Now is the time to sell your iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S

Apple is expected to announce its?new iPhone 5 within the next two weeks, and without a doubt, public reaction will be huge. Everyone will want the latest and greatest Apple phone, and the existing iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S models will experience huge drops in value. But that price plunge won't happen until after the September 12 announcement?? as of now, your iPhone is still worth top dollar. If you want to cash in, you have plenty of options, but you'll have to act fast.

Sell it back to Apple
One of the easiest ways to dump your old iPhone is to use Apple's own Reuse and Recycle (R&R) Program. You simply visit the Apple R&R website and answer a few questions about your phone, such as whether or not it powers on, whether the battery fully charges, and whether or not the glass is scratched. The site will give you an estimate of your phone's value, and if the amount is satisfactory, you can mail in your used phone and get an Apple gift card in return.

The R&R Program is still offering decent amounts of money for used iPhones. On the highest end, you can get up to $345 for a 64GB iPhone 4S in top condition. For those with an older?iPhone 4, values still hold up surprisingly well. With some minor scratching, the 8GB iPhone 4 is worth a minimum of $105, provided it works and is returned with a power cord. Even an ancient iPhone 3G can be worth as much as $55.

Sell it to a third party reseller
If you'd rather have cash instead of a gift card?? and let's be honest, who wouldn't??? you might want to check out a third-party reseller like NextWorth. It works similar to the Apple R&R program: You answer some questions, print out a shipping label, and then mail in your used iPhone. Values are competitive: We were quoted a value of $351 for our 64GB iPhone 4S, $6 more than Apple was willing to offer. And the best part is that NextWorth gives you three weeks to send in your device after issuing the quote, allowing you just enough time to order and pick up your new iPhone 5.

fva-300-shattered-broken-iphone-no-credit-requiredIf you're impatient, you can skip the trip to the post office: NextWorth has a partnership with brick-and-mortar retailer Target. Bring your device into one of the 1,470 participating locations (a full list is on the NextWorth website), and you can be instantly gratified with a Target gift card in exchange for your used iPhone. It may not be cash, but it's quicker.

Sell it on eBay
If you're adventurous enough to list your used iPhone on eBay, you can get an even larger payday. A 64GB iPhone 4S can net you anywhere between $450 and $500 depending on condition, color, and network ? almost enough to cover the cost of a new iPhone 5 outright. Your iPhone 4 is worth more on eBay too, with completed auctions for working phones starting around $175. Even cracked and broken phones are worth money to buyers, so it's worth trying your luck there before throwing your old phone in the trash.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tecca/~3/1g9wRklQd2Y/

aladdin black forest ufc 144 fight card ufc 144 results acura nsx all star weekend 2012 giada de laurentiis

Science-Based Medicine ? Rejecting cancer treatment: What are the ...

One of the points I?ve tried to emphasize through my contributions to Science-Based Medicine is that every treatment decision requires an evaluation of risks and benefits. No treatment is without some sort of risk. And a decision to decline treatment has its own risks. One of the challenges that I confront regularly as a pharmacist is helping patients understand a medication?s expected long-term benefits against the risks and side effects of treatment. This dialogue is most challenging with symptomless conditions like high blood pressure, where patients face the prospect of immediate side effects against the potential for long-term benefit. One?s willingness to accept side effects is influenced, in part, by and understanding of, and belief in, the overall goals of therapy. Side effects from blood-pressure medications can be unpleasant. But weighed against the reduced risk of catastrophic events like strokes, drug therapy may be more acceptable. Willingness to accept these tradeoffs varies dramatically by disease, and are strongly influenced by patient-specific factors. In general, the more serious the illness, the greater the willingness to accept the risks of treatment.

