Here-4-You Consulting ? Accessing Donor-Advised Funds

In 2009, the last tax year that the IRS has available statistics, donor-advised funds (DAFs) represented a sharply growing share of a diminishing giving pie. While the amount of total giving went down by 8%, the amount of giving to donor-advised funds went up by 9%.

More recently, National Philanthropic Trust conducted a study (2011) and concluded that the nation?s 162,000 DAF accounts held $30 billion in assets, of which $6.2 billion (more than 20%) was distributed in annual giving. That study has set aside many of the criticisms initially made against DAFs. A 20% level of giving is 4 times higher than 5-year average required by the IRS of private foundations. It is a tremendous amount of giving.

Through a tempting set of tax benefits and social advantages, community foundations and large investment firms have incentivized their donor-advised funds. We need to understand the world of DAFs, what makes them so attractive to benefactors, and how a nonprofit organization can tap into those funds.

What is a DAF and how does it work?

In 1931, a New York community foundation created the first donor-advised funds (DAFs). Although the term was widely used for 75 years, the phrase ?donor advised fund? was not codified until 2006 when Congress passed pension and charity reform legislation.

Most donor-advised funds are held at two types of institutions:

  • Community foundations, where donor-advised funds are typically the large majority of assets held and grants made. The largest ?community? foundation in the U.S. is the National Christian Foundation (NCF).
  • Large financial institutions that handle stock-trading, mutual funds and other for-profit investments, such as Fidelity, Vanguard and Schwab.

The IRS describes the features of a donor-advised fund:

  • Donors contribute to an administering 501(c)(3) to establish ? fund ? a DAF. The charity keeps accounting track of each DAF separately.
  • Contributions to the DAF cannot be taken back by the donor. Contributions qualify for an income tax deduction at the time of the donation, governed by the usual deduction rules and rates.
  • The donor has the right to recommend grants from the DAF to qualified charitable recipients. The sponsoring organization may not be legally required to accept the recommendation (although implementing the donor?s recommendation is the basis of the business model).

Whether deposited with a community foundation or a for-profit firm, the administering organization typically provides the legal, administrative, investment management, and accounting work for DAFs. Compared to creating a private foundation, DAFs are often lower cost to administer for a donor. In addition, the ability to direct the DAF passes to the benefactor?s heirs or designee.

Why are donor-advised funds so appealing to donors?

Benefactors are increasingly unwinding their private foundations into donor-advised funds, which invest assets and make grants to charities from individual accounts based largely on donors? recommendations. Some have been spurred by tough economic times. DAFs can cost thousands of dollars less to maintain than foundations ? a factor that has taken on increased significance as many foundations? assets have plunged.

The funds, which operate as independent charities, have other advantages besides allowing donors to take an immediate tax deduction after making contributions. Donors advise the fund on where the grants should go, but the funds don?t have to make distributions as often as a foundation would. Donors can also give many types of assets ? including cash, securities and even art ? depending on the fund?s specific rules.

To summarize:

  1. Taxpayers can deduct in the year of their choice without a working nonprofit actually receiving any money.
  2. Unlike donating to a ?regular? nonprofit, DAF-fers get deductions for the full fair market value of real estate and illiquid assets (such as art work).
  3. A higher percentage of total personal income can be given and deducted if it?s given to a DAF rather than a private foundation.
  4. The freedom to transfer money, deductibly, to foreign charities.
  5. More money to give. The money saved in administrative and other costs can go toward the causes they support. In some cases, such funds can cut donors? costs by as much as 50%.
  6. No imposed payout requirement.
  7. Donations may be made anonymously.

While the last benefit ? anonymity ? is not unique to the DAF product, it is an extra perq that is highly valued by some. All DAF donations from assets held by the administering organization are bundled into a comprehensive report, shielding the benefactor from being bothered by charities that might want to make petitions. Keep this in mind when approaching a family that supports ministries through a DAF.

