By Katherine Jacobsen,?Contributor / June 25, 2013
"Search engines have no control over the information posted by others. They just point to it," writes Google's Head of Free Expression, William Echikson, in a blog post on Tuesday.
AP Photo/Virginia Mayo
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Google is not responsible for deleting data from its search index based on an individual?s or company?s ?subjective preference,? according to an opinion released by the European Union Court?s Advocate General on Tuesday.
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?Google is not generally considered as a ?controller? of the personal data appearing on web pages it processes,? writes Niilo Jaaskinen, the EU Court?s Advocate General.
The opinion allows for search engines, like Google, to block access to third-party sites with illegal or libelous content in accordance with local law, but does not stipulate that Internet companies are bound to remove ?legitimate and legal information? of a third party website, citing the third parties? ?freedom of expression.? ?
This means that Google and other foreign Internet providers are still subject to national Internet regulation within the European Union. But since no law currently exists that gives individuals the ?right to be forgotten? ? or have their digital records expunged, however unflattering those records might be ??Google is not obliged to regulate the content that appears in its search results.
Erasing unsavory information on the basis of individual requests is a slippery slope, explains William Echilkson, Google?s Head of Free Expression for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. ?People shouldn?t be prevented from learning that a politician was convicted of taking a bribe, or that a doctor was convicted of malpractice,? Mr. Echilkson writes on Google?s Europe blog in a post made on Tuesday.
Google hailed the opinion as ?A step forward for free expression.?
The opinion was released in regards to a case that dates back nearly 15 years, before "being googled? became a common background check.
In 1998, Mario Costeja?s name appeared in the print edition of a widely-circulated Spanish newspaper concerning a real-estate auction, which was taking place to help repay Mr. Costeja?s social security debts. When the 1998 paper was made available online, Costeja?s real-estate ad was included in the edition, true to the paper?s original print version.
Costeja originally contacted the publisher in 2009 with a complaint that this old ad appeared when his name was searched on Google, and asked for the ad?s removal from the paper's online version. His request was rebuffed; the paper?s publisher said erasing this data was not appropriate. In less than a year, Costeja?s case had made it to Spain?s National High Court, which in turn referred the case to the EU?s Court of Justice.
There are over 180 similar court cases pending in Spain.?
The Advocate General?s opinion contradicts the decision issued by Spain?s National High Court, which called on Google to withdraw the advertisement from its search index, and is seen as a positive sign for Google in Europe, where the Internet giant has recently come under attack for its privacy policies.
The opinion came on the heels of a statement made Friday by Britain?s data regulator, the Information Commissioner?s Office, which ordered Google to delete personal data captured on its Street View project. On Thursday, France and Spain?s main two main watchdog groups increased pressures on Google to change its data privacy policy.?
The EU Court is just beginning their official deliberations in the Costeja case.?
June 25, 2013 ? Male twin Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were more than twice as likely as those without PTSD to develop heart disease during a 13-year period, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health.
This is the first long-term study to measure the association between PTSD and heart disease using objective clinical diagnoses combined with cardiac imaging techniques.
"This study provides further evidence that PTSD may affect physical health," said Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., director of the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which partially funded the study. "Future research to clarify the mechanisms underlying the link between PTSD and heart disease in Vietnam veterans and other groups will help to guide the development of effective prevention and treatment strategies for people with these serious conditions."
The findings appear online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and in the September 10 print issue.
Researchers from the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, along with colleagues from other institutions, assessed the presence of heart disease in 562 middle-aged twins (340 identical and 222 fraternal) from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry. The incidence of heart disease was 22.6 percent in twins with PTSD (177 individuals) and 8.9 percent in those without PTSD (425 individuals). Heart disease was defined as having a heart attack, having an overnight hospitalization for heart-related symptoms, or having undergone a heart procedure. Nuclear scans, used to photograph blood flow to the heart, showed that individuals with PTSD had almost twice as many areas of reduced blood flow to the heart as individuals without PTSD.
The use of twins, identical and fraternal, allowed researchers to control for the influences of genes and environment on the development of heart disease and PTSD.
"This study suggests a link between PTSD and cardiovascular health," said lead researcher Viola Vaccarino, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the department of medicine at Emory University and chair of the department of epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health. "For example, repeated emotional triggers during everyday life in persons with PTSD could affect the heart by causing frequent increases in blood pressure, heart rate, and heartbeat rhythm abnormalities that in susceptible individuals could lead to a heart attack."
When researchers compared the 234 twins where one brother had PTSD and the other did not, the incidence of heart disease was almost double in those with PTSD compared to those without PTSD (22.2 percent vs. 12.8 percent).
The effects of PTSD on heart disease remained strong even after researchers accounted for lifestyle factors such as smoking, physical activity level, and drinking; and major depression and other psychiatric diagnoses. Researchers found no link between PTSD and well-documented heart disease risk factors such as a history of hypertension, diabetes or obesity, suggesting that the disease may be due to physiologic changes, not lifestyle factors.
Affecting nearly 7.7 million U.S. adults, PTSD is an anxiety disorder that develops in a minority of people after exposure to a severe psychological trauma such as a life-threatening and terrifying event. People with PTSD may have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their trauma, may experience sleep problems, often feel detached or numb, and may be easily startled. According to a 2006 analysis of military records from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, between 15 and 19 percent of Vietnam veterans experienced PTSD at some point after the war.
The study used state-of-the-art imaging scans with positron emission tomography, which measures blood flow to the heart muscle and identifies areas of reduced blood flow, at rest and following stress.
The study was supported by grants from NHLBI (K24HL077506), (R01 HL68630), and (R21HL093665), the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG026255), the National Institute of Mental Health (K24 MH076955), and by the American Heart Association. Support also was provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1TR000454) and the National Center for Research Resources (MO1-RR00039).
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Five years ago, Joe Miller, then an Army Ranger captain with three Iraq tours under his belt, sat inside his home near Fort Bragg holding a cocked Beretta 40mm, and prepared to kill himself.