As I?ve described before, consumers may have completely different risk perspectives when it comes to drug therapies and (so-called) complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). For some, there is a clear delineation between the two: drugs are artificial, harsh, and dangerous. Supplements, herbs and anything deemed ?alternative?, however, are natural, safe, and effective. When we talk about drugs, we use scientific terms ? discussing the probability of effectiveness or harm, and describing both. With CAM, no tentativeness or balance may be used. Specific treatment claims may not be backed up by any supporting evidence at all. On several occasions patients with serious medical conditions have told me that they are refusing all drug treatments, describing them as ineffective or too toxic. Many are attracted to the the simple promises of CAM, instead. Now I?m not arguing that drug treatment is always necessary for ever illness. For some conditions where lifestyle changes can obviate the need for drug treatments, declining treatment this may be a reasonable approach ? it?s a kick in the pants to improve one?s lifestyle. Saying ?no? may also be reasonable where the benefits from treatment are expected to be modest, yet the adverse effects from treatments are substantial. These scenarios are not uncommon in the palliative care setting. But in some circumstances, there?s a clear medical requirement for drug treatment ? yet treatment is declined. This approach is particularly frustrating in situations where patients face very serious illnesses that are potentially curable.? This week is the World Cancer Congress in Montreal and on Monday there were calls for patients to beware of fake cancer cures, ranging from laetrile, to coffee enemas, to juicing, and mistletoe. What are the consequences of using alternative treatments, instead of science-based care, for cancer? There are several studies and a recent publication that can help answer that question.

Who uses CAM instead of medicine?

Surveys suggest the vast majority of consumers with medical conditions use CAM in addition to, rather than as a substitute for medicine ? that is, it is truly ?complementary?. But there is a smaller population that uses CAM as a true ?alternative? to medicine. A study by Nahin et al in 2010 looked at data from the 2002 National Healath Interview Survey (NHIS), which is described as a representative sample of Americans.? It examined the group that did not use ?conventional care? in the past 12 months ? no health professionals, no emergency room visits, no surgery, and no nursing care of any kind. It asked about alternative medicine, which included acupuncture, ayurveda, biofeedback, chelation, chiropractic, energy healing/Reiki, hypnosis, massage, naturopathy, homeopathy, specialized diets, high-dose vitamins, yoga, tai chi, qui gong, and meditation. The survey found that 19.3% of adults did not access any ?conventional? health care in the past 12 months. Of this group, over one third (38.4%) had some health need (of which 23.8% considered a serious condition). In the population that did not use conventional care, one-quarter (24.8%)? used some form of alternative medicine. And 12% (approximately 4.6 million Americans) were estimated to be using alternative medicine, and not conventional medicine, to treat one or more health issues. Barriers to accessing health care were explored and users of alternative medicine had poorer health and had more barriers to care, with about 20% noting the decision to use alternative care was based on cost considerations of conventional care. There were several limitations worth noting: Most importantly, the types of conditions treated with ?only CAM? were not collected. And as some users cited the costs of conventional care as a barrier, different insurance schemes might be expected to change utilization patterns.? Finally, there is no assessment of outcomes. But this survey suggests that there is a small population that will preferentially treat a medical condition with CAM and not medicine.

So how would a decision to accept no treatment, or to only use alternative medicine, compare to ?conventional? cancer care (chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery)? And what about delaying conventional cancer care to allow a trial of alternative medicine ? does it have a measurable effect? Answering this question isn?t straightforward.? In cancer research, new drugs are typically added to, or follow, established therapies, so all patients receive standard treatment options as part of their care. So we can?t ethically randomize patients to nothing, when established treatments exist. But we can answer this question in a different way: Patients that voluntarily opt out of cancer treatment can be followed, and compared to patients that do take cancer treatment. While it isn?t a prospective randomization, which would be the gold standard, it?s the best we can get. But even this approach is difficult. Most patients who decide to opt-out of cancer treatment, also opt-out of any follow-up evaluation. So tracking down patients, and their outcomes, is essential.