Socially responsible investing and social recognition

There are two other benefits that have arisen in recent years. As the number of families establishing DAFs has greatly increased, competition among investment firms has increased. All of the for-profit firms offering DAFs now market socially-responsible funds in which the benefactor can place his/her funds. That is, while some of the funds are donated to charitable work, the assets that remain in the DAF are invested in the types of ventures approved of by the benefactor.

Community foundation officers have also become more aggressive in selling the concept of donor advised funds to wealthy families in their area. Increasingly, they highlight the social recognition that local donors gain by depositing funds and other assets with the local community foundation. Literally, it is sold as a way to join the cool people who get to do cool things together.

How does one tap into a DAF?

Administering organizations offer several ways ministries can reach the donors who have set aside money for charity. Among them:

Look carefully at donors? checks. Keep a record of all checks that are mailed to the organization from a donor-advised fund, whether it?s from a for-profit firm like Scwab, from NCF, or from a community foundation. This is the best way to identify people with money who care about a particular organization. Even if the amount of the check is small, the donor probably has more to give. This type of connection can serve a strategic purpose during capital campaigns or building projects.

Learn more about the families who are investing with NCF and its network of regional Christian foundations. Their stories are inspiring, and their giving habits are generous (www.nationalchristian.com/givers). Terry Parker founded NCF in 1982 and introduced the first Christian-focused donor-advised funds called the Giving Fund. Over the past three decades, NCF has helped found a network of affiliates across the country, encouraged an environment of philanthropic giving among major Christian donors, and assembled a team of over 200 experts in charitable giving. In 2010, donors supported more than 10,000 ministries with $395 million in giving through DAF accounts at NCF.

In addition to learning which families have deposited funds with NCF and its family of regional Christian foundations, ministries should also take a look at the donor-advised funds at community foundations. At most community foundations, the bulk of incoming dollars arrive via DAFs and go out from DAFs. For instance, the Orange County Community Foundation (in California) made $26 million in grants in 2010, but $24.5 million of this was distributed from donor-advised funds. In other words, only $1.5 million was granted as discretionary funding through an application process.

Read the annual reports of community foundations. Many such organizations list the names of their donors, or of donor-advised funds that are often named for the donors, in their reports.

Make sure your local community foundation is aware of you. Most community foundations tell donors about the charities the foundation supports, and many holders of donor-advised funds then decide to make grants to those charities. Get to know the program officers. ?We?re trying to serve less as a gatekeeper and more as a connector,? says Chris Andersen, executive director of the Lutheran Community Foundation, in Minneapolis. ?Rather than trying to protect donors, we?re trying to offer them more opportunities.?

Charities also should make sure they are listed in databases for donors, such as the one created by Excellence in Giving in Colorado. Other databases include the ones monitored by UrbanMinistry.org, NonProfitList.org, Guidestar, Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, and Charity Guide. Some community foundations have similar projects, including the Kansas City Community Foundation (600 nonprofits listed) and the Greater Houston Community Foundation (400 nonprofits listed).

Tell the charity?s story well online. Commercial funds refer their donors to web sites like GuideStar or Charity Navigator for information on charities, so it?s important for groups to burnish their image on these sites as well as on your own website.

Although many nonprofits bemoan donor-advised funds as foundations that are tantalizingly just beyond reach, the funding world?s overall view of DAFs is accepting, even enthusiastic about this increasingly important mechanism for giving. There are a growing number of channels to connect with DAFs; don?t miss out.

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Briton laughed as he shot Indian student dead, court hears

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What Are Your Relationship Non-Negotiables? | World of Psychology

What Are Your Relationship Non-Negotiables?This guest article from YourTango was written by Dr. Tiffany Perkins-Munn.

The process of finding a mate is one of the most dominant and powerful forces in our lives. It is also one of the most daunting and overwhelming tasks.

