Clint Eastwood joins moderate GOP in supporting gay marriage

A growing split in the Republican Party deepened today when Clint Eastwood, the movie star who rocked the GOP convention by interviewing an invisible President Obama, joined the ranks of Republicans who are in favor of legalizing gay marriage.

The support for gay marriage by Eastwood and about 100 prominent Republicans, along with budding support within the party for immigration reform, is creating an obvious divide in the party. It pits moderate Republicans and party operatives on one side against conservative activists who drive turnout in the primary elections.

One of the four former Republican governors who signed the legal brief in favor of same sex marriage is ex-New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman who she says there are days she "absolutely" doesn't feel like part of the party because she says the GOP is being "defined by the talking heads and they don't for the most part represent me."

Another Republican who is taking on some conservative elements in the party is Carlos Gutierrez, the former commerce secretary under George W. Bush. Gutierrez announced last week he is forming a new super PAC "Republicans for Immigration Reform."

Gutierrez says there are House members who "understand we have to fix the problem" of immigration, but "the concern is they get primaried or have a primary challenger from the right who throws out the word amnesty, which is so easy to do."

"We will be very involved in the primary process for the House to give members cover?If they have a rival from the right screaming amnesty or a primary challenger from the right screaming amnesty, those are the people we want to cover, we want to support and if that means going after the challenger that is screaming amnesty we will do that," Gutierrez told ABC News.

Gutierrez says Mitt Romney's comments during the Republican primary that undocumented aliens should "self-deport" clearly hurt him and he was questioned about it well into the general election. When asked if the primary system, which is dominated by grassroots conservatives, is broken Gutierrez said yes calling it a "crazy system."

"To think in this day and age in 24 hour media coverage you can run and say far right policies and then for the national election sneak back in the center and nobody notices, you can't do that," Gutierrez said.

Clint Eastwood Joins Republicans for Gay Marriage

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a possible presidential contender four years from now, also said today the GOP needs to change the way it appeals to Hispanic voters.

"We cannot expect to get support from the Latino community if we don't make the Latino community feel welcome and important in our party," Christie said while accepting the endorsement of a group of Latino leaders, according to the Newark Star Ledger. "Everyone here in the Latino community, a community that is steeped in faith, understands that our faith in the country comes from the power of the individual to be able to pursue their faith openly, vigorously, and in a way they believe helps to build and strengthen their families."

Christie added: "Now with all those agreements why is it that over 70 percent of the Latino community in the last national election voted for the other party?"

The New Jersey governor is a glaring example of litmus test conservatism when it was revealed this week that he is not being invited to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a confab of conservative activists next month.

Christie is one of the most popular governors in the country and widely thought to be eyeing the 2016 presidential race. But he has angered conservatives after he blasted House Speaker John Boehner for adjourning the House without approving a $60 billion relief package for the victims of superstorm Sandy.

Christie also angered some Republicans when just one week before the presidential election he praised President Obama's handling of the storm, which slammed into his state on Oct. 29.

Whitman, one of the four former Republican governors who signed the legal brief in favor of same sex marriage, said she was "blown away by those who criticized [Christie] so severely for embracing the president."

"He did what you elect a governor to do. He was not acting like a politician," Whitman said.

Whitman said the problem with moderates in the party's tug-of-war is "they tend to be more moderate."

"We have a responsibility to not allow ourselves to be drowned out," Whitman said. "Let them know when senators and those in Congress work across the aisle or Chris Christie stands up?(that) this is what we want. This is what we expect of our elected leaders."

Whitman said she signed the gay marriage brief because it's important to be heard and it's an opportunity to get this issue behind us."

"We are talking about family values, we are talking about commitment that so many people hold in such high regard it shouldn't make a difference if it's between a man and a woman or two men or two women," Whitman said. "We are the party of family values and limited government. Getting out of the bedroom is a good first step."

Whitman, who is also the former administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, said the purist conservatives are statistically a smaller number of people in the party, but are the loudest because of their role in the party's primaries where voter turnout can be very low.

"It allows the most partisan people the first say in who your choices?and because they are the most partisan they are going to choose the most partisan people," Whitman said. "They have influence beyond their numbers."

Margaret Hoover, a GOP strategist and former George W. Bush staffer who signed the brief, agrees with Whitman, but said she always feels like a member of the party because she is "totally committed to changing it."

"You can leave or you can change it and frankly we are having a lot of success changing it," Hoover said. "We are making it truer to our principals and we are calling out the people who claim to be for individual freedom."

Hoover said she thinks the people "gearing up for civil war" are the "social conservatives who insist on purity tests," but there are "other elements of the party that are quickly trying to tamp that down and pivoting to, 'No we are going to be the party of the big tent.' We are going to get back to being a big tent party on social issues. We will be strict on fiscal issues."

"It's fair to say that increasingly behind the scenes Republicans are saying we have to be a big tent on social issues. Social conservative activists are going to hate that, (American Conservative Union president) Al Cardenas is going to hate that and his people are going to hate that, but that's not the reality," Hoover said.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clint-eastwood-joins-republicans-gay-235008273.html

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Congress set to OK bill renewing anti-violence law

WASHINGTON (AP) ? House Republicans appeared resigned Thursday to accepting an ambitious expansion of the Violence Against Women Act that would bring gays, lesbians, immigrants and Native Americans under its protective umbrella.

A House vote to approve the Senate's version of legislation renewing the Violence Against Women Act would send the legislation to President Barack Obama for his signature and help burnish the GOP's image with women.

Republicans generally agree the law is needed, but many in the GOP oppose a sweeping expansion. Before taking up the broad-ranging bill approved by the Senate two weeks ago, the House will vote on a more limited GOP version. But with Democrats solidly behind the Senate bill and Republicans split over their own alternative, that version was likely to be rejected.

In contrast to the partisan divide in the House, the Senate passed the measure on a 78-22 vote, with all Democrats, all women senators and 23 of 45 Republicans supporting it. The Senate bill goes further than some Republicans like in significantly broadening the scope of the law's coverage.

The GOP decision not to prolong the dispute over how best to extend the 1994 law came after the party's poor showing among women in last fall's election and Democratic success in framing the debate over the anti-violence law as Republican policy hostile to women. President Barack Obama won 55 percent of the women's vote last November. Republican presidential candidates haven't won the women's vote since 1984, when Ronald Reagan held a 12-point lead over Walter Mondale among women.