The effects of treatment refusals and delay, and the effectiveness of CAM as a substitute, has been evaluated in several groups of patients with breast cancer. Breast cancer is well studied, frequently diagnosed, and if detected early, potentially curable. Conventional treatment for early (localized) breast cancer is surgical resection of the tumor, followed by radiation and chemotherapy to reduce the risk of disease recurrence, by killing any residual cancer cells that remain.? The overall effectiveness of conventional treatment is strongly influenced by the extent of the disease at diagnosis. When treated early in the disease course, the long-term outlook for for women with breast cancer can be excellent. However, once the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, or metastasized to other part of the body, the outcomes are much worse. The treatment focus shifts from curative to palliative. (An old study of untreated breast cancer suggest the 5 year survival rates are 18% at 5 years and 3.6% at 10 years.) Given the potential for treatment cures, very few women elect to reject conventional treatment, or substitute CAM. But some do, which can inform us of the effectiveness of conventional care, as well as that of CAM. I found 5 studies which look at this question:

1. Patients? Refusal of Surgery Strongly Impairs Breast Cancer Survival

This was a Swiss study by?Verkooijen et al, published in 2005 in the Annals of Surgery that looked at 5339 patients under the age of 80 with non-metastatic breast cancer. It didn?t examine CAM, just the decision to refuse breast cancer surgery. It compared patients who refused breast cancer with those that those that accepted surgery. Only 1.3% of women (70) refused surgery. Of that group, 37 had no treatment, 25 had hormone-therapy only, and 8 had other types of treatments. So only a small percentage refused all treatment. In this study, the five-year survival of women that refused surgery was 72% versus 87% of women who had surgery. Adjusting for prognostic factors, the authors estimated that women that refused surgery had a 2.1-fold increased risk of death from breast cancer compared to conventional treatment. The survival curves make this clear:

Figure 1 from Annals of Surgery 2005 Aug 242(2) 276-280. PMCID: PMC1357734

The bottom line in this paper was that a decision to forgo surgery for breast cancer is associated with dramatically worse outcomes and survival.

This was a medical chart review by Chang et al, published in the American Journal of Surgery in 2006. It examined breast cancer patients who refused conventional chemotherapy, or delay its initiation, in order to use CAM. The authors calculated each patient?s prognosis at the time of diagnosis. In total, 33 women were included. (Notably, patients who refused treatment and did not return for follow-up were excluded from the analysis, possibly biasing the results.) The results were grim:

  • Eleven patients initially refused surgery. Ten of these patients experienced progressive disease. Five ultimately had surgery. In the six others, the cancer had already metastasized, so surgery would have offered no benefit.
  • Three patients refused to allow sampling of lymph nodes to evaluate disease spread. One of these patients developed recurrent disease in the lymph nodes.
  • Ten patients refused local control (surgery/radiation) of the tumor site. Two patients developed recurrences in the same location, and two developed metastatic disease.
  • Nine patients refused chemotherapy, raising their estimated 10-year mortality from 17% to 25%

Consistent with the study above, the vast majority of breast cancer patients who refuse surgical intervention developed progressive disease. Even delaying surgery increased risks and overall mortality. Outcomes were better for patients that accepted surgery, but refused adjuvant treatments, like chemotherapy. However, even this strategy significantly raised 10-year mortality estimates.

3.? Alternative therapy used as primary treatment for breast cancer negatively impacts outcomes

This study from Han et al was published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology in 2011, and may include some of the patients in the Chang analysis. This was a retrospective chart review of breast cancer patients who refused or delayed conventional treatments. 61 patients were identified. On average patients had Stage 2 disease at diagnosis, which is highly treatable and potentially curable. In patients that omitted or delayed surgery (26 women) 96.2% had disease progression with 50% dying of the disease. At the time of diagnosis, the median tumor size was 2.0cm. Upon follow-up, the median-size was 7.8cm. (The authors include this photo of a tumor in a woman who elected to use diet and herbal treatments, rather than receive surgery.)

In patients that accepted surgery but rejected adjuvant therapy (chemotherapy/radiation), the initial 10-year relapse-free survival was estimated at 59.2%, which would have been 74.3% had the patients accepted these treatments. Actual outcomes were much worse than predicted. The actual? observed relapse-free survival was only 13.8%. Some subsequently elected to take palliative chemotherapy and radiation to control their disease. From this study we can conclude that refusing or delaying conventional cancer care is associated with much worse outcomes.

