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Electronic Arts is reminding gamers that the Call of Duty franchise isn’t the only big soldier-based FPS on the block. They’re bringing back the Medal…

The Black Friday mad rush definitely gave those sales a big leg up for the holidays and those new releases didn’t get much air time on the shelves – t…

Scotland’s Aberdeen University has signed a license agreement with ApaTech, a global orthobiologics company, for three technologies in the field of synthetic bone. ApaTech plans to refine and commercialize the early-stage technologies into products for orthopaedic, spinal, and dental surgical procedures to repair and regenerate damaged bone. The agreement allows the company to exploit technologies developed by Iain Gibson, PhD, advanced research fellow, and colleagues in Aberdeen’s department of chemistry and School of Medical Sciences. The technologies focus on three opportunities to improve synthetic bone grafting materials:

• incorporating biologically active silicon and other ionic species into orthopaedic graft materials to enhance bone repair;
• enabling improved MRI imaging of synthetic bone graft materials following surgical implantation to facilitate monitoring during healing; and
• increasing understanding of how biomaterials can enhance bone regeneration.

ApaTech already develops and manufactures Actifuse, a synthetic silicate bone graft material for orthopaedic, spinal, dental, and craniomaxillofacial applications that mimics the body’s natural bony structure and accelerates the growth of high quality bone. Gibson’s synthetic materials could be used to repair and regenerate bone in patients requiring spinal surgery and to treat osteoporosis or bone injuries from accidents or sports. ApaTech hopes to move the technology into the clinic in two to four years.

Sources: Science Business and Aberdeen Grampian Chamber of Commerce

The Fed’s beige book is out, and it does make some positive noises about the economy, though nothing significant enough to lift this market.

Outside the “slight uptick” the Fed is seeing in various areas, banks are still seeing “steady or deteriorating loan quality.”

This is the kind of news that explains why despite the recovery, “problem” institutions remain at 15-year high.

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See Also:

• Credit Corrosion Continues With Bank Delinquencies At A Record
• CMBS Update: $32.6 Billion In October Delinquencies (504% YoY Increase)
• Gartman: Here’s Why Credit Card Delinquencies Fell To 1.1%

At the University of Maryland’s 2009 Bioscience Research and Technology Review Day, John Fisher, PhD, associate professor in the Fischell department of bioengineering, wowed VCs with his pitch for a tissue engineering bioreactor system that grows bone and other types of tissue for implantation. The technology was one of six innovations presented in a series of eight-minute pitches by faculty members and graduate students at the university’s Professor Venture Fair. “Dr. Fisher impressed the judges with his clearly defined product — the bioreactor system itself — and his ability to position himself within an already vibrant tissue engineering marketplace,” says Gayatri Varma, executive director of the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

The pitch competition encourages scientists to consider the commercial potential of their work and challenges them to translate their ideas for a general, non-technical audience. Fisher’s patent-pending bioreactor system improves the efficiency of tissue engineering by addressing many of the shortcomings of available systems, such as the high cost and complexity of the perfusion chamber and the low output of the rotating flask. His approach exposes growing tissue to an increased amount of oxygen and nutrients, making it a more prolific and cost-effective bioreactor than existing models. Fisher and his team have created a prototype in the lab using off-the-shelf products, and Fisher plans to start a company, ProlifiTEC, to bring the bioreactors to market.

Source: Physorg.com

Academia Sinica, the National Laboratory of Taiwan, has signed an exclusive license and commercialization agreement with StemCyte, Inc., headquartered in Covina, CA, and Ewing, NJ, covering certain proprietary methods and IP related to the treatment of chronic stroke with stem cells. John Lin, MD, PhD, professor of neurosurgery at China Medical University Hospital and vice superintendent in the Center for Neuropsychiatry, has collaborated with StemCyte scientists over the past three years on the potential commercial application of adult stem cells to treat chronic stroke, which affects some 15 million people worldwide annually. The team has completed a Phase Ib/IIa clinical trial and is currently completing the Phase II study. Preclinical and Phase I study results suggested significant improvement in patients, and preliminary Phase II indications mirror those results. StemCyte has assembled a racially diverse collection of cell units derived from umbilical cord blood and has successfully developed Taiwan’s leading bank for these cells. The agreement augments StemCyte’s other patented methods of cell collection, storage, and treatment. The company’s involvement in the development of umbilical cord blood-based cell therapies includes the world’s largest clinical study of unrelated cord blood transplantation for thalassemia — a common genetic disease — and trials investigating regenerative spinal cord therapies.