People often complain about getting this wrong more often than getting it right. Part of the problem is that we make a lot of allowances for the behaviors of our potential mates. We compromise, we give in, we negotiate,?all against our better judgment, thus ending up in situations in which we are unhappy and unsatisfied.

Just because you jump when the phone rings in anticipation of someone?s call, your heart beats rapidly when you see the person, you feel butterflies in your stomach at the mention of their name, does not make this your lifetime partner.

All these physical symptoms do is confirm attractiveness, a key ingredient in relationships, but they also get you prepared for the big payout: S-E-X.

Though most people won?t admit it, and may not even realize it, the possibility of sexual interaction is ultimately what all the sweating, twitching, nail biting, and anxiety is about. And, it?s perfectly natural. We?re all hard-wired for it.

However, don?t get confused. It is not necessarily indicative of having met your life partner.

In theory, most people understand this. However, in practice people often behave in contradictory ways. Thus, they end up making the same wrong choices over and over, creating a string of disappointing relationships and an expectation that one always has to settle, at least a little.

As Carrie Bradshaw proclaims on Sex and the City, ?Some people are settling down, some people are settling, and some people refuse to settle for less than butterflies.?

What determines the difference between those who settle and those who refuse?

I would pose that one of the key differentiators is one?s ability (or inability) to articulate, identify, and stick to the ?must haves?, the ?can?t live withouts?, or relationship non-negotiables.

Relationship non-negotiables are those criteria that are not just nice to have, but which you expect wholeheartedly and without exception in anyone in the running for your life mate. Not everyone will have the same list of criteria.

Attractiveness will be of utmost importance to some while income will be more important to others, spirituality to some, politics to others.

?What about you?
Weigh in and let me know, what are your relationship non-negotiables?

Contributed by YourTango.com, an online magazine dedicated to love, life and relationships. From dating to marriage, parenting to empty-nest, relationship challenges to relationship success, YourTango is at the center of the conversations that are closest to our over 3 million readers' hearts. With daily contributions from our Experts, we have a little something for everyone looking to create healthier lives. We're excited to offer our contributions to the PsychCentral community, and invite you to visit us on YourTango.com.

Like this author?
Catch up on other posts by YourTango Experts (or subscribe to their feed).


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????Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 24 Jun 2012
????Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.

APA Reference
Experts, Y. (2012). What Are Your Relationship Non-Negotiables?. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 26, 2012, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/06/24/what-are-your-relationship-n...

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Duchess, Phoenix Zoo Orangutan, Dead After Long Battle With Cancer

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  • Orangutan Baby Duran

    Orangutan baby Duran plays in his enclosure in the zoo of Dresden, eastern Germany on January 28, 2011. The Orangutan baby is the youngest of its kind in the zoo and celebrates his first birthday on January 30, 2011.

  • Orangutan Baby Duran Plays With a Rope

    Orangutan baby Duran plays with a rope in its enclosure in the zoo of Dresden, eastern Germany on January 28, 2011. The Orangutan baby is the youngest of its kind in the zoo and celebrates his first birthday on January 30, 2011.

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    A baby orangutan clings to her mother at an enclosure in Ragunan zoo in Jakarta on January 27, 2011. Orangutans are far more genetically diverse thatn thought, a finding that could help their survival, say scientists delivering their full DNA analysis of the critically endangered ape. The study, published January 27 in the science journal Nature, also reveals that the orangutan -- 'the man of the forest' -- has hardly evolved over the past 15 million years, in sharp contrast to Homo sapiens and his closest cousin, the chimpanzee. Once widely distributed across Southeast Asia, only two populations of the intelligent, tree dwelling ape remain in the wild in Borneo and Sumatra islands of Indonesia.

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    Hanging on a grid, a Sumatra Orangutan baby, plays with a tree trunk in their place of Budapest Zoo and Botanic Garden, on November 12, 2010.