4. Prognosis following the use of complementary and alternative medicine in women diagnosed with breast cancer

This analysis, by Saquib et al, was a secondary analysis of the Women?s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) study. It looked at 2562 breast cancer survivors and surveyed for rejection of systemic treatment (i.e., chemotherapy) and use of CAM following surgical resection. All women had to be aged 18-70 and had operable Stage I-IIIa breast cancer. In this group, 177 women were identified who declined systemic treatment. 80% of this group used CAM. Compared to women that took chemotherapy, women that declined systemic treatment had a 90% greater risk of an additional breast cancer event, and the risk of death increased by 70%. CAM use had no effect on this finding. In addition, the lack of effect was consistent between ?high supplement users? (>3 per day) and low supplement users. The authors concluded that women that decline systemic treatment are at greater risk for subsequent recurrence and death due to breast cancer. The use of CAM had no measurable effect on the recurrence of breast cancer or on the risk of subsequent death.

5. Outcome analysis of breast cancer patients who declined evidence-based treatment

Here is the recent paper I referred to above, which studied women with breast cancer in Northern Alberta who refused standard treatments.? It was also a chart review with a matched pair analysis (age, disease stage, calendar year) that compared survival with those that? received conventional cancer care. Between 1980 and 2006 they identified 185 women (1.2%) that refused cancer care following diagnosis by biopsy. (Notably, cancer care is an insured service in Alberta, so there should have been no financial barriers in accessing treatment.) Women older than 75 were excluded from the analysis because this population is generally not included in clinical trials and active treatment regimens. In addition, women that accepted surgery, but rejected chemotherapy/radiation were excluded from the analysis. To qualify, women had to have rejected all conventional care. The final population studied was 87 women, most of whom presented with early (Stage I or II) disease. Most were married, over the age of 50, and urban residents. In this group, the primary treatment was CAM in 58%, and was unknown in the remainder. Some women in this group eventually accepted cancer care, and the average delay was 20-30 weeks due to CAM use.

The results were grim. The 5 year overall survival was 43% for women that declined cancer care, and 86% for women that received conventional cancer care. For cancer-specific survival (i.e., those that died of breast cancer) survival was 46% vs. 85% in those that took cancer care. The survival curves are ugly:

(a) All causes of deaths and (b) deaths due to breast cancer only

The authors compared the ?CAM? group to those where treatment plan (if any) was not known:

(a) - death due to all causes (b) death due to breast cancer only.

(a) All causes of deaths and (b) deaths due to breast cancer only

Note that the difference is only statistically significant in (a) where all-causes of death were included and not (b), cancer-specific causes. So does that mean CAM helps? Probably not. The two groups are not well defined, and the ?unknown? group could include CAM users ? it is not a comparison of CAM versus no treatment.? And as the types of CAM used was not documented, this is a heterogeneous group. The key point this comparison illustrates is that CAM users did dramatically worse than women that took conventional cancer care. Even delaying surgery to allow for CAM first significantly decreased the effectiveness of subsequent conventional care.? The authors conclude, correctly, that there is no evidence to support using CAM as primary cancer treatment.

Effectiveness Evaluations

The data show that avoiding or delaying conventional cancer care is associated with negative outcomes, and CAM used does not seem to modify this risk. But have any specific CAM interventions shown any benefit? Probably the most comprehensive single review is a systematic review by Gerber et al, published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment in 2006, which looked at CAM effectiveness for early breast cancer. It concludes:

There is no compelling evidence that any of the numerous complementary treatments available is sufficiently effective in breast cancer patients to justify its use. It should be the responsibility of those who claim efficacy for CAM to support these claims with acceptable evidence, rather than the responsibility of those who criticize CAM to prove its non-efficacy.

Based on the current evidence, there is nothing to suggest that any specific CAM treatment has any meaningful clinical effects.

Conclusion

Despite widespread claims, there is no evidence to support the use of any CAM treatment as a replacement for conventional cancer care. As the studies in breast cancer show, delaying treatment or substituting CAM for conventional cancer care dramatically worsens outcomes.The results of these studies will hopefully provide patients and health providers with a better understanding of the risks and consequences of CAM for cancer. CAM is no alternative to science-based cancer care.

