2005 Nobel Prize. Today the standard of care for an ulcer is treatment with an antibiotic. And stomach cancer—once one of the most common forms of malignancy—is almost gone from the Western world.

The Center for Media Justice is deeply disappointed by the recent ruling of the D.C. Court of Appeals that the Federal Communications Commission has no authority to stop Comcast from blocking, slowing, or otherwise discriminating against content they don’t like. This decision prevents the FCC not only from ensuring open Internet protections, but also from ensuring full broadband adoption and affordability in communities pushed furthest to the margins. Will you let big media companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T take away your voice? Please protect Broadband access for communities of color and the poor by emailing chantel@centerformediajustice that you will sign on to the letter to the FCC attached.

As civil rights leaders, grassroots activists, philanthropic leaders, small businesses, artists, and members of marginalized communities- we all use the Internet to reach larger audiences and manage our daily lives. In the context of extreme media bias and significant barriers to media access, the openness of the Internet provides us a necessary path to democratic engagement and social change in the 21st Century.

Parul Desai of the Media Access Project commented, “Because this case has turned into a lawyers’ debate over technical issues, it is easy to lose sight of its importance to freedom of speech and expression. ISP interference to lawful uses of the Internet must not be tolerated, and the Commission must have the power to adopt rules to prohibit such practices.”

Will you stand with Commissioner Clyburn, President Obama, the Center for Media Justice, the Media Action Grassroots Network, the Open Internet Coalition, and civil rights leaders Color of Change, Center for Community Change, the Applied Research Center, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and others to encourage the FCC to be bold and ensure their jurisdiction by defining broadband as a Title II Universal Service?

Please take action at ColorofChange.org, and sign on to the letter attached by emailing [email protected] with your name, org, and the number of people your org represents.

CMJ, the grassroots members of the Media Action Grassroots Network, and the more than 300 organizations nationwide that have taken the pledge to be Digital Inclusion Champions maintain the FCC must have the authority to protect all Internet users against the uncompetitive, profit-bearing values of corporate Internet Service Providers. Despite this ruling, the FCC remains a powerful and important decision-making body and the only vehicle through which those at the margins can define and defend our right to online content that is meaningful to our lives. The FCC has the authority to do this, and to fulfill their mandate to protect the public interest they must make broadband a Title II Universal Service.

Please learn more about the issue through our latest interviews on the subject on the KPFA morning show, National Public Radio, and Hard Knock Radio, or listen to the voices of grassroots leaders, and marginalized communities on the national demand for an open Internet without corporate gatekeepers.

In the words of author Chris Rabb, “This minor victory for Big Telecom may very well be their Waterloo in their battle against Internet freedom.” Your voice will make a difference.

In solidarity,

Malkia A. Cyril, amalia deloney, Karlos Guana Schmieder, Oshen Turman

The Center for Media Justice Action Team

The global recession wreaked havoc on retail, and stores the world over are still reeling.

Rents for retail property have fallen in most countries for the first time in over 20 years.

The drop in consumer spending and sales has had a direct influence on the rent hit taken by some of the most expensive streets, as retailers have used the tenant’s market to negotiate discounts.

Fifth Avenue has managed to hold on to its rents, while some of Europe’s most prestigious streets have been knocked down by the Asian retail boom.

Take a tour of these high-class districts >

All information and rates are based on Main Streets Across the World reports published by the Cushman&Wakefield research center.

#10 – New Bond Street, London – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $768

2006 Ranking: # 6

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $768

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: $673

#10 spot in 2006 held by: Covent Garden, London

Bond Street used to be home to antique shops and top-end art dealers, which vied for space near the Sotheby’s auction house and the Fine Art Society. Now those spots have been taken over by classic luxury retailers like Miu Miu, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Harry Winston, and Chanel.

#9 – East 57th Street, New York – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $800

2006 Ranking: # 5

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $800

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: $800

#9 spot in 2006 held by: Grafton Street, Dublin

The place to be on 57th Street is between 5th Avenue and Park Avenue. The ridiculously high concentration of high-end stores on this two block stretch includes Christian Lacroix, Montblanc, Christian Dior, Burberry, Yves Saint Laurent, and Bvlgari.