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    Orangutan baby Boo is pictured in his enclosure at Madrid's Zoo on April 14, 2011. The 9-month-old Orangutan was officially named Boo, inspired in the Sanskrit word 'bhoomi' (or 'bumi') which means Earth.

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    Newly born twin baby orangutans cling to their mother at an enclosure at the Foundation for Sustainable Ecosystem in Medan, North Sumatra province on January 27, 2011. Orangutans are far more genetically diverse thatn thought, a finding that could help their survival, say scientists delivering their full DNA analysis of the critically endangered ape. The study, published January 27 in the science journal Nature, also reveals that the orangutan -- 'the man of the forest' -- has hardly evolved over the past 15 million years, in sharp contrast to Homo sapiens and his closest cousin, the chimpanzee.

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    Orangutan baby Duran lies in the arms of its mother Djudi at the zoo in Dresden, eastern Germany on February 9, 2010. Duran was born on January 30, 2010 and is the fifth baby of 36-year-old orangutan mother Djudi.

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    A young Orangutan swings in a net at Berlin's Zoo on June 14, 2011.

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    An orangutan sits in an enclosure in Ragunan zoo in Jakarta on January 27, 2011. Orangutans are far more genetically diverse than thought, a finding that could help their survival, say scientists delivering their full DNA analysis of the critically endangered ape.

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  • A Baby Orangutan Clings to Her Mother

    A baby orangutan clings to her mother at an enclosure in Ragunan zoo in Jakarta on January 27, 2011.

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    Rochale, a 41-year-old Sumatran Orangutan holds her newly born baby at the Ramat Gan Safari park near Tel Aviv on August 12, 2010.

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    An orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) protects himself from the cold with a blanket provided by vets at Rio de Janeiro's zoo on July 11, 2011. Vets gave blankets and hot soups to animals due to the extreme cold weather affecting Rio and the region.

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    An orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) protects himself from the cold with a blanket provided by vets at Rio de Janeiro's zoo on July 11, 2011 as it eats a hot vegetable soup also given by the vets due to the extreme cold weather affecting Rio and the region.

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    Gene mutations cause massive brain asymmetry

    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 24-Jun-2012
    [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    Contact: Scott LaFee
    slafee@ucsd.edu
    619-543-6163
    University of California - San Diego

    Discovery could help lead to prevention of radical surgery in rare childhood disease

    Hemimegalencephaly is a rare but dramatic condition in which the brain grows asymmetrically, with one hemisphere becoming massively enlarged. Though frequently diagnosed in children with severe epilepsy, the cause of hemimegalencephaly is unknown and current treatment is radical: surgical removal of some or all of the diseased half of the brain.

    In a paper published in the June 24, 2012 online issue of Nature Genetics, a team of doctors and scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, say de novo somatic mutations in a trio of genes that help regulate cell size and proliferation are likely culprits for causing hemimegalencephaly, though perhaps not the only ones.

    De novo somatic mutations are genetic changes in non-sex cells that are neither possessed nor transmitted by either parent. The scientists' findings a collaboration between Joseph G. Gleeson, MD, professor of neurosciences and pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego; Gary W. Mathern, MD, a neurosurgeon at UC Los Angeles' Mattel Children's Hospital; and colleagues suggest it may be possible to design drugs that inhibit or turn down signals from these mutated genes, reducing or even preventing the need for surgery.

    Gleeson's lab studied a group of 20 patients with hemimegalencephaly upon whom Mathern had operated, analyzing and comparing DNA sequences from removed brain tissue with DNA from the patients' blood and saliva.

    "Mathern had reported a family with identical twins, in which one had hemimegalencephaly and one did not. Since such twins share all inherited DNA, we got to thinking that there may be a new mutation that arose in the diseased brain that causes the condition," said Gleeson. Realizing they shared the same ideas about potential causes, the physicians set out to tackle this question using new exome sequencing technology, which allows sequencing of all of the protein-coding exons of the genome at the same time.