References
1. Verkooijen HM, Fioretta GM, Rapiti E, Bonnefoi H, Vlastos G, Kurtz J, Schaefer P, Sappino AP, Schubert H, & Bouchardy C (2005). Patients? refusal of surgery strongly impairs breast cancer survival. Annals of surgery, 242 (2), 276-80 PMID: 16041219

2. Chang EY, Glissmeyer M, Tonnes S, Hudson T, & Johnson N (2006). Outcomes of breast cancer in patients who use alternative therapies as primary treatment. American journal of surgery, 192 (4), 471-3 PMID: 16978951

3. Han E, Johnson N, DelaMelena T, Glissmeyer M, & Steinbock K (2011). Alternative therapy used as primary treatment for breast cancer negatively impacts outcomes. Annals of surgical oncology, 18 (4), 912-6 PMID: 21225354

4. Saquib J, Parker BA, Natarajan L, Madlensky L, Saquib N, Patterson RE, Newman VA, & Pierce JP (2012). Prognosis following the use of complementary and alternative medicine in women diagnosed with breast cancer. Complementary therapies in medicine, 20 (5), 283-90 PMID: 22863642

5. Joseph K, Vrouwe S, Kamruzzaman A, Balbaid A, Fenton D, Berendt R, Yu E, & Tai P (2012). Outcome analysis of breast cancer patients who declined evidence-based treatment. World journal of surgical oncology, 10 (1) PMID: 22734852

Source: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/rejecting-cancer-treatment-what-are-the-consequences/

mets shades of grey pittsburgh penguins record store day jennie garth space needle nashville predators

Gabon opposition party calls for dialogue with government

The party of former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo made a call for dialogue with the government Thursday amid heightened tension between the opposition and the head of state.

The call to President Alassane Ouattara's regime by the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) comes after a recent spate of attacks on the army and security forces that the goverment has blamed on Gbagbo supporters.

The attacks, which killed a dozen men in the west of the country and in the Abidjan region, brought tensions to a level not seen since the bloody post-electoral crisis of December 2010 to April 2011 that claimed 3,000 lives.

The conflict was sparked when Gbabgo refused to admit defeat to Ouattara at the presidential polls.

"The situation today makes dialogue more than necessary," FPI president Sylvain Miaka Oureto said at a press conference Thursday, adding that "we need to sit down and talk."

He said the FPI was available for frank, sincere talks with the government.

Earlier Thursday, the head of Ivory Coast's post-war reconciliation panel said the country urgently needed dialogue amid the resurgence of tensions.

FPI has vehemently denied involvement in the recent attacks, which led to the arrest of three key Gbagbo allies.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gabon-opposition-party-calls-dialogue-government-175525635.html

new ipad 3 jodie fisher zooey deschanel yvette prieto hypertrophic cardiomyopathy kaye stevens michael jordan engaged

Japan Sizes Up Social Media as an Emergency Response Tool

Today in international tech news: Japan's government engages in talks about devising an official social media emergency response system. Also: Sony unveils some nifty new gadgets in Berlin, including a water-resistant tablet; a journalist is arrested for hacking a blogger's email account; and Assange supporters go on strike.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/22e752d7/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C760A50A0Bhtml/story01.htm

brandon rios oklahoma news nascar news doppler radar colorado rockies moonshine news channel 4

Distro Issue 55: a cautionary tale of the state-supported 38 Studios

Distro Issue 55 the cautionary tale of 38 Studios and state investments

In 2004, Curt Schilling and a badly injured ankle led the Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years. That's right, he was the ace that helped break the "Curse of the Bambino" from the mound. Fast forward to 2010, where Schilling had hung up his cleats and lobbied for Rhode Island officials to give his video game outfit, 38 Studios, a $75 million loan guarantee. Just two years later, the studio filed for Chapter 7, leaving the state's taxpayers holding the tab. In this week's issue, Jason Hidalgo takes a look at what went down in New England and examines the risk of public funds being used to support private tech companies. We had folks on the ground in Berlin to monitor the happenings at IFA this week and a few notable gadgets from said event occupy "Hands-on". As far as full-on reviews go, we put the Archos 101 XS, Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE and Acer Aspire V5 through their paces. "Forum" is chock full of even more reads, eSports commentator John Sargent stops by for the Q&A, "Time Machines" kicks it old school and "Eyes-on" takes on 35mm, retro-style photography. The week is over, so hit the link that you fancy the most to grab your copy and let the relaxation begin.

