Not super thrilled with the prospect of using iCloud for your web storage needs? Google Drive presents an ever-improving alternative to Apple's in-house solution, and today's iOS app update brings a couple of new features into the fold. The app now supports multiple accounts, so you can access your ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/i_fMyN9yFZM/In this Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 photo, residents living near the slopes of Mayon volcano are evacuated to public schools by police in anticipation of the powerful typhoon Haiyan that threatened Albay province and several provinces in central Philippines. The typhoon, one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, slammed into the Philippines early Friday, with one weather expert warning of catastrophic damage. (AP Photo/Nelson Salting)
In this Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 photo, residents living near the slopes of Mayon volcano are evacuated to public schools by police in anticipation of the powerful typhoon Haiyan that threatened Albay province and several provinces in central Philippines. The typhoon, one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, slammed into the Philippines early Friday, with one weather expert warning of catastrophic damage. (AP Photo/Nelson Salting)
In this Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 photo, residents living near the slopes of Mayon volcano are evacuated to public schools by police in anticipation of the powerful typhoon Haiyan that threatened Albay province and several provinces in central Philippines. The typhoon, one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, slammed into the Philippines early Friday, with one weather expert warning of catastrophic damage. (AP Photo/Nelson Salting)
In this Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 photo, residents living near the slopes of Mayon volcano are evacuated to public schools by police in anticipation of the powerful typhoon Haiyan that threatened Albay province and several provinces in central Philippines. The typhoon, one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, slammed into the Philippines early Friday, with one weather expert warning of catastrophic damage.(AP Photo/Nelson Salting)
This Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Typhoon Haiyan over the Philippines, at 22:30 UTC (5:30 p.m. EST). Haiyan, the world's strongest typhoon of the year, slammed into the Philippines early Friday. It had been poised to be the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded at landfall, a weather expert said. (AP Photo/NOAA)
This early Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows the eye, right, of Typhoon Haiyan, off the coast of the Philippines, at approximately 05:25 UTC (12:25 a.m. EST). Haiyan, the world's strongest typhoon of the year slammed into the Philippines early Friday. It had been poised to be the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded at landfall, a weather expert said. (AP Photo/NOAA)
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — One of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded slammed into the Philippines Friday, cutting communications and blocking roads in the center of the country amid worries of serious damage and casualties.
Telephone lines appeared down as it was difficult to get through to the landfall site 650 kilometers (405 miles) southeast of Manila where Typhoon Haiyan slammed into a rural area of the country.
Weather officials said that Haiyan had sustained winds at 235 kilometers (147 miles) per hour, with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph) when it made landfall at Eastern Samar province's Guiuan township.
The local weather bureau makes estimates based on longer periods of time than others, such as the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which said shortly before the typhoon made landfall that its maximum sustained winds were 314 kilometers per hour (195 mph), with gusts up to 379 kilometers per hour (235 mph).
"195-mile-per-hour winds, there aren't too many buildings constructed that can withstand that kind of wind," said Jeff Masters, a former hurricane meteorologist who is meteorology director at the private firm Weather Underground.
Masters said the storm had been poised to be the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded at landfall. He warned of "catastrophic damage."
Haiyan's wind strength at landfall had been expected to beat out Hurricane Camille, which was 305 kph (190 mph) at landfall in the United States in 1969, Masters said.
Already authorities reported having trouble reaching colleagues in the landfall area, with forecaster Mario Palafox of the national weather bureau saying contact had been lost with staff in the landfall area.
More than 125,000 people had been evacuated from towns and villages in the typhoon's path, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. Among them were thousands of residents of Bohol who had been camped in tents and other makeshift shelters after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated many towns on the island province.
Masters said the Philippines might get a small break because the storm is so fast moving that flooding from heavy rains — usually the cause of most deaths from typhoons in the Philippines — may not be as bad.
After hitting Guiuan on the southern tip of Samar island, the typhoon pummeled nearby Leyte island.
"I think this is the strongest so far since the 1960s," Southern Leyte Gov. Roger Mercado said on ABS-CBN television. "This is really a wallop. All roads are impassable due to fallen trees."
A reporter for the network in the Tacloban city was drenched in the pounding rain and said he was wearing a helmet as protection against flying debris. Visibility was so poor that only his silhouette could be seen through the thick curtain of water.
Television images showed a street under knee-deep floodwater carrying debris that had been blown down by the fierce winds. Tin roofing sheets ripped from buildings were flying above the street.
Weather forecaster Gener Quitlong said the typhoon was not losing much of its strength because there is no large land mass to slow it down since the region is comprised of islands with no tall mountains.
Officials in Cebu province have shut down electric service to the northern part of the province to avoid electrocutions in case power pylons are toppled, said assistant regional civil defense chief Flor Gaviola.
President Benigno Aquino III assured the public of war-like preparations, with three C-130 air force cargo planes and 32 military helicopters and planes on standby, along with 20 navy ships.
The typhoon — the 24th serious storm to hit the Philippines this year — is forecast to barrel through the Philippines' central region Friday and Saturday before blowing toward the South China Sea over the weekend, heading toward Vietnam.