With House approval of the Senate bill, Obama will sign the reauthorization of the law that laid the foundation for federal efforts to better protect women, and some men, from domestic abuse and better prosecute the abusers.

The law expired in 2011, and has been stuck in political limbo as the House, up to now, has resisted Senate efforts to enlarge the scope of the legislation.

The legislation appeared headed for another impasse at the end of last week when the House introduced its version, which omitted references to sexual orientation and weakened Senate provisions giving Indian courts greater jurisdiction to try non-Indians accused of acts of domestic violence on tribal lands.

But on Tuesday House GOP leaders, apparently not wanting to add a war on women to the ongoing war over the budget, gave ground, agreeing that the House will vote on the Senate version if it first defeats the House proposal. With every Democrat and several dozen Republicans supporting the Senate bill, it is expected to prevail.

Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., said a letter he and 18 other House Republicans wrote to the GOP leadership, urging support of a bipartisan plan that would reach all victims of domestic violence, may have been the catalyst in ending the stalemate. A strong supporter of the law, Runyan said the most important thing was compromising and moving the legislation forward. "A lot of people around here have a hard time understanding that."

Another Republican backing the Senate approach was Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of only three House members of Indian heritage and a strong proponent of giving Indian courts the right to prosecute non-Indian domestic violence suspects. He said that while the latest House bill, crafted by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., had made strides in addressing the Indian court issue, "it falls short of giving tribes what they need to keep their citizens protected from the scourge of domestic violence."

Indian women are victimized by domestic violence at rates more than double national averages, and federal prosecutors, lacking the resources to pursue cases on isolated reservations, prosecute only about half of the violent crimes. Opponents of the Senate bill say there are constitutional questions about Indian courts trying non-Indians.

The House bill quickly ran up against a wall of resistance, with the White House on Tuesday providing a list of supposed flaws. Those included inhibiting prosecutions by tribal authorities, removing Senate provisions that address the high rates of violence on college campuses, omitting a Senate provision reauthorizing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and not explicitly protecting LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) victims from discrimination when they seek services funded by the law.

The House bill also was opposed by major anti-violence and Native American groups, and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said all Democrats were being urged to oppose it. "The groups that are excluded are the groups that are in most need of protection against violence," she said.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who co-wrote the original 1994 law with former Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., said the law, which provides grants for legal assistance, transitional housing, law enforcement training and hotlines, has helped bring instances of domestic violence down by two-thirds over the past two decades. "Perhaps the greatest victory," she said, "is that the law finally brought millions of victims out of the shadows and gave them a place to stand."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-28-Violence%20Against%20Women%20Act/id-5412620c8495443da3494821d7224d29

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Iran thinks nuke talks going great, West not so much

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran gave an upbeat assessment of two days of nuclear talks with world powers that ended on Wednesday, but Western officials said Tehran must start taking concrete steps to ease mounting concerns about its atomic activity.

The first negotiations between Iran and six world powers in eight months ended without a breakthrough in Almaty, but they agreed to meet again at expert level in Istanbul next month and resume political discussions in the Kazakh city on April 5.

Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, is watching the talks closely. It has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran denies any such aim.

Iran's foreign minister said he was optimistic an agreement could be reached with the powers - the United States, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and China - on the country's disputed nuclear program.

"Very confident," Ali Akbar Salehi told Reuters when asked on the sidelines of a U.N. conference in Vienna how confident he was of a positive outcome.

The six powers offered at the February 26-27 Almaty meeting to lift some sanctions if Iran scaled back nuclear activity that the West fears could be used to build a bomb.

Tehran, which says its program is entirely peaceful, did not agree to do so and the sides did not appear any closer to a deal to resolve a decade-old dispute that could lead to another war in the Middle East if diplomacy fails.

But Iran still said the talks were a positive step in which the six powers tried to "get closer to our viewpoint".

Western officials had made clear they did not expect major progress in Almaty, aware that the closeness of Iran's presidential election in June is raising political tensions in Tehran and makes significant concessions unlikely.

"I hope the Iranian side is looking positively on the proposal we put forward," said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who led the talks on behalf of the powers. "We have to see what happens next."

The United States did not expect a breakthrough and "the result was clearly in line with those expectations," a senior U.S. official said.

The meeting was "useful" as the two sides agreed dates and venues for follow-up talks but there was a need for progress on confidence building measures, the official added.

UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR SITE

The West's immediate priority is that Iran halts higher-grade uranium enrichment and closes an underground facility, Fordow, where this work is carried out. The material is a relatively short technical step from bomb-grade uranium.

"What we care about at the end is concrete results," the U.S. official said.

One diplomat in Almaty said the Iranians appeared to be suggesting at the negotiations that they were opening new avenues, but that it was not clear if this was really the case.

Both sides said experts would meet for talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul on March 18 and that political negotiators would return to Almaty on April 5-6.

Russian negotiator Sergei Ryabkov confirmed that the powers had offered to ease sanctions on Iran if it stops enriching uranium to 20 percent fissile purity - a short technical step from weapons grade - at the Fordow underground site where it carries out its most controversial uranium enrichment work.

Western officials said the offer of sanctions relief included a resumption of trade in gold and precious metals.

One diplomat said that lifting an embargo on imports of Iranian petrochemical products to Europe, if Iran responded, was also on the table. But a U.S. official said the world powers had not offered to suspend oil or financial sanctions.

The sanctions are hurting Iran's economy and its chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, suggested Iran could discuss its production of higher-grade nuclear fuel, although he appeared to rule out shutting Fordow.

In comments in Persian translated into English, Jalili told a news conference Fordow was under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog and there was no justification for closing it.

MOOD "MORE OPTIMISTIC"

Asked about the production of 20-percent enriched fuel, he reiterated Iran's position that it needed this for a research reactor and had a right to produce it.

Iran says its enrichment program is aimed solely at fuelling nuclear power plants so that it can export more oil, and that Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal is the main threat to peace in the region.

But Jalili did indicate that Iran might be prepared to talk about the issue, saying: "This can be discussed in the negotiations ... in view of confidence building."

Iran has also previously suggested that 20-percent enrichment was up for negotiation if it received the fuel from abroad instead. It also wants sanctions lifted.

