Historic datasets reveal effects of climate change and habitat loss on plant-pollinator networks

Feb. 28, 2013 ? Are plant-pollinator networks holding together as the insects and plants in the network are jostled by climate change and habitat loss?

The question is difficult to answer because there is no baseline: few historic datasets record when plants first bloomed or insects first appeared and almost none follow both plants and insects.

Which is why biologist Tiffany Knight and her then postdoctoral research associate Laura Burkle were delighted to discover meticulous data on a plant-pollinator network recorded by Illinois naturalist Charles Robertson between 1887 and 1916.

Re-collecting 26 spring-blooming flowers from Robertson's network, Knight, PhD, professor of biology at Washington University, and Burkle, PhD, now assistant professor of ecology at Montana State University, discovered that the network had weakened.

Half the bee species associated with these flowers in Robertson's lifetime had disappeared, some pollinators were active before their plants had bloomed, plants weren't visited as often, and the bees that did visit weren't carrying as much usable pollen.

"The network is still there and still functioning, despite major perturbations," Knight said. "The bees still have food, plants are still getting pollinator service. But the service has declined, the network's structure is weaker, and its response to future perturbations much less certain," she said.

The study, the first to look at human disruption of plant-pollinator networks through the lens of historical data, appears in the Feb. 28th online edition of Science.

Robertson's astonishing legacy

A professor of biology and Greek at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois, Charles Robertson collected flower-visiting insects near Carlinville between 1887 and 1916.

Over 20 years Robertson recorded visits from 1429 pollinators (including flies, beetles and butterflies as well as bees) to 456 plant species. He identified and described several hundred insects previously unknown to science. So respected is he among entomologists that roughly 20 additional species have been named for him. Robertson's meticulous database is probably the oldest of its type for flower-visiting insects.

"Before Robertson," said co-author John Marlin, PhD, a research affiliate at the University of Illinois's Prairie Research Institute who had re-collected part of Robertson's network in the 1970s, "almost all insect collecting was done independently of the plant. Robertson was one of the first to record the insect, the plant it was collected on, to the extent possible what the insect was doing, and other factors, which led to an explosion of information on insect-plant relationships."

Burkle said she particularly enjoyed the sleuthing needed to figure out Robertson's methods so that they could replicate them. "It was like solving a mystery, she said, trying to deduce what he had done from old ledgers, specimen i.d. tags, and his privately published book Flowers and Insects."

How Robertson's network is doing

"Robertson studied it all," Knight said. "He studied forests, he studied prairies, he studied roadside plants, he studied old fields; he even moved some plants to his own yard so he could study them more easily. If it was a species of flowering plant within a 10-mile radius of Carlinville, it was in his study. "

"To keep our project manageable," Knight said, we re-collected a subset of the network Robertson collected, focusing on one plant community: forest spring ephemeral plants. We looked at 26 plant species in this community, which were associated with 109 bees in Robertson's time."

"If any community is going to be affected by climate change," Knight said, "it would be this one, because the plants flower soon after the winter snow melts."

In many ways the most startling finding to emerge from the re-collection was that half Robertson's bees were nowhere to be found. The scientists never saw them.

Robertson's bees were mostly solitary bees, small, nondescript bees that lay a few eggs in cells and leave their young to develop on their own.

"Some of these bees have broad distributions, encompassing, for example, the entire eastern United States, so even though they're locally extirpated, most are not extinct," said Knight.

The re-collection also revealed timing mismatches between the bees and the plants. Plants were flowering earlier than they had in Robertson's time: on average. 9.5 days earlier. Bees were active earlier too: on average 11 days earlier.

But despite similar average shifts, timing mismatches occurred, because the early-season bees advanced a lot more than the late-season bees, said Knight, and no such pattern occurred among the plants.

Moreover, everything had speeded up. The flowers were in bloom eight fewer days on average and the insects flew for 22.5 fewer days. Because everything was more compressed, there was less overlap and less time for successful pollination.

Of the 532 pairings between the plants and bees that linked the subset of Robertson's network Knight and Burkle studied, 406 had been lost (but 120 new pairings had been gained). Forty five percent of the links were broken because bee species were missing, and the rest had broken for other reasons, including timing mismatches or habitat fragmentation.

A 40-year-old re-collection of Robertson's network

But Burkle and Knight were aware that counting network links was a crude measure of pollination services. "All the network diagrams say is the bee is present, the plant is present, and we saw them interacting at least once," Knight points out.

"Robertson didn't keep track of how much time he spent in the field watching each flower, so we couldn't get visitation rates from his data. But of course we searched the literature to see whether anybody had published on the Carlinville network since Robertson, and one person had."

That person turned out to be Marlin. "All through high school I studied bees and ants," he said, "and when I came to college, the Illinois Natural History Survey hired me to help collect insects around the state.

"In my senior year I was asked to collect bees at Carlinville to try to duplicate as much as possible Robertson's efforts. I spent two seasons collecting on 24 plants that Robertson had collected on."

One of the plants Marlin studied was Claytonia virginica, commonly known as 'spring beauty.' "We were very interested in Claytonia virginica because it is the plant in the network currently visited by the greatest diversity of bees," Knight said.

"Marlin's dataset gave us visitation rate, a quantitative measure of pollination we otherwise wouldn't have had. Comparing the visitation rates we measured to Marlin's, we discovered that the bees were making fewer trips to the flowers than they had in the 1970s.

"Marlin counted 0.59 bee arrivals per minute and we counted 0.14 arrivals. So even those some interactions are still present, they're weaker.

Both Robertson and Marlin had collected their bees, pinned them, and deposited them in the Illinois Natural History Survey, often still fuzzy with pollen.

To assess how much usable pollen the bees had carried, Burkle and Knight picked six bee species that frequently visited Claytonia virginica, two named by Robertson, and washed Robertson's archival specimens of those bees, Marlin's specimens and their own.

"We gave the bee a gentle bath and washed its pollen off onto a microscope slide and then we fluffed it back up with a hair dryer," Knight says.

Since these were all the same species of bee caught off the same flower, the default assumption was that they'd be covered in much the same pollen.

Not so. It turned out that these bees had been more loyal to Claytonia in the past than they were now.

The fraction of the pollen on the bee contributed by Claytonia virginica was highest in Robertson's time, lower in Marlin's time and much lower in 2010. Since pollen from another species of plant is at best unusable and at worst can clog up pistils, preventing fertilization, the bee washings also pointed to a decline in pollination services.

The bottom line

"I was surprised by how tenuous a lot of these plant-bee interactions are," Burkle said. "We've pushed on these communities a lot, and they are pretty robust, but at the same time, they are compromised, and more compromised than I was expecting them to be."

There have been major changes in Robertson's network over the past 120 years, Knight said. The good news is that the network proved flexible, and many of the broken connections were replaced with new ones. But the bad news is that network has been restructured in ways that will make it less resilient to disturbances in the future.