# 8 – Via Condoti, Rome – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $848

2006 Ranking: # Not in the top 10

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $848

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: N/A

#8 spot in 2006 held by: Oxford Street, London

Via Condoti (Street of Conduits) begins at the Spanish steps and is named after the channels which carried water to the Baths of Agrippa. It is the central fashion shopping street in Rome, initiated by the opening of Bvlgari in 1905. Now, stores include Valentino, Armani, Hermès, Cartier, Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, and Salvatore Ferragamo.

#7- Madison Avenue, New York – 2009 rate sq.ft per year: $875

2006 Ranking: # 3

2009 rate sq.ft per year rental: $875

2006 rate sq.ft per year rental: $1,100

#7 spot in 2006 held by: Ginza, Tokyo

The stretch between 57th and 85th on Madison Avenue is also knows as “the fashionable road”. In addition to fashion designers, jewelers and hair salons for Upper East Side processes vie for these prestigious spots. Some of those include: Chloé, Tom Ford, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Louboutin, Yves Saint Laurent, Missoni, Ralph Laure, Givenchy, Vera Wang, and Brooks Brothers. And of course, Barneys.

#6 – Via Montenapoleone, Milan – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $768

2006 Ranking: # Not in top 10

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $768

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: N/A

#6 spot in 2006 held by: New Bond Street, London

In the capital of the fashion world, this is the epicenter. Via Montenapoleone is the most important street of the Milan Fashion District (the Quadrilatero della moda) and reads like a rolodex of the world’s most famous fashion houses. These include: Gucci, Armani, Bottega Veneta, Giuseppe Zanotti, Etro, Alberta Ferretti, Versace, and Pucci.

#5 – Champs Elysee, Paris – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,009

2006 Ranking: # 4

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,009

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: $805

#5 spot in 2006 held by: 57th Street, New York City

Champs Elysee is  French for Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed dead in Greek mythology. Now it’s also the place of the blessed living, when it comes to the retail obsessed who often get to spend their cash in shops that stay open until 11 p.m. Though still full of upscale stores, “the most beautiful street in the world” (at least for the French) is now also home to the Disney Store, Nike, Zara, Europe’s largest Gap, Sephora, and the biggest Adidas store in the world.

#4 – Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,115

2006 Ranking: # Not in top 10

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,115

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: N/A

#4 spot in 2006 held by: Champs Elysee, Paris

Luxury brand shopping in Tsim Sha Tsui is centered around the five-star hotels, which inclue The Peninsula, The Langham, and the Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel. Some of the shops in this area include Laura Ashley, Longchamp, Y-3, Cour Carré, Biba, Miss Sixty, and Triumph. Watch and jewelry spots are also big, with  Omega, Cartier, and Rolex.

#3 – Central District, Hong Kong – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,211

2006 Ranking: # Not in top 10

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,211

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: N/A

#3 spot in 2006 held by: Madison Avenue, New York City

The series of malls and boutiques on these interwoven streets are the place to see and be seen for the rich. Just some of the shops featured include Armani, Prada, Dior, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Max & Co, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Celine, Ermenegildo Zegna, and Escada. Shanghai Tang is a Hong Kong shopping landmark and takes up 12,000sq ft.

#2 – Causeway Bay, Hong Kong – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,525

2006 Ranking: # 2

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,525

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,134

#2 spot in 2006 held by: Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

The rent in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong’s premier shopping area, takes the #2 place on the list. The focal place to spend money is the Times Square mall, which features both upscale (Coach, Gucci, Burberry) and mid-range shops. The steep retail prices led Times Square to be designed as the first “vertical mall” in the world (16 storeys with 230 shops, linked by a web of escalators), and the mall consists of 900,939ft ² of retail space.