He didn't pull the trigger. So Miller's name wasn't added to the list of active-duty U.S. military men and women who have committed suicide. That tally reached 350 last year, a record pace of nearly one a day. That's more than the 295 American troops who were killed in Afghanistan in the same year.
"I didn't see any hope for me at the time. Everything kind of fell apart," Miller said. "Helplessness, worthlessness. I had been having really serious panic attacks. I had been hospitalized for a while." He said he pulled back at the last minute when he recalled how he had battled the enemy in Iraq, and decided he would fight his own depression and post-traumatic stress.
The U.S. military and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) acknowledge the grave difficulties facing active-duty and former members of the armed services who have been caught up in the more-than decade-long American involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system struggles to prevent suicides among troops and veterans because potential victims often don't seek counseling given the stigma still associated by many with mental illnesses or the deeply personal nature ? a failed romantic relationship, for example ? of a problem that often precedes suicide. Experts also cite illicit drug use, alcohol and financial woes.
The number of suicides is nearly double that of a decade ago when the United States was just a year into the Afghan war and hadn't yet invaded Iraq. While the pace is down slightly this year, it remains worryingly high.
The military says about 22 veterans kill themselves every day and a beefed up and more responsive VA could help. But how to tackle the spiking suicide number among active-duty troops, which is tracking a similar growth in suicide numbers in the general population, remains in question. The big increase in suicides among the baby boomer population especially ? linked by many to the recent recession ? actually began a decade before the 2008 financial meltdown.
Compounding the problem, the VA ? which administers health and other government benefits for veterans ? has a huge backlog of disability, medical and other claims resulting from service in the military. Eric Shinseki, head of the VA and a former Army general, promises to have the backlog erased ? but not before 2015. The Pentagon and Veteran Affairs are working to install compatible computer systems to speed up the process. And the VA just reported it had cut the backlog of claims pending more than 125 days by 15 percent in recent weeks.
Jason Hansman, of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says the problem among military men and women stems from a support system that falls far short of the needs of a military and its veterans.
"One of the big problems now is that we are trying to play catch-up on 10-plus years of war. People have gone back and forth seven, eight, nine times. And now you have a force that is stretched to its limit," Hansman said.
"It's not just people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan who are killing themselves. About 50 percent are people who've never deployed before. So there's this broader issue going on in the military. Are there even the health services in the military to take care of the troops who have deployed, who have no first-hand knowledge of war and trauma."
Miller had plenty of first-hand experience.
"I was really good at combat. I was really good at that job. It was when I was in the States that I had a problem," he said from his home in Old Town, Maine, where he and his second wife are working toward doctorates in history at the University of Maine.
He said symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome began building as did the effects of a number of concussions that caused mild traumatic brain injury. He had gone through elite Ranger training twice and became a jump-master in the 82nd Airborne. He ignored his symptoms because he didn't want to leave combat and his job as a platoon leader. When he finally sought help from the military during his last rotation in the United States, he found what he said was a "19th century" attitude.
"I remember a psychologist telling me 'officers don't get PTSD.' It was a real affront."
A few days after he nearly killed himself on July 3, 2008, Miller mustered out of the service and resumed treatment for PTSD at a VA facility in Richmond, Virginia.
The treatment was helpful but his feelings about the VA are "really mixed. My take is they are a bunch of really well-meaning people. I don't know that it's resourced for the tasks." Also huge numbers of veterans ? a tiny portion of the larger population ? live in small towns, far from the cities where veteran services are available.
The American public, largely untouched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because an all-volunteer military did the fighting, is gradually becoming aware of the problems faced by active-duty troops and military veterans. Now, some in Congress and President Barack Obama are trying to improve on the country's ability to take care of those who have signed up to fight.
None of that, however, undoes the anguish of such people as Ashley Whisler, whose brother Kyle killed himself Oct. 24, 2010. He had been driving convoys of supplies to U.S. troops from Kuwait shortly after the American invasion in 2003. He hanged himself in his home in Brandon, Florida, seven years after leaving the military. He had returned to his family in Michigan then moved to Florida, married and had a daughter. He and his wife separated before reconciling. He worked in a tattoo parlor, tended bar and began showing increasing signs of PTSD. He hanged himself while his wife and daughter slept.
Ashley Whisler said her brother spoke of fears of being ambushed when he was driving to work in Florida. After Kyle killed himself, her brother's friends told her how Kyle repeatedly called to talk about the horrors he had witnessed in Iraq and of how he couldn't sleep if there was a thunderstorm.
While she and her parents don't directly blame the military or the VA for Kyle's death, she does not let the department off the hook.
"These guys are coming back from the war and just being thrown back into society without any kind of transition or any kind of support. It's very difficult," she said.
Joe Miller says his military training, in the end, kept him alive.
"I had a gun in my hand. The second I cocked the weapon, I was back in Ranger mode and Ranger mode is not to kill yourself."
Nothing goes unregulated in China. Even China?s ?one child policy? has a little known canine equivalent: Only one dog per household in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
By Peter Ford,?Staff writer / June 24, 2013
Dogs wonder around while their owners check marble bracelets at a market in Beijing, China, April 2, 2013.
Alexander F. Yuan/AP
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Western human rights activists have never made much of a fuss about it, but China?s ?one child policy? has a little known canine equivalent.
Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford
Beijing Bureau Chief
Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
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The ?one dog policy? means what it says. In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, each household is allowed only one?canis lupus familiaris.? Nor are urban pet lovers allowed just any kind of dog.
?Vicious? dogs are outlawed. But so is every other dog that is likely to stand more than 14 inches high when it is fully grown.
That means no Rottweilers, St. Bernards or Great Danes, of course. But it also rules out keeping a Dalmatian, a Bloodhound, or a Chow.
Officials say the law is a public health measure, aimed at protecting citizens from strays. More people die of rabies in China than anywhere else in the world save India, they point out.