We can't just kick these plant-pollinator networks forever and expect them to keep functioning," Knight said.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Laura A. Burkle, John C. Marlin, and Tiffany M. Knight. Plant-Pollinator Interactions over 120 Years: Loss of Species, Co-Occurrence and Function. Science, 28 February 2013 DOI: 10.1126/science.1232728

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/SsrDD7Lr6_w/130228155624.htm

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Metal ions regulate terpenoid metabolism in insects

Feb. 28, 2013 ? Max Planck scientists in Jena, Germany, have discovered an unusual regulation of enzymes that catalyze chain elongation in an important secondary metabolism, the terpenoid pathway. In the horseradish leaf beetle Phaedon cochleariae a single enzyme can trigger the production of two completely different substances depending on whether it is regulated by cobalt, manganese or magnesium ions: iridoids, which are defensive substances the larvae use to repel predators, or juvenile hormones, which control insect's development. Insects unlike plants do not have a large arsenal of the proteins called isoprenyl diphosphate synthases. Therefore they may have developed another efficient option to channel metabolites into the different directions of terpenoid metabolism by using metal ions for control.

Natural products: 40,000 terpenes

Apart from the primary metabolism which produces substances that ensure the survival of the cells, there are additional biosynthetic pathways in all organisms. Their products may be less important for a single cell, but they can nevertheless be essential for the whole organism. These pathways are summarized as secondary metabolism. One of them is the terpenoid pathway: with more than 40,000 different known structures it generates one of the largest classes of natural products. Terpenoid molecules have diverse functions and can act as components in molecular signaling pathways, as toxins, fragrances or hormones.

The basic unit of all terpenes is a simple molecule containing five carbon atoms that can be joined to chains of different length. There are monoterpenes (C10 units, 2 x C5), sesquiterpenes (C15, 3 x C5), and even polymers, such as natural rubber, which comprises several hundred C5 units. Special enzymes mediate chain elongation. These enzymes have attracted the curiosity of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, and the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry in Halle. They studied mechanistic alternatives of how chain elongation is regulated.

Metal ions instead of specialized enzymes

Enzymes involved in chain elongation belong to the group of isoprenyl diphosphate synthases. Such an enzyme was isolated from larvae of the horseradish leaf beetle Phaedon cochleariae. It raised the interest of Antje Burse, project group leader in the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.

Experiments with larvae in which the enzyme encoding gene was silenced showed that the protein was involved in the formation of the C10 monoterpene chrysomelidial that larvae produce to defend themselves against predators. The larvae accumulate this monoterpene in special glands and release it as a defensive secretion when they are attacked by their enemies, such as ants.

However, surprising results emerged after comprehensive biochemical characterization of the enzyme. "After we had conducted an in vitro analysis of the protein, including measurements of product formation in the presence of different metal ions as co-factors, we were surprised to discover that only geranyl diphosphate (C10), a precursor for the defensive substance chrysomelidial, was produced after addition of cobalt and manganese ions. On the other hand, adding magnesium ions resulted in the formation of farnesyl diphosphate (C15), a potential precursor for juvenile hormones, which is 5 carbon atoms longer," says the scientist. All three metals were found in larval tissue, leading to the assumption that enzyme catalysis is directed by the different metal co-factors in the larvae, whichever is predominant in amount: Towards toxin or hormone ? physiologically a major difference.

Sequence comparisons cannot replace a thorough biochemical analysis

How the different metal ions modify the product range of the enzyme is still unclear. It is very likely that the varying atomic radii of the metal ions involved in the catalysis effect changes in the spatial structure of the enzyme, which prevent or allow the admission of a third C5 unit and hence result in the production of C10 or C15 molecules.

"Our experiments provide two important findings," says Wilhelm Boland, director at the Max Planck Institute. "First, the directing influence of metal ions on the product formation of isoprenyl diphosphate synthases is a novel "control element" in the regulation of the terpene metabolism which should be included in future experimental settings. And secondly: The diversity of terpenoid molecules cannot be attributed solely to the broad substrate specificity of some enzymes in the last steps of the metabolic pathway, but is in fact already inherent in early biosynthetic steps." Nature continues to provide interesting answers to the question how organisms manage to produce tens of thousands of different secondary metabolites.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.

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Journal Reference:

1. S. Frick, R. Nagel, A. Schmidt, R. R. Bodemann, P. Rahfeld, G. Pauls, W. Brandt, J. Gershenzon, W. Boland, A. Burse. Metal ions control product specificity of isoprenyl diphosphate synthases in the insect terpenoid pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221489110

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/ZoYNlp3uNmI/130228103440.htm

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Britain's resolve to become more energy efficient is about to be tested

Britain's government is trying to encourage consumers to insulate their homes

With Britain facing an energy squeeze and a new carbon tax, the country?s attitude to energy efficiency is about to be tested

In the?coming weeks, the closure of coal and oil-fired power plants is expected to reduce the amount of electricity generated in Britain by 10 percent. Although shortages are not expected, government experts say the country will have to import significantly more gas in the coming years, at a time when prices are expected to rise on world markets. Electricity prices are already due to rise this year because of a new carbon tax on utilities.

To some extent, the punishment is self-inflicted ? plant closures could have been delayed for another three years. However, the government estimates that with ?socially cost-effective investment?, Britain could be consuming 11% less energy by 2020 (196 terawatt hours), equivalent to the output of 22 power stations.

There is certainly room for improvement ? half of the nation?s 27 million homes are not properly insulated, for example ? but indications are that it will be something of a challenge to persuade households and businesses to invest in energy efficiency.

One problem is that the majority of people don?t think they can do anything about rising energy prices. Instead, they blame electricity companies for making excessive profits, even though margins in the power sector tend to be thin.

Then there is the ?hassle? cost, which is also seen as putting a brake on investment, especially in companies which are reluctant to disrupt production for building works.

A third obstacle is in the commercial rental market, where landlords have little incentive to invest in energy-saving improvements because it is the tenants who have to pay the electricity bills.

The government?s approach has been to introduce incentives for households and business. The most recent is the so-called ?Green Deal?, where households and businesses can pay off energy-saving improvements in installments.

Consumer groups say the test of the government?s commitment to energy efficiency will be determined by how much of the carbon tax it actually spends on energy-saving measures, such as upgrading the homes of poorer households.

One study, from Cambridge Econometrics, goes so far as to suggest that, properly deployed, revenues from the carbon tax could boost Britain?s economy, eradicate ?fuel poverty? (defined as households which spend more than 10% of their income on heating), and make a significant contribution to reaching Britain?s carbon-reduction targets.