"While an agreement to meet again may not impress skeptics of diplomacy, an important development did occur," said Trita Parsi, an expert on Iran. "The parties began searching for a solution by offering positive measures in order to secure concessions from the other side.

Another expert, Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "I note that the mood is more optimistic and that's great, but a deal still hasn't been reached and in my view its unlikely to be reached before the Iranian elections have come and gone."

(Additional reporting Fredrik Dahl in Almaaty, Georgina Prodhan in Vienna, Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/powers-wait-hear-iran-response-nuclear-offer-043022098.html

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Pandora Competitor Senzari Rebrands Its Music Service ?Wahwah,? Goes Mobile-First With New Personalized Radio App

Senzari, the Miami-based Pandora competitor backed by $3 million in funding from 500 Startups and other angels, is making good on its recent acquisition of ?the Berlin-based streaming music app Wahwah.fm. The company is now spinning off its music efforts as a mobile-first streaming radio application, rebranded as just Wahwah. In the meantime, the Senzari web-based streaming service is being temporarily shut down, as the product is rebuilt.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/W1LV4PSZDZ8/

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Suspect in Vegas murder brags about fast life

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Las Vegas triple murder suspect Ammar Harris has a smirk on his face in a ninety-second YouTube video that shows him flashing a thick stack of $100 bills.

The video provided by police is just one of many online displays of bravado that suggest a sinister side to Harris. The 26-year-old is the subject of a multi-state manhunt after a Maserati driver was shot dead on the Las Vegas Strip last Thursday and a taxi driver and passenger died in the fiery chain reaction crash that followed.

Wearing a red baseball cap and crisp white shirt with flashy sunglasses tucked in the collar, Harris asks nonchalantly whether viewers will "help me count something," and then fans out a stack of bills.

The video he took of himself in a bathroom cuts away to a pile of cash on the counter; Harris drops a bill and says "fifty."

"I could keep going, I could keep going ... but like, I don't feel like countin' anymore," he says. "I got another bag. But I think I proved my (expletive) point."

Las Vegas Police Officer Bill Cassell declined to comment on the video, saying it was open to the interpretation of individual viewers. But he said detectives are getting plenty of leads on Harris, whose face is splashed across billboards along Las Vegas freeways.

"I'm sure the widespread publicity, as well as the blatant, heinous nature of the crime, is motivating people to contact us," Cassell said.

Authorities believe Harris shot from a Range Rover he was riding in along with Tineesha Lashun Howard, a 22-year-old from Miami who has been arrested multiple times on charges including prostitution, trespassing, possession of a stolen vehicle and grand larceny. Police have named Howard, who also goes by the name Yenesis "Yeni" Alfonzo, a person of interest in the case.

Harris was arrested last year in Las Vegas in a 2010 prostitution case using the name Ammar Asim Faruq Harris. He was charged with robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and coercion with a weapon, and police sought charges of pandering by force and felon in possession of concealed weapon. Court records show that case was dismissed last June.

But while the courts haven't convicted him of pimping, his bold social media persona suggests otherwise.

In Twitter postings attributed to Harris and reviewed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal (http://bit.ly/ZzEO2i ) before the feed was apparently disabled Tuesday, Harris brags that his house is full of women, and they're all paying him. In one August post quoted by the newspaper, he writes, "there's nothing wrong with paying for (sex)...as long as you paying one of my (women)."

Harris posts pictures of a Bentley and an Aston Martin, and mug shots from his own arrests. Harris was convicted in South Carolina in 2004 of felony possession with intent to sell a stolen pistol and convicted in Atlanta of a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge.

Harris also discusses plans for his own birthday party aboard a boat on the Atlantic Ocean, complete with a $1,000 bikini contest.

The fast life Harris boasts of is not unlike the online persona projected by 27-year-old shooting victim Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr.

Cherry, who went by the stage name "Kenny Clutch," is seen in a YouTube video driving his luxury car down the Strip and rapping about a "Maserati, paid 120 for it."

Police say the two argued in the valet area of the Aria casino before dawn Thursday. The dispute took a deadly turn in the tourist corridor when shots were fired from a Range Rover and into Cherry's Maserati, which sped forward through a red light and slammed into a taxi.

The taxi exploded, killing 62-year-old driver Michael Boldon and 48-year-old passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, a businesswoman visiting from Maple Valley, Wash. Four other cars crashed, injuring several other people and closing the intersection in the heart of Las Vegas for an entire day.

Police found the Range Rover two days later parked at the gated Las Vegas apartment complex where Harris lived, but there was no sign of Harris.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vegas-murder-suspect-brags-online-fast-life-204307885.html

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Maine bus crashes north of Boston, driver hurt (Providence Journal)

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Apple airs new iPad ad, Hollywood, just in time for Academy Awards

Following up on their latest two iPad ads, Alive and Together, Apple has released a third in the series, Hollywood, and done so smack dab in the middle of the Oscars. Like the previous ads, Hollywood features fast-paced, almost blip-vert style keywords that shoot rapid-fire across the screen, interleaved with scenes of related apps.

This time the first set of words finish with Lights, and we get iMovie, shopping for lights, and the lightning bolt from Back to the Future. The next set finish with Camera, and with -- wait for it -- camera based apps and movie clips, and finally, everyone say it with me, we get Action, with Apple's Maps, Indiana Jones, and more.

Fast paced and jaunty, I know some people aren't fans of the crowd chanted words, but I think they work as a way to reach increasingly broad, mainstream audiences, and mix the traditionally app-centric iPad ads with the funner iPod style ads.

Watch it up top and let me know what you think.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/WL7FxgMr25E/story01.htm

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Likely ZTE Open spotted at Mozilla press conference: it's blue and open, like the ocean

Remember that orphaned spec list we saw for the Mozilla-powered ZTE Open? Well, we think we've just spotted the device that it describes. It only came out for a second, clasped in the hand of someone from Mozilla, but we were just about able to grab a shot. As we saw in an earlier leak, it should be arriving with a 3.5-inch HVGA TFT screen, Cortex -A5-based processor, 512MB of RAM and a 3.2-megapixel camera. Check it out in the dark sea of shapes above and then remind yourself of the rest of the likely specs after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/24/possible-zte-open-spotted/

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Top U.S. diplomat kicks off nine-nation "listening tour" (Reuters)

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The NRA?s claim that Joe Biden?s gun advice is illegal (Washington Post)

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Ind. Catholic women's college aims to raise $80M

SOUTH BEND, Indiana ? A northern Indiana Catholic women's college hopes to raise $80 million in the largest fundraising campaign in its history.