Source: Yahoo! Canada Finance

With the introduction of a single bacterial gene into yeast, researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands achieved three improvements in bioethanol production from agricultural waste material: more ethanol, less acetate, and elimination of the byproduct glycerol. Bioethanol is produced by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae from sugars obtained from plant biomass. The same microorganism converts such sugars into ethanol, or alcohol, in beer and wine. The production of bioethanol is increasing rapidly due to its growing use as a car fuel. With an annual world production of 65 billion liters, bioethanol is already the largest product of the fermentation industry. Ideally, bioethanol should be produced from resources that do not compete with food production, so efforts are made to produce second-generation bioethanol using agricultural residues such as wheat straw and corn stover. However, the sugars released from these raw materials form significant quantities of acetate, which can slow or even halt bioethanol production by yeast. Conventional bioethanol production also loses about 4% of sugar to formation of the byproduct glycerol — long considered an inevitable consequence of bioethanol production conditions.

TU Delft researchers solved these issues by introducing a single gene from the bacterium Escherichia coli into the yeast, enabling the conversion of harmful acetate to ethanol. This process replaced the normal role of glycerol so efficiently that key genes in glycerol production could be removed, thus preventing glycerol production as well. “In the laboratory, this simple genetic modification kills three birds with one stone: no glycerol formation, higher ethanol yields, and consumption of toxic acetate,” explains principal researcher Jack Pronk, professor and leader of the Industrial Microbiology Group in TU Delft’s department of biotechnology. A paper describing the invention was published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The researchers have applied for a patent on their invention and hope to collaborate with industrial partners to accelerate its industrial implementation.

Source: Bio-Medicine

The evidence of foul play ahead of Dubai’s debt announcement last week appears overwhelming.

A whopping 75% of debt owners might have sold ahead of time.

Which means that whoever was left holding Nakheel bonds was truly out of the loop.

WSJ: According to Data Explorers, a company that tracks how much of a company’s stock or bonds are out on loan, about 75% of institutions holding the sukuk sold their position between the end of August and the end of November.

“It’s an extraordinary sell-off in a bond so close to maturity, when there was no indication of a problem refinancing. The data suggests they had some information that it was a good time to sell,” said Data Explorers managing director Julian Pittam.

Read more here.

See here why Dubai was the most obvious bubble ever (in retrospect) >>

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See Also:

• Dubai Sheikh Calls International Investors A Bunch Of Suckers
• Jim Rogers Is Amazed Everyone Didn’t Know There Was A Bubble In Dubai
• Why Dubai Was The Most Obvious Bubble Ever

So who doesn’t love this planet?

Unless you have a few screws loose (or living in extreme poverty or managing to survive in a war zone or some similar predicament), at some basic level, you gotta love living on Earth – for its beauty, sustenance, and mystery. But how are we taking the responsibility to protect, preserve or restore our increasingly degraded planet?

That’s what Dr. Helen Caldicott sets out for her readers of If You Love This Planet: A plan to save the Earth (a revised and updated second edition from W.W. Norton). Climate change, ecological collapse and the damage wrought by the ever expanding global, economic system dominated by big corporations and big government demanded an update of her first edition in 1992.

If You Love This Planet sounds a compelling alarm to the damage one species has managed to cause to the fundamental life-sustaining biological processes on Earth – along with our placid, if not direct, exploitation of our own species for economic gain, power grab, or as a result of omitted (or outright deceptive) information. That species is, of course, homo sapiens. Caldicott’s hard-hitting book dives into the diagnosis and causes, followed by a practical prescription and offers a few simply stated cures.

Dr. Caldicott, a pediatrician, knows her stuff, as the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a widely recognized champion for nuclear disarmament. She explains how the planet, like a human body, is an organism with “a natural system of interacting homeostatic mechanisms.” If one is diseased, others start to fail.