Source: http://www.abb-conversations.com/2013/02/britains-resolve-to-become-more-energy-efficient-is-about-to-be-tested/

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Rapid, point-of-care tests for syphilis: The future of diagnosis

Feb. 27, 2013 ? Syphilis is on the rise worldwide and there is an urgent need for reliable and rapid screening, particularly for people who live in areas where access to healthcare is limited. An international research team, led by scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, has demonstrated that rapid and point-of-care tests (POC) for syphilis are as accurate as conventional laboratory tests. The findings, which were published in PLoS ONE, call for a major change in approach to syphilis testing and recommend replacing first line laboratory tests with POC tests globally, especially in resource-limited settings.

"There is a need to embrace rapid and POC tests for syphilis in global settings," argues Dr. Nitika Pant Pai, the study's senior and corresponding author, clinical researcher at the RI-MUHC and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at McGill University. "This meta-analysis generates global evidence across all populations for POC tests for syphilis and is the first to use sophisticated analyses to explore the accuracy of POC tests compared to the best reference standards."

Currently, syphilis is screened using conventional laboratory-based tests that can take up to three weeks to deliver results. These tests require chemical agents, trained staff and a continuous supply of electricity, which are not readily available in some parts of the world. Rapid and POC tests can be performed on a simple finger stick sample one patient at a time, and the results communicated to the patient within 20 minutes, saving time and helping doctors order confirmatory tests and rapidly flagging patients who need treatment.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the rod-like bacterium Treponema pallidum. It is transmitted between sexual partners through direct contact with a Syphilis sore. It may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis. "As well timely screening and treatment in first trimester is extremely important for pregnant women to prevent still births, pre-term births and mother-to-child transmission of syphilis," adds Yalda Jafari, the study's first author and a former master's student of Dr. Pant Pai.

As many as 50 million people worldwide are being treated for syphilis and about 12 million new cases are diagnosed every year. However, approximately 90% of those infected do not know it, and this is the driving force behind the worldwide epidemic. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) often refers to syphilis as the "great imitator," because many of its symptoms are similar to other diseases.

"Our study has major worldwide implications for populations living in rural areas with limited access to healthcare," says Dr. Pant Pai. "These tests offer the potential to expedite first line screening in settings where people have no access to a primary care physician or where laboratories take more than a week to deliver results."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McGill University Health Centre, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Journal Reference:

1. Yalda Jafari, Rosanna W. Peeling, Sushmita Shivkumar, Christiane Claessens, Lawrence Joseph, Nitika Pant Pai. Are Treponema pallidum Specific Rapid and Point-of-Care Tests for Syphilis Accurate Enough for Screening in Resource Limited Settings? Evidence from a Meta-Analysis. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e54695 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054695

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/most_popular/~3/eI-lJXTBzv8/130227183534.htm

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Arkansas lawmakers override governor's veto of abortion bill

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? The Arkansas House voted 53-28 Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of a bill that would outlaw most abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy, hours after a state Senate committee approved a package of even tighter abortion restrictions.

The Republican-controlled state Senate, which overwhelmingly backed the 20-week near-ban on abortions before Beebe, a Democrat, vetoed it, was expected to discuss whether to vote to override the veto Thursday. Like the GOP-led House, only a simple majority in the Senate is needed to override a veto.

The House-sponsored measure is based on the disputed argument that a fetus can feel pain by the 20th week of pregnancy, and thus deserves protection from abortion. Beebe vetoed the bill Tuesday, saying it contradicts the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion until a fetus can viably survive outside of the womb, which is typically at 22 to 24 weeks.

"This is not just any regular bill. It's one that has an eternal impact on each of us and to those children," Republican Rep. Andy Mayberry told House members as he urged them to override.

Two of the House's 48 Democrats joined with all 51 GOP members to support overriding Beebe's veto. Eighteen Democrats and the chamber's only Green Party member did not vote on the override, which has the same effect as voting against it. Republicans hold 21 of the 35 seats in the Senate, which approved Mayberry's bill on a 25-7 vote last week.

Prior to the House vote, the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee voted 5-2 to advance a bill that would ban most abortions starting in the 12th week of pregnancy, sending it to the full Senate. The Senate passed an earlier version of the bill that would have outlawed abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, but amended it to push back the restriction and to add more exemptions.

Beebe declined to say Wednesday whether he would also veto the Senate's proposed 12-week ban, but he said he thinks it's on even shakier legal ground than the House's 20-week version.

"I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to do on a bill that's even more problematic than the one I already vetoed, but I won't tell you officially until that time," Beebe said Tuesday.

Seven states have enacted similar 20-week restrictions based on the fetal pain argument, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks laws affecting women's health. A similar law in Arizona has been blocked while a federal appeals court reviews a lawsuit challenging it.

John DiPippa, dean emeritus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's law school, said he agrees with Beebe that the ban is unconstitutional and will likely be decided by the courts. He said he thinks the fetal pain argument will lose in the lower courts but that it's unclear how it might fare if it were to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The core holding of Roe is that a state cannot place an obstacle in the way of a woman who wants to abort before viability," DiPippa said. "If you apply that standard, then these bills that draw the line at 20 weeks ? which by all medical estimates is prior to viability ? would clearly set up a substantial obstacle to a woman's ability to before that age."

GOP Sen. Jason Rapert said he hopes Beebe lets it stand but said he was confident the 12-week ban would have enough support to override a veto.

"The governor has his own conscience," Rapert, R-Conway, told reporters. "I think probably the best route would be that he just simply not sign the bill and let it become law, if that's what he decides to do. If he doesn't, then we'll override the veto and it'll become law in the state of Arkansas."

___

Associated Press writer Michael Stratford contributed to this report.

___

Andrew DeMillo can be reached at www.twitter.com/ademillo

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ark-house-overrides-veto-abortion-restrictions-214013377--politics.html

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'Missing' Calif. couple found safe in Peru

LIMA (Reuters) - A young California couple feared by family to have been abducted while on a cycling trip through Peru have safely surfaced on a river boat headed for Ecuador, surprised to learn they were subjects of an international search, the Peruvian government said on Tuesday.

"The American tourists are continuing to enjoy their trip in the Peruvian Amazon," the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism said in a statement, adding that a national police official had spoken with the couple and found them to be "in good health."

Garrett Hand and his girlfriend, Jamie Neal, both 25, had last been heard from by friends and relatives about a month ago, according to co-workers and a statement issued on Monday by the U.S. Embassy in Lima, the Peruvian capital.

The embassy said then that Peruvian authorities had mounted a search for the pair, who are residents of Oakland, California.

The couple were said to have vanished while en route to Lima from Cusco, in the mountainous southeastern Peruvian interior near the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu, an area where U.S. citizens have been warned by the embassy of kidnapping risks.

That advisory last month was widely interpreted as linked to efforts by a remnant band of Maoist Shining Path rebels to repel a government push to regain control of jungle valleys that are rife with coca cultivation and cocaine trafficking.

Friends and family of Hand and Neal said they worried the pair had been abducted and that their bank accounts had remained idle since they disappeared.