The South Bend Tribune reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/13drXaI ) that St. Mary's College in South Bend already has raised more than 75 percent of the funds through gifts and pledges.

The college's trustees approved the campaign in June 2008. It's due to continue through the end of 2014.

A quarter of the fundraising goal is earmarked for endowed scholarships and student financial aid. About $15 million each would go toward the college's annual fund and to improve athletic facilities. The remaining funds would go toward academic endowments, renovating a science hall and library improvements.

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Information from: South Bend Tribune, http://www.southbendtribune.com

Source: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/933c381af4d3465f9b9c6a422ece5eeb/IN--St-Marys-College-Campaign

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Google Pixel Laptop Gets Konami Code Treatment

If you'll allow us to get personal for a moment, we almost wish that Google hadn't spilled the beans about the latest feature to hit its (arguably expensive) Pixel laptop. Say what you will about the cost and capabilities of this one; It's not as if Google's touchscreen laptop lacks spirit. We just wish we could have found out about the hidden fun ourselves.

Which is to say, Google's gone ahead and built and Easter Egg directly into the device. Yes, an Easter Egg ? when's the last time that your desktop or laptop came with a bonus "gimmick" feature beyond the standard, shared capabilities that all computers tend to have?

In the case of Google's Pixel, activating the aforementioned bonus feature is as easy as typing in a special little code on Google's $1,300 (or more) device. And that code should come as little surprise to most gamers: It's the Konami Code, jumping back out of the world of websites and making its return appearance on a piece of hardware.

The Konami Code?

Here's the history. Entering a certain code on one's video game console controller whenever the Konami logo appeared upon launch of the game would (more often than not) unlock a set of bonuses for a number of the company's earlier titles ? Contra for the original Nintendo perhaps being one of the best examples thereof.

This code ? up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, "B," then "A," ? doesn't exactly give Google Pixel owners extra lives, bonus ammunition, or invulnerability, but it does allow their laptops to perform a cute little light show with the strip of LED lights on the top of the device.

That's it! Type in the code and receive a little fun, blinking pattern from the laptop's multi-colored lights. We're not sure whether the blinking pattern has any actual significance beyond the fact that it just? blinks. Wired's put together a little animated gif of what happens for those who don't intend to purchase or play with Google's Pixel, so feel free to check that out if you want to see what the Pixel does post-code.

?

For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

Source: http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/breakingnews/~3/sRTPWDlEaLw/0,2817,2415795,00.asp

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New home for runaway black hole

Galactic ejection may have sent cosmic wanderer through deep space

By Andrew Grant

Web edition: February 22, 2013

Enlarge

The boundary of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy NGC 1277-- overlaid on the orbits of Neptune and Earth--is enormous.

Credit: D. Benningfield/K. Gebhardt/StarDate

The most massive black hole ever measured may be an intergalactic hitchhiker that escaped from one galaxy before getting captured by another. If this scenario, laid out in a paper posted February 18 at arXiv.org, is proven correct, it would be the first time astronomers have definitively spotted a black hole that was expelled from its original galactic home.

Computer simulations of galaxy mergers suggest that some supermassive black holes can be nomads: When the galaxies? central black holes unite, they can emit an enormous surge of energy in one direction. That burst would rocket the newly formed black hole in the opposite direction, the simulations say, often with enough speed to escape the galaxy.

Astronomers have scoured telescope images for signs of runaway black holes but have come up with only a few controversial possibilities. ?We looked at a lot of objects and didn?t find anything,? says Erin Bonning, an astronomer at Quest University Canada in Squamish, British Columbia.

But last November, a study in Nature described a gargantuan black hole, 17 billion times the mass of the sun, at the center of a seemingly run-of-the-mill galaxy called NGC 1277 in the Perseus cluster 250 million light-years away. While most galaxies? central black holes make up about one-tenth of a percent of their total mass, NGC 1277?s black hole accounts for 14 percent of the galactic mass. ?That paper blew everyone?s mind,? Bonning says. ?It?s an extraordinary black hole in an ordinary galaxy.?

NGC 1277 and its black hole seemed such an odd couple that Bonning and her colleague Gregory Shields, of the University of Texas at Austin, began to question whether the two had evolved together. They studied images of the Perseus cluster and calculated the gravitational interactions of astronomical objects, trying to determine whether this black hole could have been tossed from another galaxy and then snapped up by NGC 1277.

The key was finding a giant galaxy, the kind that could support a 17-billion-solar-mass black hole, about 325,000 light-years away from NGC 1277. Bonning and Shields propose that this galaxy, called NGC 1275, is the product of a galactic merger that took place billions of years ago. The merging galaxies? black holes, each about 10 billion times the mass of the sun, orbited each other at nearly the speed of light until they united. Then the scenario from the computer simulations played out: Energy released from the merger flung away the newly formed black hole.

Bonning and Shields suggest that the black hole spent a few billion years whizzing through intergalactic space at about 4.5 million kilometers per hour. It had some companions for its journey: a posse of millions of orbiting stars trapped by the black hole?s intense gravitational pull. Finally the black hole made a close pass to NGC 1277, and over hundreds of millions of years, the galaxy reeled it in to its center.

Bonning and Shields submitted this version of events to Astrophysical Journal Letters and they expect plenty of scrutiny. Avi Loeb, a theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., praises Bonning and Shields? creativity but notes that each of the steps that they describe does not occur frequently in the universe. ?Several rare events together are unlikely,? he says. ?I would think that there are more likely ways of achieving the same result.?

Shields notes that NGC 1275?s current black hole is slightly smaller than scientists expected, perhaps suggesting that the galaxy had to rebuild from scratch after losing its previous black hole. He and Bonning hope to perform a computer simulation of their proposed scenario. ?It was a lot of fun to work on,? Shields says. ?Now we need to convince astronomers, including myself, that it?s true.?

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348554/title/New_home_for_runaway_black_hole

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Apple TV: Tips for Using Remotes

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Stash of stem cells found in a human parasite

Feb. 22, 2013 ? The parasites that cause schistosomiasis, one of the most common parasitic infections in the world, are notoriously long-lived. Researchers have now found stem cells inside the parasite that can regenerate worn-down organs, which may help explain how they can live for years or even decades inside their host.