#1 – Fifth Avenue, New York – 2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,700

2006 Ranking: # 1

2009 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,700

2006 rate per sq.ft, per year: $1,350

#1 spot in 2006 held by: 5th Avenue, New York City

The most iconic and expensive shopping street in the world. Fifth Avenue is synonymous with timeless luxury and the prices to match it. For decades, the stretch between 49th and 57th has been the most expensive commercial real estate area in the world. Some shops include Ferragamo, Cartier, H.Stern, Henri Bendel, Harry Winston, Bergdorf Goodman, Bvlgari, Prada, Fendi, Tiffany & Co., Saks Fifth Avenue, and Van Cleef & Arpels. And the list goes on.

Now Check Out How The Housing Markets Are Doing…

Is Your City’s Housing Market Coming Back Yet? >

Join the conversation about this story »

By Anthony Gregory

It is all well and good that the U.S. and Russia, possessors of the world’s largest nuclear stockpiles, are planning to reduce their arsenals. This has always been the goal of thoughtful humanitarians and prudent policy makers. Nixon and Reagan had similar goals—Reagan looked forward to a day of zero nuclear weapons, as does Obama.

But there’s a loophole. All nuclear-armed states, under the Obama doctrine, promise not to use nukes against non-nuclear armed states that are in compliance with their non-proliferation treaty guidelines. Although Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and although the U.S. intelligence community declares that Iran has not tried to obtain a nuclear weapon since 2003 at the latest, the Obama administration’s position is that Iran has been flouting the NPT, claiming that Iran was “caught” building a nuclear reactor in Qom—even though Iran was open about this, and it probably falls within Iran’s rights under international agreement to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses. By all credible acounts, Iran is years away from the uranium purity needed to make a weapon, much less one that could threaten the United States. Iran is right now deterred by both Israel and the U.S., both nuclear-weapons states that dwarf the military capacity of Iran. But most Americans have bought into the propaganda that Iran already has nuclear WMD.

As with all his other doublespeak, Iran’s gestures for peace and nuclear disarmament are actually a threat of war, even nuclear war, against Iran. Let us hope the U.S. does not engage Iran militarily, for it could easily become a disaster that makes Iraq and Afghanistan look like the cakewalks the neocons promised.

By Anthony Gregory

They shut down three terminals in LAX after a guy walked by without undergoing secondary screening. Two fighter jets escorted a plane to the ground when a man onflight lit a cigarette. How much longer will air travel be subject to such hysteria?

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg thinks the Federal Communications Commission should not try to get spectrum back from broadcasters, that there won’t be the kind of spectrum shortage the agency’s national broadband plan predicts, and that market forces and technology should take care of whatever shortage there is, likely driven by the rise in online video.

“[C]onfiscating the spectrum and repurposing it for other things, I’m not sure I buy into the idea that that’s a good thing to do,” he said this week. The commission has made spectrum reclamation part of that plan in order to free it up for wireless companies like, well, Verizon to provide wireless broadband and handle all those new bandwidth hungry apps. The commission sees wireless as a major player in universal broadband service.

Seidenberg’s observation came during an interview this week with The Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray for think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, and an audience that included a number of financial advisors and investors. More on Multichannel.

Related

• Wireless Carriers Bicker Over Size Of Spectrum Holdings
• FCC May Open Public-Safety Spectrum Block For Commercial Purposes
• What The FCC Is Trying To Achieve With Its National Broadband Plan
• Broadband Plan May Ask Broadcasters To Free Up Spectrum For Wireless

As PopCrunch’s own William shared with us on Wednesday, a new allegation has surfaced about the strange bed buddies of golfing legend Tiger Woods. (To the surprise of absolutely no one.) On the dawn of the golfer’s Masters comeback, The National Enquirer — the same tab that published the first reports revealing Woods as a serial cheater — has unearthed a new scoop that claims the married father of two had a one-night stand with the coed daughter of one of his neighbors in the posh Orlando suburb of Windemere, Florida.

Raychel Coudriet, a 22-year-old University of Alabama senior, has known Woods, 33, since she was just a starstruck 14-year-old girl. Of course that didn’t stop the panting lothario from putting the moves on her last year, according to one of the student’s close friends. The pair ended up having wild sex in Tiger’s office after an afternoon of flirting last May 29. Coudriet described the sex with Tiger as “mechanical and unemotional” and complained that the romp left her with “a leather burn on her right knee.”