But a day after relatives and co-workers went public with efforts to organize a search for the couple, the Peruvian government said national police had caught up with the duo in the northern village of Angoteros along the Napo River.

SURPRISED BY CONCERN

The tourism ministry said the couple were passengers on a boat headed up the river, a tributary of the Amazon, to a town on the border with Ecuador.

The couple "were surprised by the concern generated by family, friends and the international community after the cessation of their communications in late January," a ministry statement said.

It added that the pair had been traveling overland by bicycle, bus and river boat through remote areas where access to telephones and the Internet was limited.

Meanwhile, Hand's mother, Francine Fitzgerald, posted a message on Facebook saying she had been informed by U.S. Embassy and Peruvian authorities that the couple were spotted in a remote village and were now on a river boat.

She gave few other details but said she would not be satisfied until receiving "proof of life" from her son.

"Proof of life is my son's voice on the phone and a picture of him holding the missing poster," she wrote.

ABC News reported on Tuesday that the tourism ministry was sending a crew with video cameras to the location where the couple's boat is scheduled to dock on Wednesday to show they are alive and well.

The U.S. Embassy issued a separate statement saying it was aware of "reports that the missing U.S. citizens have been located," adding, "we are working with local authorities to confirm those reports."

The location of the couple in northern Peru was reinforced by previous accounts from police and officials of an ecological community in the Amazonian region of Iquitos. They had told Reuters earlier this week that Hand and Neal were seen embarking on an upriver boat trip toward Ecuador on February 16, three weeks after their families had last heard from them.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in San Francisco; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Bernard Orr and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/california-couple-feared-missing-peru-turn-safe-river-032218405.html

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Vote for the Italian Comic!

People gather in Duomo Square in Milan as Five-Star Movement activist and comedian Beppe Grillo speaks on Feb. 19.

Photo by Tony Gentile/Reuters

Today, the fate of the world economy rests with an Italian stand-up comedian. This was not supposed to happen. The center-left Italian Democrats spent the entire campaign with strong leads in the polls. Foreign reporters swooned over ?Operation Ohio,? fresh-scrubbed Italian politicos trained by the Obama campaign taking their new tactics into swing state Lombardy.

Then came Beppe Grillo, a brillo-haired, economics-trained comic with a blog and a 1980 vehicular manslaughter conviction. His Five Star Movement ticket looked completely ridiculous, until it surged into third place. Grillo?s rallies attracted tens of thousands of people, then 100,000. Grillo?s platform called for a living wage and for priests to have children ?so they don?t touch other people?s.? That, added to his aggressive social media campaign?nearly a million followers on Twitter?carved out 25 percent of the vote, denying a majority to the center-left, sending investors into a now-familiar panic, the Dow Jones index falling by 216 points.

Comedian and Five-Star Movement activist Beppe Grillo speaks at a rally in Siena, Italy, on Sunday.

Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

After all, this is Italy we?re talking about. Political stasis is such a steady part of Italian life that the lede to one Associated Press story??investors worry that Italy could be seized with political paralysis??was an accidental fount of chuckles. What makes Grillo interesting is the way his Five Star Movement was built. The candidate list was assembled in online conventions. Party members clicked the names of three candidates, and those with the most clicks got onto the ballot. That was exactly what the late, unlamented Americans Elect Party tried to do in 2011 and 2012. They spent $35 million and held an online convention, asking real people to pick a bipartisan ticket. A few thousand people voted to nominate Buddy Roemer?and this was after the Republican gadfly actually campaigned for the nomination.

It failed spectacularly for Americans Elect, so why did it work for Grillo? Easy: No matter how much money is shoveled over to ?centrists,? political change doesn?t come from reasonable people. It grows out of mania and cold fury.

?A third party needs some igniting figure,? says Bill Hillsman, who made ads for Jesse Ventura when he was elected governor of Minnesota. ?That was the failure with Americans Elect. Our office actually called Americans Elect at one point and asked, hey, do you need to be a Republican or a Democrat to get nominated? They waited three days. Then they called us and they said, well, if a true independent went on the ticket, the other person would have to be a Democrat or a Republican.?

As it collapsed, Americans Elect launched a quasi-campaign to promote the possible candidacy of David Walker. Here was a pleasant but colorless former U.S. comptroller who banged on constantly about the need for a grand bargain. For some reason, Americans didn?t rush to hoist his banner. ?People are telling you that you have to have austerity, austerity, austerity,? says Hillsman. ?Then the government is doing all this profligate spending and unethical things. This is the dynamic in America: We want to express our dissatisfaction in the most memorable way possible. We want to start throwing TVs out windows.?

There?s a lot of that going around. Italy?s Grillo tantrum is the latest in a series of voter rebellions, in wildly different systems, all in countries where faith in the establishment has collapsed.

In Germany, the libertarian Free Democratic Party, a frequent coalition partner in government, has collapsed to a third of its previous support. The Pirate Party?one of many European parties with that name, and with a left-right platform of guaranteed income and copyright freedom?has surged into the gap.

In Haiti, Western investors largely wanted the ruling Unity Party to take the 2011-12 presidential elections. The winner, after a string of crises, was a dancehall singer named Michel ?Sweet Micky? Martelly, who rose from joke status to become the candidate of anti-government fury.

In Greece, the Golden Dawn party?reconstructed neo-Nazis in a country once terrorized by the Nazis?entered the 2012 elections as a fringe group with a base of 20,000 votes. They ended up with more than 420,000 votes and 18 seats in Parliament.

Anyone trying to find some ideological linkage across the time zones is going to come up empty. That Greek election, which gave a narrow victory to European Union-backed austerity-crats, looks like a miracle compared with the mess in Italy. The only constant: Voters despise their choices and swing for the ?screw it, blow up everything? party over the austerity party.

?I take what happened in Italy as a good sign,? says Kinky Friedman, the country singer/novelist/amateur politician who ran for governor of Texas in 2006. ?I think if Jesus were to run here in Texas as an independent, he wouldn?t do as well as they did.?

In 2006, before the economic crisis, Friedman got around 547,000 votes with a grab bag of issues and a simple slogan: ?Why the hell not?? He?s still inscrutable. Two years ago he endorsed Rick Perry for president; he now says that his ?dying wish is to be cremated, and have the ashes thrown in Rick Perry?s hair.? This is Friedman?s way of saying he?ll probably run for the Democratic nomination this time, campaigning to legalize casinos and marijuana, working inside the party structure to destroy what the parties stand for. The dream of a prefab centrist party has no real constituency. The crazy rejectionist movement has lots of constituencies, all over the planet.

?L'onest? andr? di moda!? tweeted Beppe Grillo as the votes came in. In English: ?Honesty will be fashionable again!?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=540cd35640ba24aea39210987a714afb

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Inmates go high-tech as startup mania hits San Quentin

SAN QUENTIN, California (Reuters) - One by one, the entrepreneurs, clad in crisp blue jeans and armed with PowerPoint presentations, stood before a roomful of investors and tech bloggers to explain their dreams of changing the world.