Schistosomiasis is acquired when people come into contact with water infested with the larval form of the parasitic worm Schistosoma, known as schistosomes. Schistosomes mature in the body and lay eggs that cause inflammation and chronic illness. Schistosomes typically live for five to six years, but there have been reports of patients who still harbor parasites decades after infection.

According to new research from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator Phillip Newmark, collections of stem cells that can help repair the worms? bodies as they age could explain how the worms survive for so many years. The new findings were published online on February 20, 2013, in the journal Nature.

The stem cells that Newmark?s team found closely resemble stem cells in planaria, free-living relatives of the parasitic worms. Planaria rely on these cells, called neoblasts, to regenerate lost body parts. Whereas most adult stem cells in mammals have a limited set of possible fates?blood stem cells can give rise only to various types of blood cells, for example ?planarian neoblasts can turn into any cell in the worm?s body under the right circumstances.

Newmark?s lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has spent years focused on planaria, so they knew many details about planarian neoblasts ?what they look like, what genes they express, and how they proliferate. They also knew that in uninjured planarians, neoblasts maintain tissues that undergo normal wear and tear over the worm?s lifetime.

?We began to wonder whether schistosomes have equivalent cells and whether such cells could be partially responsible for their longevity,? says Newmark.

Following this hunch, and using what they knew about planarian neoblasts, post-doctoral fellow Jim Collins, Newmark, and their colleagues hunted for similar cells in Schistosoma mansoni, the most widespread species of human-infecting schistosomes.

Their first step was to look for actively dividing cells in the parasites. To do this, they grew worms in culture and added tags that would label newly replicated DNA as cells prepare to divide; this label could later be visualized by fluorescence. Following this fluorescent tag, they saw a collection of proliferating cells inside the worm?s body, separate from any organs.

The researchers isolated those cells from the schistosomes and studied them individually. They looked like typical stem cells, filled with a large nucleus and a small amount of cytoplasm that left little room for any cell-type-specific functionality. Newmark?s lab observed the cells and found that they often divided to give rise to two different cells: one cell that continued dividing, and another cell that did not.

?One feature of stem cells,? says Newmark, ?is that they make more stem cells; furthermore, many stem cells undergo asymmetric division.? The schistosomes cells were behaving like stem cells in these respects. The other characteristic of stem cells is that they can differentiate into other cell types.

To find out whether the schistosome cells could give rise to multiple types of cells, Newmark?s team added the label for dividing cells to mice infected with schistosomes, waited a week, and then harvested the parasites to see where the tag ended up. They could detect labeled cells in the intestines and muscles of the schistosomes, suggesting that stem cells incorporating the labels had developed into both intestinal and muscle cells.

Years of previous study on planarians by many groups paved the way for this type of work on schistosomes, Newmark says.

?The cells we found in the schistosome look remarkably like planarian neoblasts. They aren?t associated with any one organ, but can give rise to multiple cell types. People often wonder why we study the ?lowly? planarian, but this work provides an example of how basic biology can lead you, in unanticipated and exciting ways, to findings that are directly relevant to important public health problems.?

Newmark says the stem cells aren?t necessarily the sole reason schistosome parasites survive for so many years, but their ability to replenish multiple cell types likely plays a role. More research is needed to find out how the cells truly affect lifespan, as well as what factors in the mouse or human host spur the parasite?s stem cells to divide, and whether the parasites maintain similar stem cells during other stages of their life cycle.

The researchers hope that with more work, scientists will be able to pinpoint a way to kill off the schistosome stem cells, potentially shortening the worm?s lifespan and treating schistosome infections in people.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

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. James J. Collins III, Bo Wang, Bramwell G. Lambrus, Marla E. Tharp, Harini Iyer, Phillip A. Newmark. Adult somatic stem cells in the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature11924

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/strange_science/~3/Xe6KtB0k22k/130222143142.htm

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Taylor Swift's Surprisingly Easy Red Carpet Up-Dos

Source: http://www.blogher.com/taylor-swifts-surprisingly-easy-red-carpet-dos

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New CT lung cancer screening rules save more lives than NLST

The study found that the new screening criteria, validated on the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) cancer screening trial cohort, are more accurate than the criteria from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), which showed an average 20% reduction in deaths.

Sensitivity rose from 71% to 83% (p < 0.01) when conventional NLST criteria were replaced with a model based on the experience of PLCO trial participants, with no corresponding decrease in specificity, wrote researchers from Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario, and several U.S. institutions.

The PLCO-based criteria "predicted the six-year risk of lung cancer with high accuracy and was more efficient at identifying persons for lung cancer screening, as compared with the NLST criteria," wrote Dr. Martin Tammem?gi, PhD, professor of epidemiology at Brock, and colleagues (NEJM, February 21, 2013, Vol. 368:8, pp. 728-736).

Better guidelines?

"If you were starting a lung cancer screening program, the data here show that it makes more sense to use the [PLCO-based] risk prediction model to decide who should be enrolled," Tammem?gi told AuntMinnie.com in an interview. "That would lead to your having to screen fewer people to get more lung cancers, and we anticipate that there will be a substantial number of lives saved using the model as opposed to using the NLST criteria."

In 2011, results of that trial showed that CT screening could reduce mortality for long-term smokers by 20%. However, NLST's strict selection criteria required participants to be current smokers or have quit within the past 15 years, be between 55 and 74 years of age, and have a smoking history of at least 30 pack-years.

"These selection criteria were intended to increase the yield of lung cancers, but they exclude many known risk factors for lung cancer, and with dichotomization of continuous data, much valuable information is not included," Tammem?gi and colleagues wrote.

Applying an accurate lung cancer risk prediction model can identify those at the highest risk and, with CT screening, increase the number of lung cancers detected, while reducing the number who need to be screened. The present study tried to create a better model by modifying PLCO data to ensure their applicability to NLST data, defining risk as the probability of a lung cancer diagnosis within six years.

The researchers developed the new modified logistic-regression model to predict lung cancer in the PLCO control group of smokers; the model was introduced in a 2011 paper (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, July 6, 2011, Vol. 103:13, pp. 1058-1068).