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Filed under: LA Auto Show, Minivan/Van, Toyota

When the new third-generation 2011 Toyota Sienna shows up in dealerships next February, parents should head straight to their closest dealer after dropping the kids at soccer. Notice we didn’t say “Moms.” We said “parents.” Although other minivan makers have attempted to butch up their people movers in the past, those efforts have been mostly lamentable. Toyota, on the other hand, has actually made a van (there’s nothing mini about this new Sienna) that arguably looks sporty enough to chip away at the undeserved mommy-mobile stigma of the class. Don’t let that purse tray dissuade you.

And if NASCAR dads drag their feet a bit before heading over to trade in the old Previa or Chevrolet Suburban, they may choose the sportier SE in the showroom come April. While even the base Sienna will boast a design theme that looks surprisingly assertive, the SE adds an aggressive body kit and 19-inch six-spoke wheels to go with its stiffer suspension and remapped transmission programming. There’s also a different grille and clear tail lamps. Unfortunately, there won’t be a TRD supercharger underhood or even a cold air intake or freer-flowing exhaust to up the power, but on looks alone, this thing might have what it takes to broaden the appeal of minivans to the XY set.

Debuting at the LA Auto Show today, the 2011 Sienna looks like a more macho 2009 Sienna cross-bred with Toyota’s Venza crossover. The family resemblance is striking, particularly from the rear. Nifty details are to be found all around – things like the cleverly hidden high-mounted rear wiper. Toyota promises that this third-generation Sienna will also drive more like a sedan while still swallowing people and cargo with equal ease.

We’ve had an advanced in-person look at this model, and the seven or eight people who find themselves filling the seats inside this new Sienna figure to be impressed by the Lexus-like interior with its new three-tone color scheme, ample use of wood, and clever luxury touches. Particularly “wow” inducing are the wooden swoosh across the dash, the second row seats with their integrated retractable leg rests that slide a long way forward to grant access to the power-operated 60/40 Split & Stow third row, and the 16-inch dual view LCD screen for rear seat entertainment. Yes, sixteen.

Built on a revised version of the outgoing platform, the 2011 Sienna has the same wheelbase but is slightly shorter, lower and wider than its predecessor. It will be available in five different trim levels: Sienna grade, LE, SE, XLE and Limited. All-wheel-drive will still be available on V6-powered LE, XLE and Limited models. That V6 is the same 3.5-liter Dual Variable Valve Timing with intelligence (VVT-i) unit available today, with 266 horsepower. The engine is stout enough to give the Sienna a 3,500-pound tow capacity while returning mileage of 18 mpg city and 24 mpg highway. Also available in Sienna and LE will be the VVT-i 2.7-liter four-cylinder engine with 187 horses and a slight bump in mileage to 19/26.

We’ll have lots to say about this new Sienna after our first drive in a couple of weeks, but for now, you can read more about it in the press release we’ve pasted after the jump and check out high-res shots in our gallery below.

[Source: Toyota]

Continue reading LA 2009: 2011 Toyota Sienna could wear a Lexus badge

LA 2009: 2011 Toyota Sienna could wear a Lexus badge originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday, we reported on an article written by George Monbiot regarding the effects of Canada’s tar sands on the environment.

Today, Dennis Gartman points out that Monbiot flew to Toronto despite a self-imposed flying ban.

Normally, no big deal.

But Gartman points out that there aren’t any tar sands in Toronto:

The Gartman Letter: What we found fascinating by Mr. Monbiot’s most recent editorial is that he found it necessary to “fly to Toronto” to find out about the supposed devastating effect of the Tar Sands upon the environment. Telling the world that he broke his “self-imposed ban on flying,” Mr. Monbiot flew from London to Toronto to find out for himself what is going on.

The problem is, if we can be allowed to speak in the vernacular: There ain’t no tar sands in Toronto, Mr. Monbiot! Last we heard, they’re all out West somewhere… someplace called Alberta, and some in Saskatchewan… places your wine & cheese eating, Birkenstock and dirndle- dress wearing, poetry reading and oh-so-politically- correct friends have likely never been… nor would ever go to! Sorry, Mr. Monbiot, but you’ve got another plane trip, and a helicopter ride, and a jeep drive ahead of you if you want to see the Tar Sands. Better get a move on, my friend. ‘tis a long, long way from Toronto.