Distro Issue 55 PDF
Distro in the iTunes App Store
Distro in the Google Play Store
Distro APK (for sideloading)
Like Distro on Facebook
Follow Distro on Twitter

Filed under: , ,

Distro Issue 55: a cautionary tale of the state-supported 38 Studios originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceiTunes, Google Play  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/distro-issue-55-38-studios/

wonderlic test texas tornado fantasy baseball st louis cardinals jared sullinger jaleel white levi johnston

MEN-FACTOR: Gay Marriage ? The Blind Being Pissed Off by the ...

Well, people fight, bicker and argue over whether or not gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married. Some people let their tempers flare, others simply show signs that they do not care.

At any rate, what is the real issue behind gay marriage?

Like any issue the mainstream media and government push ? it is a tactic to divide and conquer the American people.

I?ll start out by throwing some tomatoes at our religious leaders

Marriage as according to the bible is not mentioned very often. There is no layout for a ceremony. In fact, according to the bible scholar I spoke to, the only precedence for marriage was for a man to pay a woman?s father a certain amount of money (or goods ? like livestock, grain etc...).

By religious standards ? you needed no license to get married according to the bible.

Why then, if marriage is in fact a religious ceremony, do you need a license to get married in America?? Since when do you need a license in America to practice your religious beliefs?

Any Pat Robertson?s out there want to answer me?

Since when is marriage a legal contract with the government more than a bonding of holy matrimony?

Any Jerry Falwell?s out there got an answer?

Since when does modern day marriage ? something that is more geared towards legal contracts with the government have any more ?sanctity? than a hooker?

Any Joel Olsteen?s out there got an answer for me?

Now, let?s throw some tomatoes at the Gay and Lesbian community:

Are you people stupid?? Do you have eyes?

Have you seen what the institution of marriage has done for heterosexual relationships in this country? It has made a complete disaster of them. 87% of marriages end in divorce ? legal fees, economic ruin etc?

And the gays and lesbians out there want to fight for their right to gleefully jump into this bottomless pit of hell fire with the heterosexuals???

WTF is wrong with you people?!?!

It seems to me, that gays and lesbians should be walking around with sh*t eating grins on their faces ? glad to tears that they do not have to get the government involved in their relationships ? and nor will they be pressured to do so by their partners since they cannot in the first place.

So ? ultimately, what does the issue of gay marriage boil down to?

Keeping people blind to the fact that the government has already taken over it.

And the government using it against the American people ? in this case ? as a divide and conquer tactic by throwing gays in to stir up a hornet?s nest.

So my fellow Americans - keep bickering, keep arguing and keep fighting to let the government have control over your relationships and your money.

In other words - keep acting like fools.

Have a nice day...FOOOLS!!!!

Source: http://men-factor.blogspot.com/2012/08/gay-marriage-blind-being-pissed-off-by.html

newt gingrich wives weather gina carano at last al green burger king delivery etta james at last

Monogamy and the immune system: Differences in sexual behavior impact bacteria hosted and genes that control immunity

ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2012) ? In the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains two closely related species of mice share a habitat and a genetic lineage, but have very different social lives. The California mouse (Peromyscus californicus) is characterized by a lifetime of monogamy; the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) is sexually promiscuous.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley recently showed how these differences in sexual behavior impact the bacteria hosted by each species as well as the diversity of the genes that control immunity. The results were published in the May 2012 edition of PLoS One.

Monogamy is a fairly rare trait in mammals, possessed by only five percent of species. Rarely do two related, but socially distinguishable, species live side-by-side. This makes these two species of mice interesting subjects for Matthew MacManes, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored post-doctoral fellow at UC Berkeley.

Through a series of analyses, MacManes and researchers from the Lacey Lab examined the differences between these two species on the microscopic and molecular levels. They discovered that the lifestyles of the two mice had a direct impact on the bacterial communities that reside within the female reproductive tract. Furthermore, these differences correlate with enhanced diversifying selection on genes related to immunity against bacterial diseases.