For the present study, the researchers validated the model in the PLCO intervention group of smokers (i.e., PLCO participants who met the model criteria for inclusion), as well as NLST participants. The model was then revalidated in the PLCO intervention group stratified as to whether or not participants met the NLST criteria. Analysis of follow-up was halted at six years, as was NLST, to create consistency between the models for comparison, the group noted.

Unlike NLST, the PLCO-based model used in the study, dubbed PLCO_M2012, is multifactorial, combining estimated risks from a number of variables. The NLST model, in contrast, demands dichotomized yes/no answers to a handful of questions, such as whether the screening candidate quit smoking within the past 15 years, Tammem?gi told AuntMinnie.com.

"What makes this [PLCO-based] model more predictable is the detail of information captured is much greater than just saying 'have you smoked more or less than 30 pack-years,' or 'did you quit within 15 years or not,' which is basically what the current standard has been," he said.

Rather than NLST's yes or no responses, "this model actually puts in the numbers, and it has more numbers describing smoking," he said.

For example, PLCO has four variables describing smoking history, as opposed to two simple toggled variables in NLST. There are also seven additional variables for risk factors for lung cancer: age, race, socioeconomic status measured by education, body mass index (BMI), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), personal history of cancer, and family history of lung cancer.

"So we're using more information to capture a person's real risk," he said.

Still, the age criteria, 55 to 74 years, were the same for both NLST and PLCO.

The model's calibration and ability to discriminate lung cancer cases was assessed as area under the receiver operator characteristics curve (AUC). In the validation data, 14,144 (37.9%) of 37,332 individuals met the NLST screening criteria, while for comparison, 14,144 of the highest risk individuals were considered eligible for screening under PLCO_M2012 criteria. Finally, Cox models were used to determine whether the 53,202 individuals undergoing low-dose CT screening in NLST differed according to risk.

More cases detected

The results showed that the PLCO_M2012 model was a better predictor of lung cancer than the NLST model, with an AUC of 0.803 in the development dataset and 0.797 in the validation dataset.

Compared with NLST criteria, PLCO_M2012 criteria had better sensitivity for predicting the development of lung cancer (71.1% in NLST versus 83% in PLCO_M2012, p < 0.001) and better positive predictive value (4% in NLST versus 3.4% in PLCO_M2012, p = 0.01), without loss of specificity (62.9% and 62.7%, respectively; p = 0.54). In addition, 41.3% fewer lung cancers were missed.

Accuracy of lung cancer classification using PLCOM2012 criteria Criteria Participants with lung cancer (n = 678) Participants without lung cancer (n = 36,654) Total participants (n = 37,332) Predictive value NLST Criteria positive 482 true positive (3.4%) 13,662 false positive (96.6%) 14,144 PPV 3.4% Criteria negative 196 false negative (0.8%) 22,192 true negative (99.2%) 23,188 NPV 99.2% Sensitivity 71.1% ? ? Specificity ? 62.7% ? PLCOM2012 Criteria positive 563 true positive (4%) 13,581 false positive (96%) 14,144 PPV 4% Criteria negative 115 false negative (0.5%) 23,073 true negative (99.5%) 23,188 NPV 99.5% Sensitivity 83% ? ? Specificity ? 62.9% ?

PPV = positive predictive value; NPV = negative predictive value.

NLST criteria for study entry included a smoking history of at least 30 pack-years, and cessation within 15 years for smokers who had quit. For the PLCOM2012 criteria, positivity was defined as a probability of lung cancer greater than 1.3455% over a period of six years. Table courtesy of NEJM.

The NLST screening effect did not vary according to PLCO_M2012 risk (p = 0.61 for interaction), according to the authors.

Put another way, among the 37,332 smokers in the PLCO intervention group, the PLCO_M2012 model chose 81 more individuals for screening who received a lung cancer diagnosis at follow-up compared to the NLST criteria.

Assuming a 15% overdiagnosis rate, 69 of the 81 people can be considered to have true life-threatening lung cancer, the group wrote, and based on a five-year survival rate of 15%, the expected number of deaths among persons who did not undergo screening would be 59.

Overall, PLCO_M2012 makes better use of the data compared to NLST. But how do you decide who meets the criteria for screening? It depends on how much money you have and how many people you want to screen, starting with the highest-risk individuals.

Deciding whom to screen

When data are plugged into the model, it outputs the probability of the individual developing lung cancer within six years. It is then up to each screening program to determine how many patients it can afford to screen based on probability of disease according to the model.

"If you use the cutoff of 1.6% risk of lung cancer and screen everybody that is above that, you will have to screen one-third of all smokers and you'll pick up 80% of all lung cancers in that population," Tammem?gi said. "If you want to do better than that, you can go down to 1% and screen everybody who has 1% risk or higher; you would have to screen half the smokers, and you would be capturing 90% of the lung cancers in the population. So it's a bit of a trade-off, and it depends on what each program can afford to do."

Under NLST criteria, for example, a white 55-year-old man with a BMI of 27, no COPD, and no personal or family history of cancer, who smoked 20 cigarettes a day for 30 years and quit 15 years ago, would have the lowest risk eligible under NLST -- with about 0.5% chance of developing lung cancer, Tammem?gi said. So even though the risk is very low for this individual, NLST criteria would allow screening, and a program using the criteria would pay for it.

On the other hand, the current study shows that the PLCO_M2012 model, "given equal numbers of people selected, will miss 41% fewer lung cancers, and compared to NLST criteria, it's 17% more sensitive in picking up lung cancers overall," he said.

The new criteria are currently being tested in a real-world setting. The Pan-Canadian Early Detection of Lung Cancer Study, in which Tammem?gi is involved, is using a prototype of the PLCO-based criteria exclusively to select individuals for screening. The group enrolled 2,537 individuals in the trial, with 113 lung cancers detected during the first three years, he said.

"We have identified 4.5% with cancers in three years; that is way over double what the National Lung Screening Trial had at this point," he said. "So the Canadian trial corroborates the findings of this paper, and indicates that the model does work."

Tammem?gi said the group has been contacted by several different research teams in Canada, Australia, and the U.S. who want to use the model. Some have asked that it be altered to include asbestos risk.

An online calculator (brocku.ca/cancerpredictionresearch) can be used to determine an individual's lung cancer risk according to the PLCO_M2012 model.