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See Also:

• US Energy Policy Could Cost Canadian Tar Sands $800M
• Obama’s Tar Sands Technology Breakthrough Is Idiotic
• Amateur Betters Put 2-1 Odds On Oil Doubling

The word “sushi” is often ambiguous for non-native Japanese. We think of it as being interchangeable with raw fish. Sushi is vinegared rice topped with other ingredients. Sashimi, which is slices of raw fish alone, is not sushi because it isn’t accompanied with rice. Originally, sushi was fermented fish with rice preserved in salt, and this was a staple dish in Japan for a thousand years until the Edo Period (1603 to 1868) when contemporary sushi was developed. The word “sushi” means “it’s sour,” which reflects back to sushi’s origins of being preserved in salt.

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Sega has just launched Super Monkey Ball 2 for the iPhone and iPod touch, aiming to follow up on the original that took the App Store by storm. The new version includes over 115 levels, as well as 2-, 3-, and 4-player Wi-Fi play. One of the biggest gripes with the original Super Monkey Ball was that the accelerometer didn’t seem to cooperate as well as the player expected it to, making for a frustrating experience. Having played the sequel, it appears that Sega has taken care of those problems, as Super Monkey Ball 2 for iPhone and iPod touch seems a lot more responsive and fluid.

In case you aren’t familiar, Super Monkey Ball games feature monkeys that are encased in balls. You tilt the iPhone to roll the ball towards a goal, and as you progress through the game, that goal is increasingly more challenging to get to without falling off of the level. It’s a good time. You can pick up Super Monkey Ball 2 for $9.99.

Tags:
iphone apps,
iphone games,
ipod touch apps,
ipod touch games,
multiplayer,
multiplayer iphone games,
sega,
super monkey ball,
super monkey ball 2,
super monkey ball 2 iphone,
wi-fi,

Diamond Pet Foods are recalling some of their bagged Premium Edge dry cat food after 21 cases of health problems and deaths have been reported in cats who have been fed the products.

Select batches of Premium Edge Finicky Adult Cat and Premium Edge Hairball do not contain enough thiamine, which is an essential nutrient for cats. Without it, they could develop thiamine deficiency which causes gastrointestinal or neurological problems. If untreated, this disorder could result in death.

Initial symptoms of thiamine deficiency include decreased appetite, salivation, vomiting and weight loss. Later, neurological problems could develop including, bending the neck toward the floor, wobbly walking, circling, falling and seizures.

So far, the recalled food has only been known to have been distributed in the eastern part of the U.S.

Residents in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida are urged to check the labeling on their bags for the following codes: RAF0501A22X, RAF0501A2X, RAH0501A22X, and RAH0501A2X. Affected bags can be returned to the retailer they were purchased from.

[images: premiumedgepetfood.com]

Post from: Blisstree

Diamond Pet Foods Recalls Cat Food

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Filed under: Convertible, Cadillac

If you’re nostalgic, the first car that may come to mind when you think about a droptop Cadillac is the old tail-finned Fifties Eldorado. A pink one especially. But since then, the American luxury marque hasn’t had a whole lot of convertibles. There was the Pininfarina-styled Allante and the recently discontinued XLR, both roadsters, but if you think the General’s luxury division is eager to get back into the open-air business, think again, as new reports indicate that there are no such plans on the horizon.

At least not based on the CTS, anyway. The series has spawned a sedan – including the all-conquering CTS-V – a wagon and even a coupe, but the guys over at Inside Line say they’ve got the inside line that no convertible version of one of Cadillac’s most prolific models is in the works. Which is a bit of a shame, when you think about it. But you never know what’s coming around the corner…

[Source: Inside Line]

REPORT: Cadillac CTS Coupe won’t spawn convertible variant originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On CNBC this morning, Peter Schiff defended his call of gold $5,000 against Lou Grasso, who says the metal has run well beyond its course. Schiff noted that he’s been a gold bull since before it was cool (since gold $300!).