Sad times….Can you imagine how her father must feel?! His neighbor banging his daughter? My Dad would have ripped Woods’ head off by now — but my family’s sort of dysfunctional that way 🙂

The Enquirer claims Tiger worked diligently to get Raychel to hook up with him again — and even bombarded her with filthy text messages while she was away at school.

“When are you coming home again? I want to see you. What are you doing right now? Are you touching yourself? I want to f*** you,” an increasingly desperate Tiger texted in one.

Attacked by her conscious, the young student branded Woods a “stalker” and refused to respond to any more of his advances.

“The two of them had sex on a couch for hours — right next to a crib for Tiger’s children. The crib made Raychel fell guilty — that she was having sex with a married man with children, but she was smitten,” Courdriet’s pal disclosed. “Raychel told me, ‘When all these other women came out, I felt so stupid. I felt used and violated, like I meant nothing to him but a night of casual sex….He told me, ‘You’re the girl in my neighborhood — I trust you. There are no other women….”

Dr. Daniel MacArthur points to a long article by Edmund Yong, Dangerous DNA: The truth about the ‘warrior gene’. Dr. MacArthur notes on his twitter account: “Nice piece on behavioural genetics…but should emphasize MOST behav. gene assocs are actually false.” I think he’s pointing to the winner’s curse; there are lots of people studying various topics, but only a subset of studies pass which yield appropriate effect sizes and p-values actually get published. A sequence of such may give a false sense of certitude as to the strength of the association between a locus and a trait, as negative results are not usually published. I hope David Dobbs keeps this in mind in relation to his new book on the ‘orchid hypothesis’. We have decades of research which suggest that a lot of human behavior is due to variation in genes within the population. In other words, many psychological traits and predispositions are heritable. But both the earlier linkage studies and now the associations which try and establish a particular gene as the primary causal factor are much more provisional, and like much of science wrong or ultimately of marginal long term value.

The incredible amount of press which genetics and genomics research with behavioral implications receive in the press is more about our psychology than the state of science as it is now. Similarly, consider the enormous swell of neuroimaging research within the past decade. Both genetics and neuroscience offer up the possibility of establishing a sturdier biophysical grounding for the human sciences, but we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. Finally, the fact that we know that psychological traits are heritable is useful in and of itself, whether we know the underlying genetic architecture of the trait or the neurobiology mediating between the genetic and behavioral level. Look to the parents, and you shall know a great deal.

Guidant LLC, a subsidiary of Boston Scientific, has plead guilty to federal charges that it attempted to cover up problems with defective defibrillator implants.  

The guilty plea was entered last month before U.S. District Court Judge Donovan W. Frank, according to a press release issued Monday by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Under the terms of the deal, the medical device manufacturer will pay more than $296 million in criminal fines to resolve charges that it violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by failing to report defects in some of its implantable defibrillators to FDA, and then trying to make changes to the implants without alerting the federal agency that there was a problem.

DOJ investigators filed charges against Guidant on February 25 in federal court in St. Paul, Minnesota, after a four-year investigation into several models of the company’s implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). The charges allege that Guidant hid information from the FDA regarding catastrophic failures of its Ventak Prizm 2 DR and Contak Renewal ICDs which in some cases resulted in death.

ICDs are implants that monitor patients for abnormal heart rhythms and deliver electric shocks to keep the heart beating at the proper rhythm. The DOJ charges allege that Guidant was aware as early as 2002 that the Ventak Prizm 2 DR had the potential to suffer an electric arc, which could short-circuit the device, making it unable to provide life-saving heart rhythm corrections when the patient needed it.

The DOJ accused the company of changing the design to fix the problem, and then lying to the FDA about the design changes to cover up the fact that there was a problem. The company continued to find problems with its defibrillators, and prosecutors say the company sent product updates to physicians that it did not send to FDA, as required by law. Even after other problems with other ICDs developed, the company did not issue a warning about the failures until June 2005.