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Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Teresa Cerojano in the Philippines and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-11-07-Philippines-Typhoon/id-80341dded1754313b71c71533954e5eeOut for a quick trim in Beverly Hills, CA today (November 7), "Mad Men" momma January Jones took her son Xander to get a haircut.
The 35-year-old dressed casually, wearing shades, and sporting a white button down and blue jeans. Little Xander rode along on his mommy's hip, wearing a gray cap, blue polo and jeans.
In related news, AMC announced that "Mad Men's" seventh and final season will be 14 episodes long and be split into two hlaves, with the first seven episodes of the extended season airing in Spring 2014 and the second seven episodes airing in Spring 2015.
Fans of the show can now purchase the series' sixth season on DVD, which just hit stores this week. Enjoy!
Around a decade after the last installment was released, "Star Wars: Episode VII" will hit theaters on December 18, 2015.
Fears that the sci-fi flick would be pushed to 2016 were calmed when the announcement was made on Thursday (November 7).
In a statement, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn shared, "We’re very excited to share the official 2015 release date for Star Wars: Episode VII, where it will not only anchor the popular holiday filmgoing season but also ensure our extraordinary filmmaking team has the time needed to deliver a sensational picture."
After finding success in the other huge sci-fi franchise, Star Trek, J. J. Abrams has been tapped to bring new life to the Star Wars series.
How much did the 16-day government shutdown cost the country? The White House’s Office of Management and Budget is glad you asked.
In a new report released Thursday, OMB detailed the economic pain and loss resulting from the partial closure of federal facilities precipitated by House Republicans looking to roll back Obamacare.
The White House had already warned that 120,000 fewer private sector jobs were created in October and 0.2-0.6 percentage points were shaved from Gross Domestic Product growth in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Here are some of the shutdown’s less obvious effects, as researched and compiled by OMG:
- Drill, baby, drill? Not so much. About 200 permits to drill on federal lands languished unapproved.
- Booze, lose? The Treasury Department couldn’t issue export certificates for beer, wine and liquor, so two million liters due for export were stranded at ports. (Yep, they reckoned this one in liters. It’s about 528,344 gallons.)
- Get crabby? The shutdown delayed the start of the Alaska crabbing season three to four days at a cost to fisherman of thousands of dollars of lost revenue per day.
- Park it where? National parks were closed, resulting in the loss of about $500 million in lost visitor spending nationwide (affecting not just parks, but the communities near them that depend on tourism revenue).
- Government efficiency hawks will be thrilled to learn that federal employees were furloughed for a combined 6.6 million days. Not to worry: They received back pay for days they didn’t work, to the tune of about $2 billion.
- The shutdown delayed about $4 billion in tax refunds, and prevented hundreds of patients from taking part in clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health – frequently the last shot chronically or even terminally ill Americans have at treatment.
- Four out of the five Nobel Prize-winning researchers currently working for the federal government? Furloughed.
- Government scientists will have to push back by six months the testing of a new approach for curbing the spread of Asian carp into the Great Lakes.
- “Work was also delayed on other invasive species projects, including research on the spread of dangerous Africanized honeybees in the Southwest, invasive grass species involved in intensifying wildfires, and white-nose bat syndrome impacting bats in national parks.”
Kids in Head Start, veterans looking to get their benefits applications processed, rural families waiting for their home loan applications to get through … many others were affected, as detailed in the report.
During promotions for "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," Jennifer Lawrence stopped by the Yahoo Headquarters in Sunnydale, CA on Wednesday (November 6).
The 23-year-old chatted with Tumblr execs and dished about a number of topics, including her childhood crush.
"My teen crush [was] Justin Timberlake," J Law stated. "Early 90s Justin Timberlake though. Like, 'N Sync Justin Timberlake."
"I remember buying the 'N Sync CD. Remember how CDs had like the pullout picture things? And I was like getting so overwhelmed with like hormones I almost threw up!" she joked.
Although she enjoyed a few laughs, Jennifer also spoke seriously about the negativity surrounding body image issues in Hollywood.
While discussing society's obsession with pointing out flawed figures, Miss Lawrence slammed the E! series "Fashion Police" for constantly criticizing celebrities.
"There are shows like 'Fashion Police' that are just showing these generations of young people to judge people based on all the wrong values and that it's okay to point at people and them ugly or fat," she explained.
Lawrence continued, "They call it 'fun' and they say 'welcome to the real world' - and that should be the real world. It's going to continue being the real world if we keep it that way. We have to stop treating each other like that and stop calling each other fat."
"There are unrealistic expectations for women. It's disappointing that the media keeps it alive and fuels that fire. It's something that really bothers me - because I love to eat," she added.
In regards to how she feels about people who cast judgement on others," Jennifer said, "Screw those people."
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Nov-2013
ShareContact: David Ehrhardt
ehrhardt@stanford.edu
650-325-1521 x261
Carnegie Institution
Stanford, CAInside every plant cell, a cytoskeleton provides an interior scaffolding to direct construction of the cell's walls, and thus the growth of the organism as a whole. Environmental and hormonal signals that modulate cell growth cause reorganization of this scaffolding. New research led by Carnegie's David Ehrhardt provides surprising evidence as to how this reorganization process works, with important evidence as to how the direction of a light source influences a plant's growth pattern. It is published by Science Express.