For these exuberant times in Silicon Valley, the scene was familiar; the setting, less so.

With the young and ambitious flocking again to northern California to launch Internet companies, there were signs one recent morning that startup mania has taken hold even behind the faded granite walls of California's most notorious prison.

"Live stream has gone mainstream. Mobile video usage went up and is expected to increase by 28 percent over the next five years," said Eddie Griffin, who was pitching a music streaming concept called "At the Club" and happens to be finishing a third stint for drug possession at San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco, after spending the last 15 years behind bars.

Griffin was one of seven San Quentin inmates who presented startup proposals on "Demo Day" as part of the Last Mile program, an entrepreneurship course modeled on startup incubators that take in batches of young companies and provide them courses, informal advice and the seed investments to grow.

According to business news website Xconomy, incubator programs - which it tracks - have tripled in number for each of the past three years, proliferating from Sao Paulo to Stockholm at a pace that has fueled talk in tech circles of an "incubator bubble".

Last Mile founder Chris Redlitz, a local venture capitalist, says his goal was never to seek out a genuine investment opportunity inside a prison but to educate inmates about tech entrepreneurship and bridge the knowledge gap between Silicon Valley's wired elite and the rest of the region's population.

Inmates, after all, are not allowed to run businesses. They do not have access to cellphones ? much less Apple Inc's latest iPhone developer toolkits ? and they use computers only under close supervision.

A LOT TO LEARN

After his presentation in San Quentin's chapel, which received a rousing reception from an audience that included prison warden Kevin R. Chappell, Griffin told a reporter it was unlikely he would launch his startup idea immediately after being released this summer.

"I still have a lot to learn," said the soft-spoken Detroit native. "I've never used a cellphone. Technology is kind of foreign in this environment."

But to hear the inmates use jargon such as "lean startup" and "minimum viable product" speaks to an unmistakable truth about the Bay Area zeitgeist, where startups, for better or worse, have come to embody upward mobility, ambition, and hustle.

"If they were doing this in the '80s there may have been a different theme or model," said Wade Roush, Xconomy's chief correspondent. "But in this day and age, becoming an entrepreneur or starting a business is a form of self-actuation."

Situated on prime waterfront land, San Quentin is perhaps California's most storied prison and home to the state's only death row. But it has also kept a longstanding progressive reputation, boasting a rare college degree-granting program and vibrant arts courses.

The Last Mile accepted 10 inmates out of 50 applicants for its latest batch. The program, which graduated its first class of inmates last year, meets twice a week to discuss startups and lasts six months, although the most recent class took seven months due to a prison lockdown last year.

Some Last Mile participants, under official supervision, have also joined the online question-and-answer site Quora to respond to questions about prison life or describe what it felt like to commit murder.

The latest batch of startup ideas included a fitness app that would motivate drug addicts to exercise, a cardiovascular health organization, a social network for sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder, a food waste recycling program, and an e-commerce site for artists in prison.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Because the likelihood is not great that these companies will become funded and succeed, Redlitz said he was also working to place the inmates in jobs at tech companies after their release.

Rocketspace, a startup co-working space in downtown San Francisco, has agreed to host an internship. Rally.org, a crowd-funding site that counts Redlitz among its investors, said it hoped to begin a program to seek micro-investments from the public for the inmates' ideas.

Sitting in the Demo Day audience was John Collison, the 22-year-old co-founder of online payments startup Stripe, who noted some stark differences between the inmates' proposals and the fashionable startups du jour in Silicon Valley.

"What's frustrating is that all these companies in the Valley, they're ideas for the 1 or 10 percent," Collison said. "You have startups like Uber or Taskrabbit, that's like, ?Oh, here's something to help you find a driver or find someone to clean your house.' Are they solving real problems?"

The San Quentin inmates "were talking about urban obesity, or PTSD", Collison said. "It's a completely different perspective. We actually really need that."

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/inmates-high-tech-startup-mania-hits-san-quentin-140717846--sector.html

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BlackBerry's response to Samsung's SAFE Knox for enterprise: 'We've been doing that since 1999'

With Samsung stepping on Blackberry's enterprise turf via its SAFE with Knox launch, it's not too surprising the Canadian outfit has a few choice words on the subject. We spoke with mobile computing Executive VP David J. Smith, who finds it "flattering" that Samsung is taking a similar interest in enterprise security, but said it may take awhile to catch up since his own company's been doing it "since 1999." He said that experience means "nothing is more secure" than BB10 smartphones combined with its Balance work/home app and Blackberry Enterprise Service 10 (BES). Of course, the latter now supports Android and iOS devices, but Smith added that the main problem with Samsung's approach is Android itself -- which he feels brings its own bag of insecure worms to the enterprise space.

With Samsung touting Knox's ability to separate enterprise functions from a user's "personal space," Smith pointed to the Balance app -- which has been doing that since 2011 -- claiming it's the only solution that "can effectively keep sensitive corporate information secure while keeping an individual's personal information private." In contrast, Smith said Android is still inherently "vulnerable" due to its open nature, while BB engineered its Blackberry OS kernel in-house to be secure and that aspect was "completely understood" by company engineers. He added that programmers are constantly fine-tuning those features for its own BB10 and legacy handsets, adding that it would bring new Android and iOS "containers" and other features later this year to further boost security for those devices. Naturally, the outfit's likely hoping you'll want one of its shiny new devices to swipe or click, but failing that, says that you'll be the most secure under its BES 10 umbrella, regardless of your handset.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software, Mobile, Blackberry

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/25/blackberry-response-samsung-knox-balance/

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Ikea's Swedish meatballs latest victim of horsemeat scandal

STOCKHOLM (AP) ? Swedish furniture giant Ikea was drawn into Europe's widening food labeling scandal Monday as authorities said they had detected horse meat in frozen meatballs labeled as beef and pork and sold in 13 countries across the continent.

The Czech State Veterinary Administration said that horse meat was found in one-kilogram packs of frozen meatballs made in Sweden and shipped to the Czech Republic for sale in Ikea stores there. A total of 760 kilograms (1,675 pounds) of the meatballs were stopped from reaching the shelves.

Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said meatballs from the same batch had gone out to Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland. Magnusson said meatballs from that batch were taken off the shelves in Ikea stores in all those countries. Other shipments of meatballs were not affected, she added.

However, the company's Swedish branch announced on its Facebook page that it won't sell or serve any meatballs at its stores in Sweden out of concern for "potential worries among our customers."

Magnusson said Ikea saw no reason to extend that guidance globally. She said Ikea was conducting its own tests of the affected batch. She also said that two weeks ago Ikea tested a range of frozen food products, including meatballs, and found no traces of horse meat.

Ikea's stores feature restaurants and also sell typical Swedish food, including the so-called Kottbullar meatballs.