“Guidant’s guilty plea today is about accountability,” said DOJ Assistant Attorney General Tony West. “This successful prosecution serves as an important wake up call to all those who seek to withhold vital information about public health and safety. We will continue our efforts to prosecute those who jeopardize public health by evading their reporting obligations to the FDA.”

DOJ officials say that the $296 million penalty is the largest ever imposed on a medical device manufacturer for violating the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In 2007, Guidant settled thousands of defibrillator recall lawsuits for $195 million.

Regardless of your politics (although there’s no mistaking where longtime comics creator Larry Hama and the rest of his funny cronies’ loyalties lie), you will definitely find many moments to guffaw over in this four-part comic series too entertaining to put down!

The New Ice Age has destroyed civilization as we know it. Grandfather Seal Hunter gathers his many (multi-culti hapa quadroopa – and is that Aang to his right? ) grandkiddies in the family igloo complex to tell them stories of the last great hero …!

“Know, O Prince, that before the glaciers at the world and the rise of the Sons of Inuit, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining republics lay spread across the earth like warm bison blankets under the stars –

“Britannia, land of crooked teeth; Franconia, famed for soft cheeses, Nippon, target of giant monsters; Suissebancara, with its gnome-guarded vault – but the proudest republic of the world was Merika, reigning supreme in the steaming west.”

And who should arrive, saddled atop a blue donkey, into the “most wicked and corrupt of cities, where every word uttered was a lie, and every soul was for sale,” but none other than Barack the Barbarian! Hey, some of us still have to call “… wanton, waspish, willful Warshingtun” home!

With Manny the Fixer at his side, Barack is ready to fight for change and overthrow the wicked wizards who have brought the great country to chaotic ruin. Together with the mighty Hilaria and her own sidekick, “has-been Bill,” it’s a mad race to the top of the Elephant Tower. Hot on their trail is The Old Warrior and Red Sarah, the fighting queen of the north: “I respected him – ’til he teamed up with her,” one of the bar brawlers notes. Even as Boosh the Dim and his Vizier, Harry Burden, try to destroy all the evidence of their corrupt, despotic reign, they are no match for the can-do determination of Barack the Barbarian!

How can you possibly resist such a glorious tale??!!

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2009

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Graphic Novels/Memoir/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Adventure, Historical, Politics

How do you make sniper target practice more helpful and more fun? By shooting at Segway robots, of course. More »

According to a brand new CEO survey from Business Roundtable, the number of CEOs who planning to add staff over the next six months jumped 50% in Q1 vs. Q4 of last year.

Nearly one in three companies now plan to create jobs, 29%. This is up substantially from just 19% in Q4:

Even better, 79% of CEOs either plan to add jobs or not cut them. Compare this to the situation in Q1 and Q2 of 2009, and it is clear that the worst of the job cuts are over, and given the strong job creation data for Q1 2010, a wave of job creation is already coming.

Furthermore, nearly half of U.S. companies plan to expand their capital expenditures within six months. Combined with headcount additions, this amounts to a gusher of corporate spending coming around mid-year.

Join the conversation about this story »

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled Thursday that a prominent gay rights organization may field candidates in the upcoming national elections as an accredited political party. The decision invalidates an order issued by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in November that rejected a bid for party recognition by Ang Ladlad. In denying Ang Ladlad’s original petition, Comelec cited the group’s ” immorality which offends religious beliefs.” The court, however, determined that the policy violated Article III, Section 5 of the Philippines Constitution, which has previously been interpreted to mandate “government neutrality in religious matters.” The decision stated:e hold that moral disapproval, without more, is not a sufficient governmental interest to justify exclusion of homosexuals from participation in the party-list system. The denial of Ang Ladlad’s registration on purely moral grounds amounts more to a statement of dislike and disapproval of homosexuals, rather than a tool to further any substantial public interest. Respondent’s blanket justifications give rise to the inevitable conclusion that the Comelec targets homosexuals themselves as a class, not because of any particular morally reprehensible act.Having met all legal requirements for certification as a party, the court ordered that Ang Ladlad be permitted to fully participate in the May elections.The court issued a temporary restraining order against Comelec in January, requiring the body to include Ang Ladlad on the list of official parties until a decision on the case’s merits could be reached. In December, Comelec again rejected Ang Ladlad’s request for accreditation. Officials voting against the group reiterated their moral concerns, and stated that their interests are sufficiently represented legislatively.