This being China, nothing goes unregulated. (Though this being China, the regulations are by no means always enforced: The number of outsized Tibetan Mastiffs you see being paraded around town as status symbols is testimony to that.) So each dog must, like his or her owner, have a ?residence permit.?
The plastic permits look very like Chinese ID cards, with the dog?s photo, name, sex, and type printed on it. The reverse of a Beijing resident-dog-license is decorated with ? what else? ? a Pekinese. And it doesn?t come cheap: $160 the first year and $80 a year after that.
Failure to register your dog risks an even costlier punishment ? an $800 fine.
Keeping dogs as pets is not really a Chinese tradition, though in the countryside farmers may keep guard dogs or hunting dogs. In fact, pooches are as often eaten than pampered in this part of the world, despite the best efforts of nascent animal rights groups.
Last week, for example, residents of Yulin in the southern province of Guangxi, got through about 10,000 dogs at their annual summer solstice dog meat festival, according to activists. Most of them were served in a traditional hotpot with lychees and grain liquor.
'Sheep-eating' plant: The Royal Horticultural Society has been nurturing a 10-foot-tall Puya Chilensis for 15 years. This 'sheep-eating' plant is now ready to bloom.
By David Clark Scott,?Staff writer / June 22, 2013
The Puya Chilensis growing at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley. It's nearly ready to bloom but there's been no 'sheep-eating' by this particular plant.
Royal Horticultural Society
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There's nothing like a giant carnivorous plant headline to get your heart racing ? and to draw folks to the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden Wisley.
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So, let's start by being completely accurate here. The?Puya chilensis is not actually a sheep eater - or even a meat eater. Yes, it's been known to kill sheep. But it's no Venus fly trap or pitcher plant. Those are true carnivores, and really only eat insects.
What makes the Puya chilensis so fascinating is that it has been known to capture and kill sheep in Chile, its native environment, for fertilizer.
"Most bromeliads have firm, hard leaves, but Puya chilensis is sort of an extreme example. Its leaves look sort of like aloe leaves, but in between them are huge, sharp spines that jut out past them. Most plants that have spines, like cacti, use them for protection, but it's theorized that Puya chilensis actually uses them for hunting," according to PopSci.com.
If a sheep gets close enough, the spines can snag on the wool of the sheep, entrapping them. The sheep starve and die at the base of the plant, thus providing a rather grisly but effective fertilizer.
Folks at the Royal Horticultural Society make it clear that no sheep have been harmed in the past 15 years of nurturing their Puya chilensis. And now, the three-meter (10- foot) tall plant is finally ready to bloom.?
?I?m really pleased that we?ve finally coaxed our Puya chilensis into flower. We keep it well fed with liquid fertiliser as feeding it on its natural diet might prove a bit problematic. It?s well worth a visit but parents coming along with small children don?t need to worry about the plant devouring their little ones. It?s growing in the arid section of our Glasshouse with its deadly spines well out of reach of both children and sheep alike," said Cara Smith, who looks after the plant at RHS Garden Wisley, in a statement.
This is not the first Puya chilensis brought to bloom in England. The society has done it in years past and it's always a crowd (and media) pleaser.
In fact, the Society's website lists 11 nurseries around the United Kingdom where local gardeners can buy the South American plant and attempt to create their own backyard botanical snare for small animals wandering by.
June 24, 2013 ? Hyperlipidemia, a condition with high levels of fats circulating in the bloodstream, is a known risk factor for various cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. While the Western diet often contributes to high levels of lipids such as cholesterol and triglycerides, over-production of the body's own lipoproteins can lead to hyperlipidemia, independent of food intake.
In a discovery that may pave the way towards new treatments for high cholesterol, researchers led by M. Mahmood Hussain, PhD, Professor of Cell Biology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, found that a regulatory RNA molecule interferes with the production of lipoproteins and, in a mouse model, reduces hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis. Their study was published recently in the online edition of Nature Medicine.
Dr. Hussain, whose laboratory focuses on molecular mechanisms of intestinal lipoprotein assembly, says, "High plasma lipid and lipoprotein levels are a risk factor for atherosclerosis, and lowering plasma lipid levels is a national goal. While current medications and changes in diet can be effective, cardiovascular disease remains the number one cause of death in the United States, and additional approaches to decrease lipid levels are needed."
In their Nature Medicine article, Dr. Hussain and colleagues note that "overproduction of lipoproteins, a process that is dependent on microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP), can contribute to hyperlipidemia." They demonstrate that microRNA-30c (miR-30c), a genetic regulator, interacts with MTP and induces its degradation, leading to reductions in MTP activity, the production of lipoproteins, plasma lipids, and atherosclerosis. This molecule also reduces lipid synthesis independently of MTP thereby avoiding complications associated with drug therapies aimed at lowering lipoprotein production.
The authors conclude that a medication mimicking miR-30c could potentially be effective in reducing hyperlipidemia in humans.
This work was supported in part by U.S. National Institutes of Health grants R01DK046900, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and R01HL095924, from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
MOSCOW (AP) ? Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs, flew to Russia on Sunday and planned to head to Ecuador to seek asylum, the South American country's foreign minister and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said.
Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government has received a request for asylum from Snowden. WikiLeaks, which is giving Snowden legal assistance, said his asylum request would be formally processed once he arrived in Ecuador, the same country that has already been sheltering the anti-secrecy group's founder Julian Assange in its London embassy.
Snowden arrived in Moscow on an Aeroflot flight shortly after 5 p.m. (1300gmt) Sunday after being allowed to leave Hong Kong, where he had been in hiding for several weeks after he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs.
Snowden was spending the night in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and was booked on an Aeroflot flight to Cuba on Monday, the Russian news agencies ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported, citing unnamed airline officials. Aeroflot has no direct flights from Moscow to Quito, Ecuador; travelers would have to make connections in Paris, Rome or Washington, which could be problematic for Snowden.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, the WikiLeaks spokesman, told Britain's Sky News that Snowden would be meeting with diplomats from Ecuador in Moscow. WikiLeaks said he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from the group.