The cytoskeleton undergirding each cell includes an array of tubule-shaped protein fibers called microtubules. By directing cell growth and development, this scaffold is crucial for supporting important plant functions such as photosynthesis, nutrient gathering, and reproduction.
The cytoskeleton does not appear to be remodeled by moving these microtubules around in the cell. Rather, it is altered by changes to the way these fiber arrays are assembled or disassembled. Ehrhardt's team--including lead author Jelmer Lindeboom, Masayoshi Nakamura, Ryan Gutierrez and Viktor Kirik, all from Carnegie--used advanced tools to watch the reorganization process of these microtubule arrays under different conditions.
These imaging data, combined with the results of genetic experiments, revealed a mechanism by which plants orient microtubule arrays. A protein called katanin drives this mechanism, which it achieves by redirecting microtubule growth in response to blue light. It does so by severing the microtubules where they intersect with each other, creating new ends that can regrow and themselves be severed, resulting in a rapid amplification of new microtubules lying in another, more desired, direction.
"Our genetic data, together with previous studies that tie microtubule organization to cell growth, indicate that this restructuring is required for the plant to bend toward a light source as it grows, a phenomenon called phototropism," Ehrhardt explained. "Our findings also have broader implications for the construction of cytoskeletons in other types of cells, including human cells, because katanin is conserved between animals and plants."
"This is exceptional work, which draws upon decades of pioneering discoveries made by Carnegie's Winslow Briggs on blue light perception. For the first time Ehrhhardt's group demonstrates how blue light drives changes in cytoskeleton organization, which underlies the architecture and mechanical properties of the cell walls. These properties are critical for the light-induced bending" says Wolf B. Frommer, Director of the department. He terms the study: "fantastic work, a milestone in the history of blue light research."
###
Other co-authors on the paper are Anneke Hibbel and Anne Mie Emons, of Wageningen University in The Netherlands, and Bela Mulder and Kostya Shundyak of the FOM Institute AMOLF.
This work was supported by NSF award 1158372, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the research program of the "Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie," which is financially supported by the "Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoekm," the EU-NEST programme CASPIC award 28974, the TOYOBO BIOFOUNDATION, and the Human Frontier Science Program.
The Carnegie Institution for Science is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Nov-2013
ShareContact: David Ehrhardt
ehrhardt@stanford.edu
650-325-1521 x261
Carnegie Institution
Stanford, CAInside every plant cell, a cytoskeleton provides an interior scaffolding to direct construction of the cell's walls, and thus the growth of the organism as a whole. Environmental and hormonal signals that modulate cell growth cause reorganization of this scaffolding. New research led by Carnegie's David Ehrhardt provides surprising evidence as to how this reorganization process works, with important evidence as to how the direction of a light source influences a plant's growth pattern. It is published by Science Express.
The cytoskeleton undergirding each cell includes an array of tubule-shaped protein fibers called microtubules. By directing cell growth and development, this scaffold is crucial for supporting important plant functions such as photosynthesis, nutrient gathering, and reproduction.
The cytoskeleton does not appear to be remodeled by moving these microtubules around in the cell. Rather, it is altered by changes to the way these fiber arrays are assembled or disassembled. Ehrhardt's team--including lead author Jelmer Lindeboom, Masayoshi Nakamura, Ryan Gutierrez and Viktor Kirik, all from Carnegie--used advanced tools to watch the reorganization process of these microtubule arrays under different conditions.
These imaging data, combined with the results of genetic experiments, revealed a mechanism by which plants orient microtubule arrays. A protein called katanin drives this mechanism, which it achieves by redirecting microtubule growth in response to blue light. It does so by severing the microtubules where they intersect with each other, creating new ends that can regrow and themselves be severed, resulting in a rapid amplification of new microtubules lying in another, more desired, direction.
"Our genetic data, together with previous studies that tie microtubule organization to cell growth, indicate that this restructuring is required for the plant to bend toward a light source as it grows, a phenomenon called phototropism," Ehrhardt explained. "Our findings also have broader implications for the construction of cytoskeletons in other types of cells, including human cells, because katanin is conserved between animals and plants."
"This is exceptional work, which draws upon decades of pioneering discoveries made by Carnegie's Winslow Briggs on blue light perception. For the first time Ehrhhardt's group demonstrates how blue light drives changes in cytoskeleton organization, which underlies the architecture and mechanical properties of the cell walls. These properties are critical for the light-induced bending" says Wolf B. Frommer, Director of the department. He terms the study: "fantastic work, a milestone in the history of blue light research."
###
Other co-authors on the paper are Anneke Hibbel and Anne Mie Emons, of Wageningen University in The Netherlands, and Bela Mulder and Kostya Shundyak of the FOM Institute AMOLF.
This work was supported by NSF award 1158372, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the research program of the "Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie," which is financially supported by the "Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoekm," the EU-NEST programme CASPIC award 28974, the TOYOBO BIOFOUNDATION, and the Human Frontier Science Program.
The Carnegie Institution for Science is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