    The researchers ultimately identified three gene mutations found only in the diseased brain samples. All three mutated genes had previously been linked to cancers.

    "We found mutations in a high percentage of the cells in genes regulating the cellular growth pathways in hemimegalencephaly," said Gleeson. "These same mutations have been found in various solid malignancies, including breast and pancreatic cancer. For reasons we do not yet understand, our patients do not develop cancer, but rather this unusual brain condition. Either there are other mutations required for cancer propagation that are missing in these patients, or neurons are not capable of forming these types of cancers."

    The mutations were found in 30 percent of the patients studied, indicating other factors are involved. Nonetheless, the researchers have begun investigating potential treatments that address the known gene mutations, with the clear goal of finding a way to avoid the need for surgery.

    "Although counterintuitive, hemimegalencephaly patients are far better off following the functional removal or disconnection of the enlarged hemisphere," said Mathern. "Prior to the surgery, most patients have devastating epilepsy, with hundreds of seizures per day, completely resistant to even our most powerful anti-seizure medications. The surgery disconnects the affected hemisphere from the rest of the brain, causing the seizures to stop. If performed at a young age and with appropriate rehabilitation, most children suffer less language or cognitive delay due to neural plasticity of the remaining hemisphere."

    But a less-invasive drug therapy would still be more appealing.

    "We know that certain already-approved medications can turn down the signaling pathway used by the mutated genes in hemimegalencephaly," said lead author and former UC San Diego post-doctoral researcher Jeong Ho Lee, now at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. "We would like to know if future patients might benefit from such a treatment. Wouldn't it be wonderful if our results could prevent the need for such radical procedures in these children?"

    ###

    Co-authors are My Huynh, department of Neurosurgery and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Mattel Children's Hospital, Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; Jennifer L. Silhavy, Tracy Dixon-Salazar, Andrew Heiberg, Eric Scott, Kiley J. Hill and Adrienne Collazo, Institute for Genomic Medicine, Rady Children's Hospital, UC San Diego and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Sangwoo Kim and Vineet Bafna, Department of Computer Sciences, Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego; Vincent Furnari and Carsten Russ, Institute for Medical Genetics, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles and Department of Pediatrics, Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; and Stacey B. Gabriel, The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge.

    Funding for this research came, in part, from the Daland Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society, the National Institutes of Health (grants R01 NS038992, R01 NS048453, R01 NS052455, R01 NS41537 and P01 HD070494), the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.


    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    ?


    AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


    [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 24-Jun-2012
    [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

    Contact: Scott LaFee
    slafee@ucsd.edu
    619-543-6163
    University of California - San Diego

    Discovery could help lead to prevention of radical surgery in rare childhood disease

    Hemimegalencephaly is a rare but dramatic condition in which the brain grows asymmetrically, with one hemisphere becoming massively enlarged. Though frequently diagnosed in children with severe epilepsy, the cause of hemimegalencephaly is unknown and current treatment is radical: surgical removal of some or all of the diseased half of the brain.

    In a paper published in the June 24, 2012 online issue of Nature Genetics, a team of doctors and scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, say de novo somatic mutations in a trio of genes that help regulate cell size and proliferation are likely culprits for causing hemimegalencephaly, though perhaps not the only ones.

    De novo somatic mutations are genetic changes in non-sex cells that are neither possessed nor transmitted by either parent. The scientists' findings a collaboration between Joseph G. Gleeson, MD, professor of neurosciences and pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego; Gary W. Mathern, MD, a neurosurgeon at UC Los Angeles' Mattel Children's Hospital; and colleagues suggest it may be possible to design drugs that inhibit or turn down signals from these mutated genes, reducing or even preventing the need for surgery.

    Gleeson's lab studied a group of 20 patients with hemimegalencephaly upon whom Mathern had operated, analyzing and comparing DNA sequences from removed brain tissue with DNA from the patients' blood and saliva.