The car of Ecuador's ambassador to Russia was parked outside the airport in the evening.
Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that WikiLeaks is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.
A U.S. official in Washington said Snowden's passport was annulled before he left Hong Kong, which could complicate but not thwart his travel plans. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to discuss the matter, said that if a senior official in a country or airline ordered it, a country could overlook the withdrawn passport.
While Patino did not say if the asylum request would be accepted, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has shown repeated willingness to irk the U.S. government and he has emerged as one of the leaders of Latin America's leftist bloc, along with Fidel and Raul Castro of Cuba and Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez.
Both the United States and Britain protested his decision to grant asylum to Assange.
Critics have suggested that asylum for Assange might be aimed partly at blunting international criticism of Correa's own tough stance on critics and new restrictions imposed on the news media.
The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on Sunday's developments by his national security advisers.
Snowden's departure came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in America.
The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."
It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.
Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden go on a technicality appears to be a pragmatic move aimed at avoiding a drawn out extradition battle. The action swiftly eliminates a geopolitical headache that could have left Hong Kong facing pressure from both Washington and Beijing.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, has a high degree of autonomy and is granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China, but under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs. Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.
Russian officials have given no indication that they have any interest in detaining Snowden or any grounds to do so. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia would be willing to consider granting asylum if Snowden were to make such a request. Russia and the United States have no extradition treaty that would oblige Russia to hand over a U.S. citizen at Washington's request.
The Cuban government had no comment on Snowden's movements or reports he might use Havana as a transit point.
Snowden's latest travels came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from the former NSA contractor that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.
He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.
With a population of more than 1.3 billion, China has massive cellphone companies. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile network carrier with 735 million subscribers, followed by China Unicom with 258 million users and China Telecom with 172 million users.
Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the reports of Snowden's departure from Hong Kong to Moscow but did not know the specifics. It said the Chinese central government "always respects" Hong Kong's "handling of affairs in accordance with law." The Foreign Ministry also noted that it is "gravely concerned about the recently disclosed cyberattacks by relevant U.S. government agencies against China."
China's state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.
A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."
"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."
____
Hui reported from London. Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Paul Haven in Havana, Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, and Matthew Lee, Anne Flaherty and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.
Oregon chemists moving forward with tool to detect hydrogen sulfidePublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Barlow jebarlow@uoregon.edu 541-346-3481 University of Oregon
Newly developed approach could benefit basic medical research and find H2S in the environment
EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 24, 2013) -- University of Oregon chemists have developed a selective probe that detects hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels as low as 190 nanomolar (10 parts per billion) in biological samples. They say the technique could serve as a new tool for basic biological research and as an enhanced detection system for H2S in suspected bacterially contaminated water sources.
Hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas, has long been known for its dangerous toxicity -- and its telltale smell of rotten eggs -- in the environment, but in the last decade the gas has been found to be produced in mammals, including humans, with seemingly important roles in molecular signaling and cardiac health. Detection methods for biological systems are emerging from many laboratories as scientists seek to understand the roles of H2S in general health and different diseases.
Reporting in the Journal of Organic Chemistry -- online in advance of regular print publication -- researchers in the UO lab of Michael D. Pluth, professor of chemistry, describe the development of a colorimetric probe that relies on nucleophilic aromatic substitution to react selectively with H2S to produce a characteristic purple product, allowing for precise H2S measurement.
"This paper describes a new way to selectively detect H2S," said Pluth, who has been pursuing detection methods for the gas under a National Institutes of Health "Pathway to Independence" grant. That early career award began while he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "This technique allows you to use instruments to quantify how much H2S has been produced in a sample, and the distinctive color change allows for naked-eye detection."
In biological samples, he said, the approach allows for a precise measurement. In the environment, he added, the technique could be used to determine if potentially harmful H2S-producing bacteria are a contaminant in water sources through the creation of testing kits to detect the gas when levels are above a defined threshold.
The key to the technique, said the paper's lead author, doctoral student Leticia A. Montoya, is the reaction process in which the probe reacts with H2S to produce a distinctly identifiable purple compound. "This method allows you look selectively at hydrogen sulfide versus any other nucleophiles or biological thiols in a system," Montoya said. "It allows you to more easily visualize where H2S is present."
The chemical reaction produced in the experiments, Pluth said, also holds the potential to be applied in a variety of materials, on surfaces and films, with appropriate modifications. The UO has applied for a provisional patent to cover the technology.
The study is the second in which Pluth's lab has reported potential detection probes for H2S. Last year, in the journal Chemical Communications, Montoya and Pluth described their development of two bright fluorescent probes that sort out H2S from among cysteine, glutathione and other reactive sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen species in living cells.
"We're really interested in making sharper tools," Pluth said. "We have the basic science worked out, and now we want to move forward to fine-tune our tools so that we can better use them to answer important scientific questions."
"University of Oregon researchers are helping to foster a more sustainable future by developing powerful new tools and entrepreneurial technologies," said Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president for research and innovation and dean of the UO graduate school. "This important research from Dr. Pluth's lab may someday alert us to environmental contaminants and could also impact basic science and human health."
###
Co-authors with Montoya and Pluth on the newly published paper were UO undergraduate students Taylor F. Pearce and Ryan J. Hansen, and Lev N. Zakharov of the UO-based Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR). The NIH grant to Pluth (R00 GM092970) came from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences. The research also utilized UO-based nuclear magnetic resonance facilities that are supported by the National Science Foundation (ARRA CHE-0923589).