European Union officials were meeting Monday to discuss tougher food labeling rules after the discovery of horse meat in a range of frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna that were supposed to contain beef or pork.

The Czech authority also announced Monday that it found horse meat in beef burgers imported from Poland during random tests of food products.

Spanish authorities, meanwhile, announced that traces of horse meat were found in a beef cannelloni product by one of the brands of Nestle, a Switzerland-based food giant. The Agriculture Ministry said it was a case of fraudulent labeling but represented no health threat.

In a statement on its website, Nestle Spain said that after carrying out tests on meat supplied to its factories in Spain it was withdrawing six "La Cocinera" products and one "Buitoni" product from store shelves.

It said it was taking the action after the traces of horse meat were found in beef bought from a supplier in central Spain. Nestle said it was taking legal action against the company, adding that the products would be replaced by ones with 100 percent beef.

Some EU member states are pressing for tougher labeling rules to regain consumer confidence.

The 27-nation bloc must agree on binding origin disclosures for food product ingredients, starting with a better labeling of meat products, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said.

"Consumers have every right to the greatest-possible transparency," she insisted.

Austria backs the German initiative; but others like Ireland say existing rules are sufficient although Europe-wide controls must be strengthened to address the problem of fraudulent labeling.

The scandal has created a split between nations like Britain who see further rules as a protectionist hindrance of free trade under the bloc's single market, and those calling for tougher regulation.

Processed food products ? a business segment with traditionally low margins that often leads producers to hunt for the cheapest suppliers ? often contain ingredients from multiple suppliers in different countries, who themselves at time subcontract production to others, making it hard to monitor every link in the production chain.

Standardized DNA checks with meat suppliers and more stringent labeling rules will add costs that producers will most likely hand down to consumers, making food more expensive.

The scandal began in Ireland in mid-January when the country's announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. It tested frozen beef burgers taken from store shelves and found that more than a third of brands at five supermarkets contained at least a trace of horse. The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse.

Such discoveries have spread like wildfire across Europe as governments, supermarkets, meat traders and processors began their own DNA testing of products labeled beef and have been forced to withdraw tens of millions of products from store shelves.

More than a dozen nations have detected horse flesh in processed products such as factory-made burger patties, lasagnas, meat pies and meat-filled pastas. The investigations have been complicated by elaborate supply chains involving multiple cross-border middlemen.

___

Associated Press writers Juergen Baetz in Brussels, Karel Janicek in Prague and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/horse-meat-found-ikeas-swedish-meatballs-112154426--finance.html

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Build Your Own T-Shirt Folding Board With Cardboard and Duct Tape

Employees at clothing stores use special boards to quickly and perfectly fold their merchandise, and you can create the same tool at home with some scrap cardboard and tape.

The video above will walk you through the simple process. It's similar to the clothes folding "machine" we mentioned long ago, but the design is far simpler. Once you're done, you'll be making crisp folds in mere seconds. Using this contraption probably isn't as fast as the Japanese two-second folding technique, but it's nice to have around for anyone else in your house who hasn't learned that trick.

Shirt Folding Board from Cardboard and Duct Tape | Instructables

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/QPve0GjHfjc/build-your-own-t+shirt-folding-board-with-cardboard-and-duct-tape

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Barnes & Noble chief to buy the stores, not Nook

Reuters ? ? ? 1 hr.

Barnes & Noble Inc. Chairman Leonard Riggio has told the board he plans to buy the retail assets of the company including Barnes & Noble Booksellers Inc and barnesandnoble.com, but excluding the Nook Media business, sending the company's shares up as much as 26 percent before the bell on Monday.

Barnes & Noble shares closed at $13.51 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, valuing the company at about $809 million.

Barnes & Noble's retail business has struggled in recent years as book buyers switched to digital formats, underscored by a 10.9 percent fall in sales at its bookstores and websites in the critical year-end holiday period.

"Riggio loves the (retail) business too much to let it go," Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom said, adding that the business was attractive because it was slow-growing and did not need capital to keep going.

The company said in January last year that it might spin off its digital and e-reader business and in October it created a separate unit for its Nook and college bookstore chains called Nook Media, which Riggio said he would not buy.

The combined college book and Nook business, which includes the e-reader, digital content and accessories, contributed about 50 percent of total sales of $1.88 billion in the second quarter ended October 27.

Barnes & Noble launched the Nook in 2009 to compete with Amazon.com Inc's market-leading Kindle, and early growth attracted a big investment from Microsoft Corp last year.

The company has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the unit, but a disappointing holiday season has raised questions about its value.

The purchase price for the retail assets is expected to comprise mainly cash and include the assumption of certain debt, Riggio, who owns nearly 30 percent of Barnes & Noble, said in a regulatory filing on Monday. (http://link.reuters.com/byc36t))

Riggio, who pioneered the book superstore format in the 1980s and 1990s, said he would provide the equity financing and arrange any debt financing for the deal.

Barnes & Noble said it has set up a committee of three independent directors to evaluate Reggio's proposal.

Evercore Partners will serve as financial adviser to the company and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP will be legal advisers, the company said.

The Wall Street Journal reported the proposed deal on Sunday.

Barnes & Noble is scheduled to report third-quarter results on Thursday.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/barnes-noble-chairman-wants-buy-stores-not-nook-1C8531714

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Cheapflights: 10 Oscar-Winning Movies About Travel

We're waiting (on the edge of our couches, popcorn in hand) to see which travel-inspired movies will take home Academy Awards this year. With Denzel Washington nominated in the best actor category for his role in Flight, Naomi Watts up for best actress in The Impossible and Life of Pi on the nominee list for best picture, movies that feature travel are in the running for plenty of Oscars at the 85th Academy Awards.

Travel has been a cornerstone of many award-winning silver-screen favorites. Here are Cheapflights.com's picks for the top 10 Oscar-winning travel movies.

• Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

  <strong>Academy Awards</strong>: Best Picture, Best Cinematography (Color), Best Film Editing, Best Music (Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Based on a Jules Verne novel, this best picture winner tells the story of Phileas Fogg ? an English man who makes a big bet (and by big, we mean ?20,000) with a few skeptics that he can travel around the world in 80 days. Fogg takes a train to Paris, then sets off in a hot air balloon and travels ? by various means ? across the globe with stops in places like Spain, India, Hong Kong, Japan and San Francisco. The adventurous Englishman encounters numerous trials and tribulations during his journey, but in the end (spoiler alert) he?s saved by the International Date Line, which gives him an extra day and the chance to win it all at the last minute.

• The Accidental Tourist (1988)

  <strong>Academy Award</strong>: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Geena Davis) Baltimore-based travel guide writer Macon Leary is the focal point in this international story of love and loss. The writer experiences his share of heart break: the murder of his son, the break up of his marriage and an injury that brings him back to his childhood home where he meets kennel manager Muriel Pritchett (played by Geena Davis). Praised for its adapted screenplay, original score and acting, the drama unfolds with a shared flight to Paris (where Leary is researching his next guide), a hotel recommendation and a taxi.

• Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

  <strong>Academy Award</strong>: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Pen?lope Cruz) Barcelona is the main backdrop for this story of twisted love connections. When two American women ? practical Vicky and carefree Cristina ? travel to the Spanish city for the summer, they meet artist Juan Antonio Gonzalo and a series of seduction attempts (and successes) ensues. But it?s the arrival of Gonzalo?s unstable ex-wife Maria Elena (played by Pen?lope Cruz) that really shakes things up. Shot on location in Barcelona, the movie also takes viewers to Oviedo, Spain, France and the U.S.

• Sideways (2004)

  <strong>Academy Award</strong>: Best Adapted Screenplay In this 2004 comedic drama, a week-long road trip that starts in the name of good fun turns into debauchery as two middle-aged men travel from San Diego up to Santa Ynez Valley wine country in California. The movie sheds light on the human condition, using the trip as a tool to fully develop characters. In the meantime, the film features plenty of picturesque California vineyards. And the succession of wines that parade across the screen will leave you longing for a trip to wine country ? and a glass of red. Pinot Noir, anyone?

• Up (2009)

  <strong>Academy Awards</strong>: Best Animated Feature, Best Original Score Unconventional travel is at its finest in this animated story of elderly widower Carl Fredricksen who ties thousands of helium balloons to his house and takes off in search of a fictional location ? Paradise Falls, Venezuela. Fredricksen?s journey is inspired by a lifelong personal goal and a promise to his late wife after years of saving up for the trip. The film?s creators spent time in Venezuela researching their main character?s destination, which seems to most closely resemble Angel Falls in Venezuela?s Canaima National Park.

• An American in Paris (1951)

  <strong>Academy Awards</strong>: Best Picture, Best Art (Set Decoration), Best Cinematography (Color), Best Costume Design (Color), Best Musical Score and Best Writing, Scoring and Screenplay Set in Paris and laced with dance numbers, this critically acclaimed musical film centers on American World War II veteran-turned-painter Jerry Mulligan, who has traveled to Paris to live as an expatriate. There, he meets French woman Lise Bouvier and falls in love with her shortly before she gets married to another man. The film was actually shot in Los Angeles, but its musical score, recreated Parisian locales and depiction of forbidden love still thoroughly impressed viewers, critics and the Academy.

• Lost in Translation (2003)

  <strong>Academy Award</strong>: Best Original Screenplay This best original screenplay winner is the story of an unlikely bond between two Americans who have traveled to Tokyo for different reasons. Bob Harris, an aging actor, arrives in the Japanese city to film an advertisement, while Charlotte has accompanied her celebrity photographer husband on assignment. Culture shock strengthens their relationship, as they attempt to navigate a contemporary Japanese environment and the complexities in their lives. Shot on location in Japan, the setting for Lost in Translation was largely inspired by director Sofia Coppola?s many visits to the country.

• Out of Africa (1985)

  <strong>Academy Awards</strong>: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Sound With seven Oscars to its name, Out of Africa is on the high end when it comes to the most Academy Award-decorated feature films of all time (a few movies have each won 11 Oscars). The romantic drama, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, begins with a Danish baroness who moves from Denmark to British East Africa (present-day Kenya) with her husband and purchases a coffee plantation. The baroness falls for big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton who refuses to settle down. With his personality underscored by their untamed African surroundings, the baroness eventually makes her way back to Denmark amid heartbreak.

• The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

  <strong>Academy Award</strong>: Best Original Song Based on Ernesto Guevara?s travelogue, The Motorcycle Diaries chronicles Guevara?s 1952 journey across South America alongside his friend Alberto Granado. The pair originally set out on Granado?s motorcycle looking for a fun-filled trip and the ultimate goal of working in a leper colony in Peru. Along the way, they are deeply changed by the people and poverty they encountered. Departing from Buenos Aires, Guevara and Granado travel 8,700 miles through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela ? a journey that ends up transforming their lives.

• Forrest Gump (1994)

  <strong>Academy Awards</strong>: Best Picture, Best Actor (Tom Hanks), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Adapted Screenplay Though not an obvious travel movie pick, Forrest Gump takes us places. From Alabama to Washington, D.C. to Vietnam, Gump is constantly on the go in this perennial favorite. The defining montage that places this cinematic success in the travel category is Forrest Gump?s epic journey ? on foot ? across the United States as he gives into his inexplicable urge to just keep running. You?d truly never know (until now) that most of the movie wasn?t shot in the locations it showcases.

?

Follow Cheapflights on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cheapflights

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cheapflights/top-10-oscarwinning-trave_b_2740344.html

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Seesaw for iPhone now displays featured users, timelines, and offers search by user and hashtag

Seesaw, the decision making service, has an updated iPhone app that features several new tools to help discover decisions people are mulling over. Perhaps the two that are the most notable include an enhanced Explore view giving you featured users and timelines, and a search tool that lets you look up information by user and/or hashtag.

Having launched earlier this month, Seesaw is the latest project from the founding team of the social media marketing platform CoTweet, which was acquired by ExactTarget. It?s billed as a service that can help you make decisions quickly. But unlike Polar and Thumb, Seesaw?s social network is based on who you have in your mobile phone contacts ? it?s not about having strangers offer their opinions, but rather those who you consider friends and trust.

However, just because you?re soliciting feedback from your friends doesn?t mean other people shouldn?t chime in as well. Seesaw is definitely a social network in of itself and other users can certainly follow and befriend others in the app.

With the addition of a search feature, users are now able to look up specific polls or decisions that are weighing on their friends? minds. To help encourage the use of hashtags and spark community engagement, periodically, Seesaw has been asking users to tag their polls with specific hashtags. Whether it?s about the interiors of a home (#interiors) or what?s for dinner (#whatsfordinner), users can now search for who?s sharing what and their dilemma.

The app also now includes featured users and timelines, which will most undoubtedly help others discover new people and maybe understand what questions they have ? who knows, it might be the same as theirs.

Other updates to the app include enhanced profiles with the inclusion of websites and bios and improved notifications.

? Seesaw for iPhone

Photo credit: dbgg1979/Flickr

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.

Source: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/02/23/seesaw-for-iphone-now-displays-featured-users-timelines-and-offers-search-by-user-and-hashtag/

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Microsoft connects Apple, Facebook as target of Cyber Attack

Is it accurate?

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Have you yourself verified some of the facts and observations in this story? If so, did you find that information to be correct? If not, are you confident that the information has been verified? To answer this question, you may want to do some of your own research, and look at how other publications covered this story. If you do not know anything about this topic and do not have time to research it, please do not answer this question.