    "Mathern had reported a family with identical twins, in which one had hemimegalencephaly and one did not. Since such twins share all inherited DNA, we got to thinking that there may be a new mutation that arose in the diseased brain that causes the condition," said Gleeson. Realizing they shared the same ideas about potential causes, the physicians set out to tackle this question using new exome sequencing technology, which allows sequencing of all of the protein-coding exons of the genome at the same time.

    The researchers ultimately identified three gene mutations found only in the diseased brain samples. All three mutated genes had previously been linked to cancers.

    "We found mutations in a high percentage of the cells in genes regulating the cellular growth pathways in hemimegalencephaly," said Gleeson. "These same mutations have been found in various solid malignancies, including breast and pancreatic cancer. For reasons we do not yet understand, our patients do not develop cancer, but rather this unusual brain condition. Either there are other mutations required for cancer propagation that are missing in these patients, or neurons are not capable of forming these types of cancers."

    The mutations were found in 30 percent of the patients studied, indicating other factors are involved. Nonetheless, the researchers have begun investigating potential treatments that address the known gene mutations, with the clear goal of finding a way to avoid the need for surgery.

    "Although counterintuitive, hemimegalencephaly patients are far better off following the functional removal or disconnection of the enlarged hemisphere," said Mathern. "Prior to the surgery, most patients have devastating epilepsy, with hundreds of seizures per day, completely resistant to even our most powerful anti-seizure medications. The surgery disconnects the affected hemisphere from the rest of the brain, causing the seizures to stop. If performed at a young age and with appropriate rehabilitation, most children suffer less language or cognitive delay due to neural plasticity of the remaining hemisphere."

    But a less-invasive drug therapy would still be more appealing.

    "We know that certain already-approved medications can turn down the signaling pathway used by the mutated genes in hemimegalencephaly," said lead author and former UC San Diego post-doctoral researcher Jeong Ho Lee, now at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. "We would like to know if future patients might benefit from such a treatment. Wouldn't it be wonderful if our results could prevent the need for such radical procedures in these children?"

    ###

    Co-authors are My Huynh, department of Neurosurgery and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Mattel Children's Hospital, Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; Jennifer L. Silhavy, Tracy Dixon-Salazar, Andrew Heiberg, Eric Scott, Kiley J. Hill and Adrienne Collazo, Institute for Genomic Medicine, Rady Children's Hospital, UC San Diego and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Sangwoo Kim and Vineet Bafna, Department of Computer Sciences, Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego; Vincent Furnari and Carsten Russ, Institute for Medical Genetics, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles and Department of Pediatrics, Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; and Stacey B. Gabriel, The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge.

    Funding for this research came, in part, from the Daland Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society, the National Institutes of Health (grants R01 NS038992, R01 NS048453, R01 NS052455, R01 NS41537 and P01 HD070494), the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.


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    Texas holdem Art Pictures by celtice33

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    Stocks head lower as Spain seeks help for banks

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    Apple files for security, simulation, display luminance and flash memory patents

    News

    Apple has filed for several new patents, covering security, display luminance, flash memory, mobile device simulation and more. However the volume of creative and visionary patents filed by Apple within the past few months is considerably lower than usual.

    Patently Apple reports that the new patent filings, published by the US Patent & Trademark Office on Thursday, includes security patents involving cryptographic pass codes, the display of spatio-temporal dithered images with colour shift and luminance, streaming zip filed via flash memory, a way to simulate the performance of a mobile device for improved testing abilities, and the automatic discovery of metadata.

    Apple?s patents are all utility-centric, and although these kinds of patents ensure that Apple protects the small details behind its products, it is unusual to see such a lack of more significant patents. Patently Apple describes the patent shortage as ?nothing shy of anaemic?.

    ?Here?s hoping that Apple is in the process of changing gears and inventing their next-generation of knock-out products for us to enjoy,? says the report.