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Sources:
Michael D. Pluth assistant professor of chemistry 541-346-7477 pluth@uoregon.edu
Leticia A. Montoya doctoral student, chemistry lmontoya@uoregon.edu
Links:
Pluth faculty page: http://chemistry.uoregon.edu/fac.html?pluth
Pluth lab: http://pages.uoregon.edu/pluth/
Department of Chemistry: http://chemistry.uoregon.edu
Follow UO Science on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfOregonScience
UO Science on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UO_Research
More UO Science/Research News: http://uoresearch.uoregon.edu
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Oregon chemists moving forward with tool to detect hydrogen sulfidePublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Barlow jebarlow@uoregon.edu 541-346-3481 University of Oregon
Newly developed approach could benefit basic medical research and find H2S in the environment
EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 24, 2013) -- University of Oregon chemists have developed a selective probe that detects hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels as low as 190 nanomolar (10 parts per billion) in biological samples. They say the technique could serve as a new tool for basic biological research and as an enhanced detection system for H2S in suspected bacterially contaminated water sources.
Hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas, has long been known for its dangerous toxicity -- and its telltale smell of rotten eggs -- in the environment, but in the last decade the gas has been found to be produced in mammals, including humans, with seemingly important roles in molecular signaling and cardiac health. Detection methods for biological systems are emerging from many laboratories as scientists seek to understand the roles of H2S in general health and different diseases.
Reporting in the Journal of Organic Chemistry -- online in advance of regular print publication -- researchers in the UO lab of Michael D. Pluth, professor of chemistry, describe the development of a colorimetric probe that relies on nucleophilic aromatic substitution to react selectively with H2S to produce a characteristic purple product, allowing for precise H2S measurement.
"This paper describes a new way to selectively detect H2S," said Pluth, who has been pursuing detection methods for the gas under a National Institutes of Health "Pathway to Independence" grant. That early career award began while he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "This technique allows you to use instruments to quantify how much H2S has been produced in a sample, and the distinctive color change allows for naked-eye detection."
In biological samples, he said, the approach allows for a precise measurement. In the environment, he added, the technique could be used to determine if potentially harmful H2S-producing bacteria are a contaminant in water sources through the creation of testing kits to detect the gas when levels are above a defined threshold.
The key to the technique, said the paper's lead author, doctoral student Leticia A. Montoya, is the reaction process in which the probe reacts with H2S to produce a distinctly identifiable purple compound. "This method allows you look selectively at hydrogen sulfide versus any other nucleophiles or biological thiols in a system," Montoya said. "It allows you to more easily visualize where H2S is present."
The chemical reaction produced in the experiments, Pluth said, also holds the potential to be applied in a variety of materials, on surfaces and films, with appropriate modifications. The UO has applied for a provisional patent to cover the technology.
The study is the second in which Pluth's lab has reported potential detection probes for H2S. Last year, in the journal Chemical Communications, Montoya and Pluth described their development of two bright fluorescent probes that sort out H2S from among cysteine, glutathione and other reactive sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen species in living cells.
"We're really interested in making sharper tools," Pluth said. "We have the basic science worked out, and now we want to move forward to fine-tune our tools so that we can better use them to answer important scientific questions."
"University of Oregon researchers are helping to foster a more sustainable future by developing powerful new tools and entrepreneurial technologies," said Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president for research and innovation and dean of the UO graduate school. "This important research from Dr. Pluth's lab may someday alert us to environmental contaminants and could also impact basic science and human health."
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Co-authors with Montoya and Pluth on the newly published paper were UO undergraduate students Taylor F. Pearce and Ryan J. Hansen, and Lev N. Zakharov of the UO-based Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR). The NIH grant to Pluth (R00 GM092970) came from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences. The research also utilized UO-based nuclear magnetic resonance facilities that are supported by the National Science Foundation (ARRA CHE-0923589).
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Sources:
Michael D. Pluth assistant professor of chemistry 541-346-7477 pluth@uoregon.edu
Leticia A. Montoya doctoral student, chemistry lmontoya@uoregon.edu
Links:
Pluth faculty page: http://chemistry.uoregon.edu/fac.html?pluth
Pluth lab: http://pages.uoregon.edu/pluth/
Department of Chemistry: http://chemistry.uoregon.edu
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More UO Science/Research News: http://uoresearch.uoregon.edu
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CHICAGO (AP) ? A system-wide computer failure forced Southwest Airlines to ground its entire fleet of airplanes preparing for departures late Friday, and at least 57 flights had to be canceled even after service was fully restored hours later, a company spokeswoman said.
Michelle Agnew told The Associated Press that 43 of the cancellations were flights scheduled for late Friday night departures in the western half of the country. The other 14 were Saturday morning flights scattered across the U.S. because crews were not able to get to airports in time to make the scheduled takeoffs.
An estimated 250 flights ? most of them on the West Coast ? were grounded at least temporarily Friday night. The glitch impaired the airline's ability to do such things as conduct check-ins, print boarding passes and monitor the weight of each aircraft.
Some flights were on the taxiway and diverted back to the terminal after the problem was detected around 8 p.m. PDT Friday, Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins said. Flights already in the air were unaffected.
Shortly after 11 p.m. PDT, Southwest posted on its Twitter page that "systems are operating and we will begin work to get customers where they need to be. Thanks for your patience tonight."
Agnew said the computer system was "running at full capacity" by early Saturday. Before that, though, officials used a backup system that was much more sluggish.
"Backup systems are in place, not the main system, so it's slower," Hawkins said after service resumed. "But we are able to start launching these flights."
He said cancellations were inevitable because the airline doesn't do redeye flights and by the time the problem was fixed, it was near "the end of our operational day."
The late hour of the disruption meant the computer problem affected far more flights on the West Coast, but Hawkins said at least a few on the East Coast were grounded as well. Southwest, based in Dallas, conducts, on average, 3,400 flights a day.
A spokesman for Los Angeles International Airport said of about 25 inbound and outbound flights remaining Friday, only five departing flights were experiencing delays, of 30 to 80 minutes. At LA/Ontario International Airport (ONT), a total of three flights ? all departures ? were affected.
Four Southwest flights were temporarily held in Seattle, said Christina Faine, a Seattle-Tacoma International Airport spokeswoman.