Bacteria live on every part of our bodies and have distinctive ecologies. The first step of MacManes project involved testing the bacterial communities that resided in the vaginas of both species of mice -- the most relevant area for a study about monogamous and promiscuous mating systems.

Next, MacManes performed a genetic analysis on the variety of DNA present, revealing hundreds of different types of bacteria present in each species. He found that the promiscuous deer mouse had twice the bacterial diversity as the monogamous California mouse. Since many bacteria cause sexually transmitted infections (like chlamydia or gonorrhea), he used the diversity of bacteria as a proxy for risk of disease. Results of the study were published in Naturwissenschaften in October 2011.

But this wasn't the end of the exploration.

"The obvious next question was, does the bacterial diversity in the promiscuous mice translate into something about the immune system, or how the immune system functions?" MacManes asked.

MacManes hypothesized that selective pressures caused by generation after generation of bacterial warfare had fortified the genomes of the promiscuous deer mouse against the array of bacteria it hosts.

To find out, he sequenced genes related to immune function of the two mice species and compared each species' versions of one important immunity gene, MHC-DQa. Some forms of genes (alleles) are better at recognizing different pathogens than others. If an individual has only a single common allele, it may only recognize a limited set of bacterial pathogens. In contrast, if an individual has two different alleles it may recognize a more diverse set of bacterial pathogens, and thus be more protected against infection.

Based on a comparison of the two species' genotypes he confirmed that the promiscuous mice had much more diversity in the genes related to their immune system.

"The promiscuous mice, by virtue of their sexual system, are in contact with more individuals and are exposed to a lot more bacteria," MacManes said. "They need a more robust immune system to fend off all of the bugs that they're exposed to."

The results, published in PLoS One, match findings in humans and other species with differential mating habits. They show that differences in social behavior can lead to changes in the selection pressures and gene-level evolutionary changes in a species.

Motivated by this result, MacManes began work on a project that looked to understand the genetics of a far more complex behavior -- whether to stay at home with relatives, or to disperse to a new burrow.

Scientists have been sequencing and exploring the genome for more than a decade. For much of this time, studies have been limited to the most common and well-known species: humans, lab-mice, and fruit flies. But in recent years, as the cost of sequencing has dropped and the methods of exploring genomic information have improved, researchers have begun to analyze other less traditional organisms.

MacManes project was one of the first studies to use next-generation gene sequencing and high performance computers to assess the influence of behavior on genes in a non-model species.

"This is a field that people have always been interested in, but the tools hadn't existed yet for people to really understand how complex the mechanisms were," MacManes said.

Next-generation sequencing determines the order of the nucleotide bases in a molecule of DNA by breaking the double helix into short fragments and rapidly analyzing thousands of chunks at a time. Once hundreds of millions of genetic snippets have been read out by a DNA sequencer, they must be assembled into a single genome, or mapped to a reference genome, and compared to other genetic sequences to be useful.

"The sequencing is something that you can do in any molecular biology lab -- that's easy," MacManes said. "But when you try to do an analysis of the data, you get back something like several billion base pairs of data. How to actually analyze the data is the real issue."

As a National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate research fellow, MacManes learned that researchers could access NSF supercomputers through the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) to analyze datasets too big for their university laboratory clusters. Once he had his sequences, MacManes turned to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, a lead partner in XSEDE and home to the Ranger supercomputer.

"When we first started using Ranger, it was a breakthrough moment for us," he said. "We had the data set, but we didn't have any way to do anything with it. Ranger was really our first real chance at analyzing this data. "

The alignment and analysis that MacManes accomplished on Ranger in a few weeks would have taken years with his local resources. It organized the data so MacManes could find insights about the relationship between genes and behavior.

"The ability to isolate and compare genetic differences related to social behavior using advanced computing is a fascinating application of emerging technologies," said Jennifer Verodolin, a researcher specializing in social rodents at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina. "We often see individual and population-level social and mating differences within the same species. While ecological factors are linked to this variation, these sophisticated new tools will now allow us to see the genetic signature of how natural selection has shaped behavior."