Source: http://www.auntminnie.com/redirect/redirect.aspx?itemid=102540&wf=1

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UPDATE: Mokriya Releases Officially Licensed Craigslist App for iPhone and Android

The Mobile Development Studio Behind Some Blockbuster Apps Like Hipster and SideCar Launches the Simplest, Most Enjoyable Way to Use Craigslist on a Mobile Device

CUPERTINO, CA--(Marketwire - Feb 20, 2013) - Mokriya, the mobile development studio behind some of the most popular consumer apps on the market, today launched Mokriya Craigslist? for iPhone and Android. Designed from the ground up for a first-rate mobile experience, the app features a beautiful, intuitive user interface to find and sell items on Craigslist with just a few simple taps. It makes it fast and easy for users to create beautiful, eye-catching listings directly from their mobile device. Through Mokriya's innovative alert service, mobile users can quickly set up search alerts to deliver customized notifications whenever search criteria are met.

With more than 50 billion page views per month, Craigslist is one of the most popular online services in the world. It is a top online destination for job seekers, apartment hunters, the buying and selling of all types of goods and services and those seeking new personal connections. Mokriya Craigslist makes the entire Craigslist directory available with a few swipes or taps of users' fingertips. Developed through an official license with Craigslist, it can be used across all 50 U.S. states and any of the 700 cities in 70 countries served by Craigslist.

"Many of the existing Craigslist apps today are clunky, hard to navigate and not an enjoyable experience," said Pranil Kanderi, CTO and co-founder of Mokriya. "The Mokriya Craigslist app is a modern, mobile and touch-centric take on using Craigslist. We've created an innovative vertical tab UI so users easily browse the entire Craigslist directory with just two taps. This is something you won't see in any of the current mobile apps out there. We've designed Mokriya Craigslist to be completely intuitive and I'm confident that once people see, touch and experience Mokriya Craigslist, they won't want to use anything else."

Some key features of Mokriya Craigslist include:

• Touch-centric Interface: Mokriya Craigslist brings all of Craigslist's categories and search features directly to users' fingertips. All content can be accessed within two taps.
• Create Craigslist listings with images in minutes: it is the simplest, most enjoyable Craigslist posting experience available and it takes only a minute or two for most posts using an iPhone or Android smartphone.
• Find items near you: Using your mobile devices' GPS (optional), Mokriya Craigslist can automatically find Craigslist listings near your location, making apartment hunting or locating convenient sellers nearby a snap.
• Worldwide availability: Mokriya Craigslist is immediately available across 50 U.S. states and any of the 700 cities in 70 countries that Craigslist serves today. The app makes it easier and faster to find and sell stuff from anywhere.
• Automatic search alerts: Use Mokriya Craigslist to continually search and deliver new items that match your needs and automatically alert you when they become available. Automatic alerts help ensure that users don't miss out on that perfect used car, an apartment listing or other items.

Browsing and searching on Mokriya Craigslist is now available for free on both the App Store and on Google Play. For a one-time $0.99 fee, users can upgrade to Mokriya Craigslist Premium to post listings, receive alerts and favorite items. For more information or to view a demo video of the new app, please visit: http://craigslist.mokriya.com.

About Mokriya
Mokriya is a design-focused mobile app strategy and solutions company based in Silicon Valley. It has become a go-to mobile app developer for high-tech, consumer-facing companies like SideCar and Hipster, and for world-class brands like Swarovski Crystal and SeaWorld. Mokriya is trusted by startups and established enterprises to deliver high-value mobile applications of impeccable quality. Mokriya Craigslist is the company's first Mokriya-branded application. For more information, please visit: www.mokriya.com.

The Craigslist and associated trademarks are owned by Craigslist, Inc. and are being used under licensed permission from Craigslist, Inc. for a limited purpose. www.craigslist.org.

Source: http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=1759366&sourceType=3

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Lone firefighter finds environmental harm's sharp edge

Jacob Aron, reporter

(Image: G. M. B. Akash, Decaying Earth, 2011)

The consequences of environmental degradation are global, but this award-winning photograph shows how they are also urgently personal and unpredictable.

The Buriganga river in Bangladesh is one of the most polluted in the world, due to the waste that is dumped by nearby textile factories. When this mound of rubbish near the river was ignited by a stray cigarette butt, the resulting fire threatened to engulf an entire neighbourhood of makeshift homes. One man stepped in to douse the flames.

"Many people could have lost everything in this fire if Sumon had not jumped to stop the roaring flames all by himself," says photographer G.?M.?B.?Akash "No one helped him."

This image is one of a number in the running for the British Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management Environmental Photographer of the Year award, chosen from over 3000 entries. The winners will be announced at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 9 April.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/28cff24a/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A130C0A20Cburiganga0Eriver0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Ways to Stick to Your Workout: Exercise Motivation - Shape Magazine

If you're the type of person who's ever huffed and puffed, struggling to push through a treadmill session while secretly wanting to slap that smug smile off the lanky runner effortlessly trotting next to you, you're not alone! And now it looks like there may be a physiological reason why some people dislike exercise more than others.

Hoping to encourage more people to leave the couch and move, researchers at Iowa State University are studying the body's biological and chemical processes to better understand the attitudes people have about exercise. So far they've made a few surprising discoveries, including that our interpretation of our body's sensations while we sweat it out influences how we feel about exercise in general.

Everyone, no matter their fitness level, has a physical capacity for exertion beyond which the body becomes stressed and begins to feel bad. Researchers estimate that anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of that stems from genetic factors such as lung capacity, oxygen transport, and the rate at which oxygen is used in the muscle cells.

This physical capacity will vary from person to person, and some people may start out with more ability than others, but oftentimes people, especially sedentary ones, unwittingly push themselves too far, too soon, which can be discouraging, physically painful, and cause them to stop exercising altogether.

RELATED: If you're working out to lose weight, you also need the right eating plan. Be sure you're not making any of these diet mistakes that mess with your metabolism.

Ultimately the Iowa State researchers stressed that it's important for adults to try new things as well as start slowly.

We agree! At SHAPE, we've long since recommended that you find a workout you'll love because you'll be more likely to stick with it. Here are a few tips to help exercise be more enjoyable.