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    Sydney Harbor: Trash Found From More Than 200 Years Ago

    From Mother Nature Network's Russell McLendon:

    Sydney Harbor is one of the world's most picturesque seaports, renowned for both its natural beauty and iconic architecture. Yet after two centuries as the front porch of a major metropolis, it also hides an ugly secret below the surface: Garbage now blankets the seabed around Sydney, some of it nearly as old as the city itself.

    All this trash causes a variety of local problems, environmentalists say, such as leaching toxic chemicals into seawater or tempting marine animals to eat tiny bits of plastic. And it may feed a much broader environmental threat, too, since some of the debris washes out to sea and could ultimately join the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

    But thanks to a coalition of local divers and environmentalists, Sydney Harbor's garbage problem is undergoing a rare ? albeit slow ? change of fortune. As the BBC and Yahoo News report, Sydney-area divers have begun volunteering their time and talents to manually remove trash from the harbor floor, tackling a massive problem that has festered behind the scenes for nearly two centuries.

    "The stuff on the bottom has been accumulating for 200 years, and it's only now we're really trying to pull it out in any sort of quantity," local diver Dave Thomas tells Australia's Seven News. "It's been out of sight and out of mind."

    The effort is led by two Sydney-based conservation groups: Eco Divers, which conducts marine research and rehab missions via scuba diving, and the Two Hands Project, which rallies volunteers for beach cleanups and other environmental ventures. As Thomas tells Seven News, this kind of work comes naturally to people who spend a lot of time in the ocean. "As a diver you see this stuff, and if it was on land you would be disgusted," he says, "and you would do something about it."

    Loose garbage remains a problem in urban areas worldwide, but coastal cities face unique challenges: Their own trash can hide offshore, either lurking in place or washing into ocean gyres, and they can also receive transoceanic trash from other cities, such as Japan's tsunami debris now reaching U.S. shores. Sydney's waste woes are especially severe, both for the local environment and for the Pacific at large, since ocean currents can carry debris to New Zealand and beyond, potentially feeding garbage patches in the North Pacific. The local government hasn't ignored the issue, though ? it employs a harbor cleanup team, for example, which began boosting its productivity in the 1990s by using prison inmates to help it collect trash.

    But the prison-labor program was nixed in late 2010, and as the Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year, trash removal from the harbor has fallen since then ? even as heavy rains washed more debris out to sea. State cleanup crews collected just 2,284 cubic meters (80,658 cubic feet) of waste in Sydney Harbor during the last financial year, the paper reported, down 18 percent from the year before. This was partly due to other factors, namely the temporary loss of a key cleanup vessel, but losing so much labor has likely also played a role.

    "One can draw the conclusion that there would be more litter in the harbor," Peter McLean, the New South Wales director of Keep Australia Beautiful, told the Herald in January. "I hate to see programs like this not continue in some form. It would certainly be very detrimental." Yet despite such setbacks, the NSW government maintains its stated goal of having Australia's lowest per capita litter count by 2016.

    Eco Divers' and Two Hands' cleanup efforts could help with that, but it won't be easy. As the BBC reports, some of Sydney's marine debris is big and unwieldy, such as old bicycles and bathtubs, and even smaller objects like plastic bags, bottles and fishing lures are labor-intensive to remove by hand. And while it's hard enough to collect two centuries' worth of trash from the bottom of a busy harbor, more than 900 metric tons of garbage also washes back onto local beaches every year, much of it becoming trapped on rocky shores, Seven News reports. Sydney cleanup crews cover some 12,000 acres of waterways and 170 miles of shoreline, according to the Herald.

    It is a daunting task, but as Two Hands' Dean Cropp tells the BBC, any progress is worth the trouble. "Unless someone cleans it up, it could be there for years," he says. "It could be there for hundreds of years ? doing damage the whole time."

    For a closer look at Sydney Harbor's litter problem, see this video from Seven News:

    (Photo: State Records NSW/Flickr)

    Also on HuffPost:

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