One flight to Oakland, Calif., had been due to leave at 9:20 p.m. and departed before 11 p.m. Faine said late Friday night that an airport duty manager, Anthony Barnes, told her the others were expected to depart shortly.
Steve Johnson, a spokesman for Portland, Ore., International Airport, said he was not aware of any planes held up there.
___
Associated Press writers Kathy McCarthy in Seattle, Robert Seavey in Phoenix and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
The La Jolla Festival of the Arts is Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The sun was shining Saturday for the first day of the La Jolla Festival of the Arts at UC San Diego's Warren Field.
The two-day event is produced by Torrey Pines Kiwanis, a non-profit organization that raises funds to support adaptive sports and recreation programs for San Diegans with disabilities.
La Jolla Festival Arts will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23 at UC San Diego Warren Field.
Tickets are $14 at the door. For more info visit?lajollaartfestival.org.
MADRID (AP) ? A 26-year-old woman has been arrested in the eastern Spanish city of Alicante on suspicion of attempting to murder her newborn baby who had to be rescued from inside a building's drains, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said the two-day old boy, who still had his umbilical cord attached and was found wrapped in plastic bags, could have been trapped for 40 hours at a point where the building's drains converged into a 1 square meter (1.2 square yard) manhole in a courtyard.
A neighbor had alerted firefighters at 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) Sunday to what was originally thought to be a meowing cat trapped inside the drains, the ministry said in a statement.
The baby, who weighed 2.1 kilograms (4.6 pounds), is said to be in a serious but not life-threatening condition in hospital, having suffered a fracture to a bone in one arm. The baby had other injuries too, which have yet to be detailed.
The ministry said police investigators have been able to determine that the unnamed woman lived in the building, but had been admitted to Alicante's General Hospital on June 21 where she told medical staff she had suffered a miscarriage.
When police arrived at the hospital to question her, the mother acknowledged to officers that she had tried to get rid of the baby but had not had enough money to pay for an abortion.
The statement said the mother was under arrest and that an investigation was under way to try and discover whether she acted alone, or if a third party could have been involved in the ditching of the baby in the building's communal drains.
Last month rescue workers in eastern China had to extract a newborn baby who had become stuck in a sewer pipe after its mother had tried to give birth in secret.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? An Iranian oil ministry official on Saturday denied a report published by a government agency that it had successfully blocked a cyberattack on an oil sector computer network.
Ahmad Tavallaei, head of IT at the National Iranian Oil Company, said in comments posted on the oil ministry's website shana.ir that a technical problem, not a cyberattack, was the reason for a temporary shutdown of the network.
An Iranian government agency in charge of fighting sabotage said earlier Saturday in its website, paydarymelli.ir, that the networks of the Oil Ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company came under cyberattack the day before.
Iran periodically reports the discovery of viruses and other malicious programs in government, nuclear, oil and industrial networks, blaming Israel and the United States. In May, Iran shut down part of its oil facilities because of another such reported cyberattack.
Israel has done little to deflect suspicion that it uses viruses against Iran.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A security guard shot and killed a Jewish Israeli man on Friday at one of Judaism's holiest sites in Jerusalem, the Western Wall, which was immediately shut to visitors, police said.
The guard opened fire after the man, in an adjacent restroom, was heard shouting "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is greatest", police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
Rosenfeld said the guard opened fire with his pistol because he suspected the man was a Palestinian militant. The victim turned out to be an Israeli Jew in his 40s.
"The fact he shouted Allahu Akbar, that seems to be why the security guard drew his weapon and fired a number of shots at him," he said.
"We are looking into what (the dead man's)... motives were," Rosenfeld added.
The incident occurred as hundreds gathered for prayer in one of Jerusalem's most sensitive areas. The Western Wall is one of Judaism's holiest sites, where thousands worship each week.
The plaza where the wall is located is next to the Temple Mount, revered by Jews as the place where two biblical temples stood, and the site of Islam's third holiest mosque, al-Aqsa.
(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by John Stonestreet)
James Gandolfini, who rose to fame as Tony Soprano on ?The Sopranos,? loved playing the complicated mobster. It is likely the role he?ll be most remembered for after his unexpected passing on June 19.
But as much fame and recognition as the role brought him, he was at heart a blue-collared guy who seemed just as proud of his HBO projects that involved bringing attention to the plight of veterans: 2007's "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq" and 2010's "Wartorn: 1861-2010."
HBO
James Gandolfini speaks to Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli in "Wartorn 1861-2010."
?Alive Day Memories,? which he both hosted and executive produced, took a look at wounded soldiers and the physical and emotional cost of the Iraq War.
?Coming right on the heels of ?The Sopranos? controversial season finale, this showed such a different and impassioned side of James Gandolfini: so soft-spoken and careful in his sensitive interviews with grievously wounded veterans. If anyone ever doubted that the actor was a world removed from the conflicted brute he played so brilliantly on TV, this documentary reinforced the ?gentle giant? side of his personality,? Matt Roush, senior TV critic for TV Guide, told NBC News. ?He obviously admired and respected these men and women and felt it a privilege to let them tell their stories through him. Hard to imagine a better use of one's celebrity and clout than getting the home network (to whom he stayed remarkably loyal, and vice versa) to expose this project to a wide audience.?
Gandolfini, who was never a fan of answering questions from throngs of reporters, set aside his own feelings and attended the Television Critics Association?s 2007 summer press tour to promote the project.
?I went to Iraq because I was playing this tough guy on TV, and I guess I wanted to go meet a few real ones. I was angry about the lack of attention that was being paid,? Gandolfini told reporters. ?I thought it was the least I could do.?
Gandolfini made the trip to Iraq two years before filming the documentary. Of the trip, he said, ?I met a lot of people and I met the soldiers. And then I came home and it was like, there?s nothing here (on TV about the impact of the war on soldiers). What?s going on? (HBO) came to me and I said, ?Yeah. Whatever I can do.??
Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO Documentary Films, explained to reporters at the press tour that the network had wanted to do a documentary about veterans of the Iraq War. ?We knew this was not an easy thing to watch, and it was not something necessarily that we could get people to watch,? she added.
But she knew that with Gandolfini on board, viewers would tune in. ?We spent a day with him at Walter Reed, watching him go from bed to bed and mother to mother,? she said. ?I knew I actually had a way possibly to make people watch these young men and women who were coming home.?
During the panel, the actor made sure the focus stayed on the wounded warriors who were there sharing the stage with him, deflecting any questions about himself and redirecting back to the subjects of the documentary.
?It?s not about me,? he told reporters when asked about how the project impacted him. ?I?m not trying to be antagonistic in any way, but I?d like the questions directed towards other things besides how it changed me, you know what I?m saying? Let?s have a different question.?
The veterans involved in the documentary praised him for being a good listener and setting aside his own star status to put their stories front and center. Not only that, they said the star was anything but a celebrity when he worked with them.
?You weren?t talking to Tony Soprano,? veteran Jay Wilkerson, who is featured in the documentary, said of speaking with the actor for the film. ?You were talking to this man who cared about us and our stories. He listened, really listened to what we had to say.?
?He made me feel like I was open to say anything and everything I wanted to say, and I had no boundaries,? the vet also said. ?And that?s what I was never able to do in Iraq. I was always told not to do that. He made it possible. And so I opened my mouth and spoke, and it was exactly what happened, word for word.?
Veteran Jonathan Bartlett, who lost his legs in the war, said the actor seemed a bit intimidating when they first met, but after they started talking, Gandolfini listened.
"There?s a lot of people, when you try to talk about this? stuff, it?s not something they want to hear about," Barlett told reporters at press tour. "We?re? talking about the way I died, talking about the way my legs? were torn off, talking about the way I almost lost my eye, ?talking about the way my dreams were shattered, and the man ?I thought I was is still living in me and he?s blown to ?crap. That?s hard to articulate. We sat, we got? comfortable, and we just let it all out, and that?s very,? very nice."
After the presentation, Gandolfini kept his own dislike for talking to member of the press at bay for the greater good of promoting the project. At an HBO party that hot July night, reporters instructed by their editors to get something from Gandolfini about the controversial ?Sopranos? series final that aired the month before tried breaching the wall with zero success. Gandolfini was tossing back appletinis and talked only about the veterans surrounding him.
When one reporter he was familiar with slipped in a ?Sopranos? question during a more indepth interview, instead of getting angry, he broke into a smile. Then he laughed and put his arms around the writer and whispered in her ear.
?That was a really good one, and almost makes me want to answer, but all this isn?t about me. It?s about them,? said Gandolfini.
Everyone thought the reporter had gotten a scoop. And she did: confirmation that Gandolfini cared more about the people in the documentary than in exploiting the opportunity to get more publicity out of his higher profile role.
Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Launches "Cookie Clearinghouse" to Enable User Choice for Online Tracking
STANFORD, Calif., June 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School launched a new online privacy initiative today called the "Cookie Clearinghouse," which will empower Internet users to make informed choices about online privacy. The Cookie Clearinghouse is being spearheaded by Aleecia M. McDonald, the Director of Privacy at CIS.
Websites may place small files called "cookies" on an Internet user's machine, and some types of cookies can be used to collect information about the user without his or her consent. The Cookie Clearinghouse will develop and maintain an "allow list" and "block list" to help Internet users make privacy choices as they move through the Internet. The Clearinghouse will identify instances where tracking is being conducted without the user's consent, such as by third parties that the user never visited. To establish the "allow list" and "block list," the Cookie Clearinghouse is consulting with an advisory board that will include individuals from browser companies including Mozilla and Opera Software, academic privacy researchers, as well as individuals with expertise in small businesses and in European law, and the advisory board will continue to grow over time. The Clearinghouse will also offer the public an opportunity to comment. With this input, the Clearinghouse will develop an objective set of criteria for when to include a website's cookies on the lists. The Clearinghouse will create and maintain the lists. Browser developers will then be able to choose whether to incorporate the lists into the privacy options they offer to consumers. Company websites with cookies that have been included on the "block list" will be able to respond to the Clearinghouse to correct any mistakes in classification.
"Internet users are starting to understand that their online activities are closely monitored, often by companies they have never heard of before," said McDonald, "But Internet users currently don't have the tools they need to make online privacy choices. The Cookie Clearinghouse will create, maintain, and publish objective information. Web browser companies will be able to choose to adopt the lists we publish to provide new privacy options to their users."
The need for the Clearinghouse evolved out of an effort by CIS fellows called Do Not Track. Initially, Stanford's Do Not Track work raised consumer awareness about the way in which "tracking cookies" are used by websites--and by unaffiliated third parties--to compile extensive individual browsing histories that provide those companies with data about individual consumer behavior. This effort has since progressed to a global standards effort led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C.) More recently, CIS researchers began a new effort to prevent companies from tracking without the user's consent. CIS student affiliate Jonathan Mayer wrote a software patch for use in Mozilla's Firefox browser that limits third-party tracking through cookies. Mayer's patch mimics existing functionality in the Safari browser, which already prevents tracking from websites users have not visited. While Do Not Track efforts continue into their third year, the Cookie Clearinghouse is a new opportunity to accelerate Internet users' ability to make effective online privacy choices.
For more details, please visit the Cookie Clearinghouse: http://cch.law.stanford.edu
National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is getting help from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
On a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Mr. Assange confirmed reports that WikiLeaks is helping Mr. Snowden?s effort to gain asylum in Iceland.
?We have been in contact with Snowden and have been helping him,? he said. ?I feel a great deal of personal sympathy with Mr. Snowden.?
Assange also implied that WikiLeaks may well publish future revelations that Snowden says are forthcoming. WikiLeaks is best known for making public vast amounts of classified information provided by US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is now in the midst of a court-martial for the largest leak of classified documents in US history.