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See Also:

• The Nikkei Is Perfectly Aligned With The S&P 500 As Measured In Gold
• The Overwhelming Evidence For Peak Gold (GLD)
• SocGen: Gold Has Been Undervalued For 38 Out Of The Last 40 Years

On last night’s Colbert Report, author Sherman Alexie spent most of the interview ranting against digital books and how “piracy” was destroying the book business. The whole thing was odd not just because of how uninformed it was, but also because he seemed to contradict himself multiple times. I haven’t read any of Alexie’s books, but if his logic is so twisted, it’s difficult to think that his books are worth reading:

He starts out by insisting that he won’t put his book on the Kindle or any digital book format because he’s afraid of piracy — but that makes no sense at all. By not giving readers what they want, he’s actually encouraging more piracy. There are probably plenty of people actively willing to buy ebook versions of his book, and his response is that because of piracy, he won’t offer it to them. How does this help? Those people now have more incentive to actually go and download an unauthorized copy of the book (and Alexie is fooling himself if he thinks they don’t exist). How can not giving people what they’re asking for and are willing to pay for be a smart business model?

He compares the book business to the music business, saying:

“When the music industry went digital, somewhere between 75 and 95% of music is pirated. Nobody makes money off their music any more. Everything is about live shows now.”

First of all, it wasn’t the industry that went digital. Music went online way before the industry even realized it, and one of the main reasons that the piracy rates are as high as they are (and his numbers are industry figures that aren’t reliable at all) was because the industry held back for so long in giving people what they wanted: which is exactly what Alexie is now doing!

As for his claim that no one makes money off their music any more, that’s obviously silly. He admits that they now make their money from live shows (which is making money off their music). And then later in the interview, he points out that one of the parts he enjoyed most about being a published author was doing live performances and readings of his works. In other words, he already does what he claims happened to the music industry. So why is he so worried about piracy? That’s not clear at all.

He also seems rather uninformed about how file sharing has helped some authors.

I’d be really worried if I were Stephen King or James Patterson or a really big best seller that when their books become completely digitized, how easy it’s going to be to pirate them.

Where to start….? First, Alexie doesn’t seem to understand how book file sharing happens. It’s not because the industry digitizes the books, but because others digitize those books, and, yes, they’re most likely already available on file sharing networks, whether those authors released them in ebook form or not. It’s not the official ebook they’re sharing in most cases anyway.

Second, as for the claim that it will harm the biggest name authors most of all, Alexie might want to talk to Paulo Coelho. Coelho is the guy who quietly set up operations to “pirate” his own book and saw the sales of his physical books increase massively. Oh, and the book he chose to offer up via BitTorrent, The Alchemist is one of the best selling books of all time. Stephen King and James Patterson, by the way, do not have any books on that list — though, to be fair, if you combine all of their books, King has sold more than Coelho, and Patterson seems to be in a similar ballpark, probably selling slightly more than Coelho, but both have published many more books.

Then, really strangely, he attacks “open source culture”:

With the “open source culture” on the internet, the idea of ownership — of artistic ownership — goes away.

Now, beyond this just being flat out wrong about what “open source” means or what “open source culture” is, what’s the most bizarre thing about this statement is who it’s coming from. Alexie is most well-known for his writing about modern Native American life — and Native Americans aren’t exactly known for their strong believe in artistic ownership. In fact, much of the understanding of so-called “gift economies,” which are sometimes (though not always accurately) used to describe the open source world are actually based on Native American gift giving culture of tribes in the Pacific Northwest, which is where Alexie is from.

Colbert actually does a good job pushing back on this, in his usual self-mocking manner, pointing out that sharing helps get the word out there, and the only reason he’s so famous is because of how easily his content is shared via TV. Without that, he notes, he’d have to just go door to door shouting at people. To which Alexie responds: “I’m a fan of door to door shouting at people.” Good luck with that.

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This is a totally different way of looking at the data (BC)  

   <  click to read

2 incredible charts – Viewpoint: For subprime, is it deja vu all over again? – By PAUL JACKSON – great work by Paul. – hattip Ira Artman – … Because this sort of chart technique might be foreign to some readers, the zero axis point represents no change between October 2009 and November 2009 data. Any data points in positive territory reflect a percentage increase month-over-month, while data points in negative territory reflect a percentage decrease month-over-month.  Surprised? Only if you thought he subprime mess was over with. … – go read it all at  Housingwire

A much happier Thanksgiving this time around!!!! Your story gives hope where sometimes there is none. I am proud to be your cousin & I am very grateful to the doctors at Childrens for fighting through this with you & bringing you back from those dark days.