1. Stop trying so hard. It's important to challenge yourself, but you don't want to push youself to the point of injury, nor do you want to go so far past your ventilatory threshold (the point at which your body starts to feel bad) that you stress yourself out. Plus, the Iowa State resarchers noted in their research that the more positive experiences people have with exercise, the more likely they are to keep at it. So if you notice your resolve waning, don't force it, give yourself a break for a couple of days, and check out these 22 ways to stay motivated. You'll be more refreshed, recharged, and ready to tackle your goals again in no time.

2. Let Pinterest inspire you. They say a picture's worth a thousand words. We say these pinworthy photos are about to be worth 1,000 calories?burned!

3. Ask for help. From weight-loss bloggers to fitness websites to the nation's powerhouse fitness and diet experts, there is an almost unlimited amount of resources at your fingertips. If you're feeling stressed, worried, or have a question about something, reach out to someone for advice! You may gain a new perspective on health or fitness.

Source: http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/shape-shares-find-workout-you-love-and-stick-it

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NC State beats Florida State 84-66

Freshman T.J. Warren had season-highs of 31 points and 13 rebounds to help North Carolina State beat Florida State 84-66 on Tuesday night.
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C.J. Leslie added 19 points for the Wolfpack (19-7, 8-5 Atlantic Coast Conference), who led the entire night to snap a three-game losing streak against the Seminoles. The win also snapped a four-game losing skid against Florida State (14-12, 6-7) on N.C. State's homecourt in Raleigh.
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The Wolfpack dominated the boards and got plenty of second-chance baskets to stay in control of this one, earning a third straight win overall heading into this weekend's trip to rival North Carolina.
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Michael Snaer scored 20 to lead the Seminoles, who have lost three of four since beating Georgia Tech on his last-second basket two weeks ago.
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Warren, a 6-foot-8 forward, earned just his fifth start. He finished 12-for-15 from the field and hit two 3-pointers in 31 minutes.
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While Warren turned in the best game of his young career, Leslie added 10 rebounds to help the Wolfpack take a 45-21 rebounding advantage. That included a dominating 21-6 performance on the offensive glass, which helped N.C. State manage 29 second-chance points compared to just six for Florida State.
?? ?
Scott Wood added 13 points for N.C. State, which stayed in the chase for one of the league's four first-day byes in next month's ACC tournament in Greensboro.
?? ?
The Wolfpack led 40-30 at halftime, then gradually increased the margin through the first eight minutes to 58-41 on a pair of free throws from Leslie with 11:59 left. The Seminoles hung around but never got the lead to single digits, getting as close as 10 with about 7 minutes left before Warren and Wood knocked down 3s to push the lead back up to 16 with 5? minutes left.
?? ?
Warren's three-point play with about 90 seconds left helped N.C. State blow the game open late and had Wolfpack fans chanting his name as he finished with 20 second-half points.
?? ?
It was N.C. State's first win against Florida State since beating the Seminoles in the quarterfinals of the 2010 ACC tournament.
?? ?
Florida State has now been outrebounded in 12 of 14 games.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50864035/ns/local_news-raleigh_nc/

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Rare sight: Endangered chicks emerge from nest

Gerrit Vyn/Cornell Lab of Ornithology

A spoon-billed sandpiper. One of the world's most critically endangered species, the 6-inch-tall (15 centimeters) bird faces extinction within 10 years.

By Becky Oskin
LiveScience

This could be the first and last high-definition video of a spoon-billed sandpiper chick emerging from its nest.

One of the world's most critically endangered species, the 6-inch-tall (15 centimeters) bird faces extinction within 10 years, according to a statement from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which released the video. Only about 100 pairs were counted at its breeding grounds in the Russian Far East last year, and the population has declined 25 percent annually in recent years. (There were also 100 juveniles.)

The Cornell Lab sent videographer Gerrit Vyn to Chukotka, Russia, to document the sandpipers' sounds and behavior at a remote nesting site in 2011. The lab recently released the videos online to draw attention to the species' plight.

"The spoon-billed sandpiper is one of the most remarkable little birds on Earth, and it may go extinct before most people even realize it was here," John Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in the statement. "We hope that with this priceless video footage we quickly connect people, conservation organizations and governments to these amazing birds, and galvanize an international conservation effort."

First moments of life
One video captures the first moments of life as the tiny, fluffy, brown-and-white chicks stumble out of the nest, pecking for food. "They feed themselves from day one," Vyn said in the video. [Watch the chick hatching.]

Vyn camped out in?a tent and a blind, with only a sleeping bag for warmth, waiting for the eggs to hatch. "It was an incredibly exciting time for me, exciting and nerve-wracking waiting for three days in this windstorm for these four eggs to hatch," he said. Vyn filmed the only nest with eggs in 2011: The other 20 eggs were bred in captivity and the chicks released in Russia to make their 4,971-mile (8,000 kilometer) migration to Southeast Asia.

Much of the?bird's decline is due to habitat loss from development?and subsistence hunting along its migratory path and winter home in Southeast Asia seacoasts, scientists think. For example, the 20-mile-long (32 km) Saemangeum seawall in South Korea cut off 170 square miles (440 square km) of estuary and tidal flats, feeding grounds for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds and a primary stopping site for spoon-billed sandpipers. And shorebirds are a food source for people living along the coastal mudflats of Myanmar and other nearby countries, the Cornell Lab said in a statement.

Documenting a disappearing species
Common foraging behaviors here on the breeding grounds are surprisingly different from the way they feed on the wintering grounds, according to the Cornell lab. On the breeding grounds, the birds feed on insects, especially midges, mosquitoes, flies, beetles and spiders, as well as grass seeds and berries. On the wintering grounds and during migration, they eat marine invertebrates, including polychaete worms and shrimp.

Another video?by Vyn shows a mated spoon-billed sandpiper pair foraging along the edge of a snowmelt pond in Chukotka.

Vyn also captured rarely seen courtship behavior between adult spoon-billed sandpipers. This video, shot during the first few days of a pair's seasonal courtship, includes an attempted copulation and a nest scrape display.

The spoon-billed sandpiper population in Russian has been tracked since 1977, when a survey estimated 2,500 breeding pairs in Chukotka. By 2003 the population had dropped to around 500 pairs. In 2008, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature listed the species as critically endangered on its Red List.

Reach Becky Oskin at boskin@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/19/17020472-rare-sight-endangered-chicks-emerge-from-nest?lite

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