Mario Gabelli, CIO of Gamco Investors, was on CNBC this morning talking about investing in equities. He’s bullish on stocks for the decade.

• 0:45 Short-term interest rates are ready to go much higher
• 1:50 Businesses have improved balance sheets and earnings are exploding
• 2:50 You can’t just judge stocks on broader markets, must look at individually
• 4:00 Equities are going to produce better returns than bonds over the medium-term
• 5:10 “Inflation is like toothpaste, when it gets out you can’t put it back in”

From CNBC:

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Filed under: Sedan, Europe, Technology, Jaguar, Rumormill, Diesel, Luxury

When Jaguar first introduced the XF here in the States, no one batted an eye when the car only came in V8 flavors. After all, a luxury sedan demands eight cylinders, right? Sort of. Skip across the Atlantic, and buyers have less interest in a fuel-swilling eight pot. Instead, the luxo-barges of the old country typically run smaller, more efficient diesel mills. Except in Jaguar’s case, the company only offers a V6 oilburner in the XF line.

Word has it that the big cat is out to fix the issue. Starting this fall, Europeans are likely to start seeing a twin-turbo 2.2-liter four-cylinder diesel engine crop up on the option sheet. The powerplant is being refitted from Land Rover Freelander (LR2) duty, but will feature quite a bit more power and a new start/stop system to help keep fuel consumption low. Will they bring it to the States? Sure, right after Michael Jackson rises from the grave to run as Sarah Palin’s VP candidate for 2012.

[Source: Top Gear]

Report: Jaguar developing four-cylinder diesel for XF originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Found under: Symbian, S60 5th, Games, Freeware, Maze, Labyrinth,

Labyrinth Lite is a Symbian S60 5th edition game developed by Offscreen Technologies. The game utilizes the orientation sensor built inside the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. You control a ball and need to move it and take it to destination without dropping it into holes. There are three rounds with different complexity levels to play. Download Labyrinthf

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A couple of hours ago, PSM3 sent out word via Twitter that they’ll have a “world-exclusive PS3 game reveal” later today.
 
 
 
 

by Duncan Hollis

Putting aside events in Kyrgyzstan (which certainly bear close watching), the day’s big news for international lawyers was President Obama and Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev signing two related international agreements on the reduction of nuclear armaments. The State Department has posted the originals of this new START treaty here (see here for the longer, more detailed Protocol to that treaty).  I’ll leave for later any substantive commentary on these agreements or their national security/foreign relations implications.  For now, let me give a quick kudos to whoever at the State Department managed to get these documents posted so quickly.  For years the major problem in U.S. treaty practice was getting access to copies of U.S. treaties.  The fact this treaty was signed and made publicly available only a few hours later suggests such information access problems are (hopefully) behind us.  Now, if they could only modernize the font — really, Courier typeface is such a relic of the Cold War.

Several alert readers sent us this advertisement that ran on the front page of CNN.com today. Wait–is the census going to steal my identity? Is my name, race, and birthdate all someone needs to open a credit card in my name? No. You do not need identity theft protection because of the census. Equifax has just mashed up some good information about how to avoid census scams with a sales pitch for credit monitoring services.

The banner ad’s destination, the Census Scam Awareness Center, is a little confusing. Its overall message seems to be that the census is good and you should participate (true), that identity theft is bad and you should take precautions and watch your credit reports (also true) and that bad people might be pretending to be census workers to steal your personal information (quite true.) However, Consumerist already told you all of these things for free. For example:

Is That Person At Your Door A Real Census Worker?
5 Ways To Prevent Identity Theft