Source: http://newstrust.net/stories/9139880/toolbar?ref=rss

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3 British men convicted in terrorist bomb plot

This undated photo made available by West Midlands Police shows, left to right, Irfan Khalid, Irfan Naseer and Ashik Ali, all from Birmingham, England, who were today found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of being "central figures" in a terrorist bomb plot, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. The three young British Muslims were convicted Thursday of plotting terrorist bombings that prosecutors said were intended to be bigger than the 2005 London transit attacks. A London jury found Irfan Naseer, 31, and Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali, both 27, guilty of being central figures in the foiled plot to explode knapsack bombs in crowded areas ? attacks potentially deadlier than the July 7, 2005 explosions on subway trains and a bus which killed 52 commuters. Judge Richard Henriques told the men ? who had been arrested in September 2011 ? they will all face life in prison when sentences are imposed in April or May for plotting a major terrorist attack in Birmingham, a city of roughly 1 million people located 120 miles (nearly 200 kilometers) northwest of London. (AP Photo/West Midlands Police)

This undated photo made available by West Midlands Police shows, left to right, Irfan Khalid, Irfan Naseer and Ashik Ali, all from Birmingham, England, who were today found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of being "central figures" in a terrorist bomb plot, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. The three young British Muslims were convicted Thursday of plotting terrorist bombings that prosecutors said were intended to be bigger than the 2005 London transit attacks. A London jury found Irfan Naseer, 31, and Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali, both 27, guilty of being central figures in the foiled plot to explode knapsack bombs in crowded areas ? attacks potentially deadlier than the July 7, 2005 explosions on subway trains and a bus which killed 52 commuters. Judge Richard Henriques told the men ? who had been arrested in September 2011 ? they will all face life in prison when sentences are imposed in April or May for plotting a major terrorist attack in Birmingham, a city of roughly 1 million people located 120 miles (nearly 200 kilometers) northwest of London. (AP Photo/West Midlands Police)

This undated photo made available by West Midlands Police shows a clock purchased as a timing device found in the safe house in White Street, Birmingham, England. Three young British Muslims were convicted Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013, of plotting terrorist bombings that prosecutors said were intended to be bigger than the 2005 London transit attacks. A London jury found Irfan Naseer, 31, and Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali, both 27, guilty of being central figures in the foiled plot to explode knapsack bombs in crowded areas ? attacks potentially deadlier than the July 7, 2005 explosions on subway trains and a bus which killed 52 commuters. Judge Richard Henriques told the men ? who had been arrested in September 2011 ? they will all face life in prison when sentences are imposed in April or May for plotting a major terrorist attack in Birmingham, a city of roughly 1 million people located 120 miles (nearly 200 kilometers) northwest of London. (AP Photo/West Midlands Police)

LONDON (AP) ? They were very ordinary would-be terrorists, with big plans but bad luck.

On Thursday, a jury convicted three young British men ? including an unemployed pharmacy graduate nicknamed Chubbs ? of being ringleaders of an al-Qaida-inspired plot to explode knapsack bombs in crowded parts of Birmingham, England's second-largest city.

The men had pleaded not guilty, but were recorded discussing plans for attacks that one said would be "another 9/11."

A jury at Woolwich Crown Court in London found 27-year-old Ashik Ali; Irfan Khalid, also 27; and 31-year-old Irfan Naseer ? nicknamed Big Irfan, or Chubbs ? guilty of multiple counts of preparing for terrorism.

Judge Richard Henriques told the men they face life in prison when sentences are imposed in April or May.

"It's clear that you were planning a terrorist outrage in Birmingham," the judge said.

The jury agreed with prosecutors that the trio were the senior members of a home-grown terror cell inspired by the anti-Western sermons of U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in Yemen in a U.S. drone strike in September 2011.

Prosecutors said the men hoped to detonate up to eight knapsack bombs ? either on timers or in suicide attacks ? in a bid to cause carnage on a scale larger than the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings, which killed 52 commuters.

Police said the terrorist conspiracy was the most significant uncovered in Britain since a plot to blow up airliners in mid-air was foiled in 2006. However, no targets had been chosen and no bombs built when the men were arrested in a police swoop in September 2011 in Birmingham, central England. Twelve suspects were arrested in all, several of whom have pleaded guilty to terrorism offenses.

The senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Adam Gough, said the men were "the real deal" and, if successful, would have perpetrated "another 9/11 or another 7/7 in the U.K."

But they did not succeed ? through a mix of misfortune and their own mistakes.

Prosecutors said Naseer and Khalid traveled to Pakistan for terror training, where they learned details of poisons, bomb-making and weaponry and made "martyrdom videos" justifying their planned attacks.

On their return to England in July 2011, they began to recruit others to the plot and to raise money by posing as street collectors for Muslim charities.

They also began experimenting with chemicals, the prosecutor said, aided by Naseer's university degree in pharmacy.

But many of the group's plans soon went awry. Four other young men dispatched by the plotters to Pakistan for terrorist training were sent home within days when the family of one man found out. The four have pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offenses.

Rahin Ahmed, an alleged co-conspirator described in court as the cell's "chief financier," tried to increase the group's budget by trading the money it had made from bogus charity fundraising on the financial markets.

He lost the bulk of the terror cell's money through his "unwise and incompetent" trading, prosecutor Brian Altman said.

Among evidence found by investigators was a partially burned note written by Naseer detailing how to make what an expert witness said would have been a viable bomb.

But no evidence of a successful bomb was recovered. Among the pieces of evidence at the four-month trial was a sports injury cool pack, which prosecutors said Naseer had mistakenly believed would contain ammonium nitrate, a key bomb-making ingredient.

Fatally for the plot, by mid-2011 the men were under surveillance by police and the intelligence services. Their car was followed and their safe house bugged.

The men were recorded criticizing the London transit attackers for not packing their bombs with nails. They also discussed tying sharp blades to the front of a truck and driving it into a crowd.

Naseer was heard talking about the possibility of mixing poison into creams such as Vaseline or Nivea and smearing them on car handles to cause mass deaths.

But their main plan was for knapsack bombs ? "Seven or eight of them in different places with timers on," Naseer was recorded saying. "Probably to go boom, boom, boom everywhere."

Khalid said the attack would be "revenge for everything, what we're doing is another 9/11,"

On the recordings, the trio spoke of themselves as martyrs and jihadi warriors ? but also, tellingly, compared themselves to the hapless would-be bombers of British comedy film "Four Lions."

Ali was recorded saying to his ex-wife: "Oh, you think this is a flipping 'Four Lions.' We're one man short."

Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said the foiled plot bore the hallmarks of a decentralized al-Qaida, in which local cells operate independently, often after receiving rudimentary training.

He said that "the time spent training foreign fighters by al-Qaida or affiliated networks is now being constrained because there is the threat of drone strikes" on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

"The command and control element is drawing back," he said. "It has a negative impact on their capacity to launch attacks because people aren't being trained as well. There is sometimes a clownish element to it."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-21-Britain-Bomb%20Plot/id-a6f49753266b49cdafa851d7159ea585

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