Mating systems, and social systems more broadly, are important to basic evolutionary biology, MacManes asserted. "The things an animal does, the way it behaves, and who it interacts with, are important to natural selection. These factors can cause immunogenes to evolve at a much faster rate, or slower in the case of monogamous mice. That connection is important and probably under-recognized."

Monogamy and promiscuity are only one of a variety of social behaviors that are thought to influence gene expression. MacManes' current research involves analyzing gene expression in the hippocampus brain region of tuco tucos (a sort of South American gopher) who live together in social groups and others who live independently. He is hoping to find what differentiates the social animals from the loners and what impact this change in their behavior has on their genetic profile.

"Now that we have these new sequencing technologies, people are going to be really interested in looking at the mechanisms that underlie these behaviors," MacManes said. "How might genes control what we do, and how we behave? We're going to see an explosion in these studies where people start to understand the very basic genetic mechanism for all sorts of behaviors that we know are out there."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center. The original article was written by Aaron Dubrow.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Matthew D. MacManes, Eileen A. Lacey. Is Promiscuity Associated with Enhanced Selection on MHC-DQ? in Mice (genus Peromyscus)? PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (5): e37562 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037562

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/Tg_qUoih3C0/120830141405.htm

pi white lion mike d antoni resigns holes ncaa brackets 2012 odd lamar

the Galaxy Camera

Samsung today launched the first true compact camera/smart device hybrid - the Galaxy Camera, with 3G/4G
connectivity as well as Wi-Fi (which sets it apart from Wi-Fi-only competitors like the recently-announced Nikon
Coolpix S800c).

Camera manufacturers have been seeing sales of their compact cameras fall for a long time now, challenged by a
new generation of camera-equipped smartphones. As the photographic specification of phones get better, there's
less need for most casual photographers to carry a dedicated camera, and if you're in the business of selling compact
cameras, this is a serious problem. But Samsung believes it has a solution. Take a WB850F camera, and a Galaxy SIII
smartphone, and...blend them....

REVIEW

Source: http://www.teoti.co.uk/hardware/118357-the-galaxy-camera.html

radio shack bethany hamilton bethany hamilton after christmas sales macys stratfor bears vs packers

Slot Machine - Apple iPhone / iPod Touch App Promo Codes to Giveaway

-->Slot Machine + - Apple iPhone / iPod Touch App Promo Codes to Giveaway
Posted on 29th Aug 2012
THE ORIGINAL #1 VEGAS CASINO SLOTS! TOP FEATURES: ? 5 Exciting Mini Games: Video Poker, Super Spinner, Super Derby, Scratch Card & Pot Of Gold ? Progressive Super Jackpot ? 'PREMIUM SLOTS' with higher payouts ? 2x MULTIPLIER For 1/2/12/168 hrs ? Real Time Tournament & Multiplayer Mode ... (scroll down to enter giveaway OR read more...).
Developer / Publisher: Apostek
Category: Games
Platform: iPhone | iPod Touch $1.99 Buy now
Original price of the app at time of giveaway.

How to enter:

Do one of the following or even better all 4 for 'BONUS ENTRIES' then click 'Enter Giveaway' (see below) and feel free to leave a comment too?-->
--> --> -->--> Like this app on Facebook = 2 Entries
Tweet this post on Twitter = 2 Entries
--> Join AppGiveaway on Facebook = 1 Entry
Follow AppGiveaway on Twitter = 1 Entry


What happens now?

1. The giveaway ends on 2nd September 2012.
2. The winner(s) will be chosen at random (Don?t forget your BONUS ENTRIES above).
3. The winner(s) will be contacted by email and announced below.
?Watch this space ? it could be you or someone you know?

What happens now?

1. The giveaway ends on 2nd September 2012.
2. The winner(s) will be chosen at random (Don’t forget your BONUS ENTRIES above).
3. The winner(s) will be contacted by email and announced below.


Congratulations to

‘Watch this space – it could be you or someone you know’ -->

Comments


--> Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by

Source: http://www.appgiveaway.com/id/883/Games/2012/29/08/Slot-Machine-+-apple-iPhone-iPod-Touch-app-promo-codes-to-giveaway/

space shuttle discovery spacex tupac hologram tupac back tax deadline death race buffet rule