RECOMMENDED: Six countries where Edward Snowden could get asylum
?As a matter of policy, we don?t speak about investigations or upcoming publications,? Assange repeated several times Wednesday, refusing to say whether he had spoken directly with Snowden. But, he hinted, ?significant material will be published in coming weeks.?
For his part, Assange is marking the one-year anniversary of being holed-up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in order to avoid questioning about alleged sexual offenses in Sweden. Rather than hampering his WikiLeaks work, he said, his self-imposed isolation means that he has nothing else to do but continue with the controversial whistle-blower organization?s efforts.
Assange was joined in the 90-minute phone conference by prominent whistle-blowers and their advocates, who are highly critical of the Obama administration?s crackdown on government leakers as well as its recently reported secret probing of the phone records of Associated Press journalists and a Fox News reporter.
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Snowden?s more recent revelation that the NSA has been collecting vast amounts of metadata on phone records and Internet use means the Obama administration has taken government spying on Americans further than any previous administration, said Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the top secret Pentagon Papers to the media in 1971 when Richard Nixon was president.
?President Obama has gone farther than any of the others in using the power of the government,? Mr. Ellsberg said. ?What?s new is not only prosecutions under the Espionage Act but criminalizing the process of investigative journalism.?
But Ellsberg also said he remains hopeful that the examples of Manning, Assange, and Snowden will prompt others to become leakers and whistle-blowers.
?This is our last chance, I think, to keep our press and thus our democracy from becoming like China?s or the Soviet Union,? he said.
For critics of domestic spying, FBI Director Robert Mueller?s congressional testimony Wednesday, acknowledging that his agency has been using surveillance drones over American soil, came as a matter of suspicions confirmed.
"I think the greatest threat to the privacy of Americans is the drone and the use of the drone and the very few regulations that are on it today and the booming industry of commercial drones,? CNN quotes Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California as saying. (Senator Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, has defended the NSA?s electronic-surveillance program.) As reporters and government officials try to track down Snowden ? last located in a hotel in Hong Kong ? the debate over the benefits and dangers of the NSA?s surveillance programs continues.
In a USA Today interview earlier this week, three former NSA whistle-blowers ? Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe ? were said to ?feel vindicated? by Snowden?s revelations.
?They say the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who worked as a systems administrator, proves their claims of sweeping government surveillance of millions of Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing,? USA Today reports. ?They say those revelations only hint at the programs' reach.? ?We are seeing the initial outlines and contours of a very systemic, very broad, a Leviathan surveillance state and much of it is in violation of the fundamental basis for our own country ? in fact, the very reason we even had our own American Revolution,? said Mr. Drake, a former NSA executive who was charged under the Espionage Act. (The most serious charges were dropped, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misuse of a government computer.)
RECOMMENDED: Six countries where Edward Snowden could get asylum
The Supreme Court of Canada will reveal today if it will hear an appeal in a conflict of interest challenge that previously threatened to oust Toronto Mayor Rob Ford from office.
Toronto resident Paul Magder filed an application in an Ontario court last year, alleging that Ford had violated conflict of interest legislation when he participated in a council vote that absolved his need to pay back funds donated to his private football foundation.
The controversy had begun two years before the application was filed, when Toronto?s integrity commissioner recommended to council in August 2010 that Ford pay back the donations that had been improperly solicited on letterhead with official city markings. Council adopted her recommendations.
In January 2012, the integrity commissioner informed council that Ford had not provided proof of reimbursement. That preceded the vote that occurred days later, which resulted in council deciding to drop the issue and take no further action. Magder filed his application in March 2012.
In court, Ford would testify that he never read the legislation he was accused of violating, nor the materials that the city gives to its elected officials explaining their obligations in declaring conflicts.
In November of last year, a Superior Court justice found that Ford had violated conflict of interest rules and ordered the mayor removed from office.
Ford appealed the matter and a Divisional Court subsequently overturned the removal order in January.
But the day that Ford won the appeal, Clayton Ruby, the lawyer for the Toronto resident who filed the application, indicated that he would ask the Supreme Court of Canada to hear an appeal.
The top court is due to announce its decision on whether it will hear the appeal shortly before 10 a.m. ET.
Tumultuous tenure as mayor
Ford, who recently turned 44, was elected as the mayor of Canada?s most populous city in the fall of 2010.
His tenure has been marked by controversy at times, as he has clashed with councillors on key issues including labour, budget and transit files. Ford has advocated for lower taxes and a smaller municipal government, but has struggled to lead the council that surrounds him.
Ford has also made headlines for his driving, his behaviour out of the office and his intensive involvement with high school football.
Most recently, reports have emerged that Ford was recorded on video using crack cocaine.
Ford has denied the video's existence. He has also said he does not use crack cocaine, nor is he addicted to it.
The story about the alleged drug video has drawn attention around the world and has led to an increased media focus on his life and work at city hall.
Before he was elected mayor, Ford served as a city councillor in Etobicoke, the Toronto suburb where he lives with his family.
The eventual demise of Google Reader gave existing services like Feedly an opportunity to land hundreds of thousands of new users, but the sudden gain of popularity demands an infrastructure that can handle the load. By opening its APIs to the masses today, Feedly says it's officially making the transition "from a product to a platform," supplying developers and RSS users alike with a painless migration path from Google's soon-to-be deceased reader. To go along with that, the company also announced a novel version of Feedly on the web, one which doesn't require any extensions or plugins and is accessible via browsers such as Internet Explorer and Opera.
As the image above shows, the freshly minted cloud platform already offers support for a slew of third-party applications, and Feedly says numerous other devs are currently working on their own for the near future. Now, if you didn't think Mountain View's recent spring cleaning could have a huge influence in such a short span of time, hear this: Feedly's touting that its user base has more than tripled since the announcement, making the jump from 4 to 12 million through the end of last month. Only time will tell if Feedly ends up being a worthy Reader replacement, so perhaps now would be the perfect instance to start deciding whether or not this will be the proper solution to all your RSS needs.
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
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