Launch Your Own Nanosatellite Into Space
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2012) ? A disease-fighting protein in our teardrops has been tethered to a tiny transistor, enabling UC Irvine scientists to discover exactly how it destroys dangerous bacteria. The research could prove critical to long-term work aimed at diagnosing cancers and other illnesses in their very early stages.
Ever since Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming found that human tears contain antiseptic proteins called lysozymes about a century ago, scientists have tried to solve the mystery of how they could relentlessly wipe out far larger bacteria. It turns out that lysozymes have jaws that latch on and chomp through rows of cell walls like someone hungrily devouring an ear of corn, according to findings that will be published Jan. 20 in the journal Science.
"Those jaws chew apart the walls of the bacteria that are trying to get into your eyes and infect them," said molecular biologist and chemistry professor Gregory Weiss, who co-led the project with associate professor of physics & astronomy Philip Collins.
The researchers decoded the protein's behavior by building one of the world's smallest transistors -- 25 times smaller than similar circuitry in laptop computers or smartphones. Individual lysozymes were glued to the live wire, and their eating activities were monitored.
"Our circuits are molecule-sized microphones," Collins said. "It's just like a stethoscope listening to your heart, except we're listening to a single molecule of protein."
It took years for the UCI scientists to assemble the transistor and attach single-molecule teardrop proteins. The scientists hope the same novel technology can be used to detect cancerous molecules. It could take a decade to figure out but would be well worth it, said Weiss, who lost his father to lung cancer.
"If we can detect single molecules associated with cancer, then that means we'd be able to detect it very, very early," Weiss said. "That would be very exciting, because we know that if we treat cancer early, it will be much more successful, patients will be cured much faster, and costs will be much less."
The project was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the National Science Foundation. Co-authors of the Science paper are Yongki Choi, Issa Moody, Patrick Sims, Steven Hunt, Brad Corso and Israel Perez.
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Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participates in the Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participates in the Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Mitt Romney is no natural when it comes to "common man" politics.
He bets a Republican rival $10,000 on an impulse. He dismisses $373,000 in speaking fees as "not very much." And he slow-walks the release of his income tax returns but then blurts out a key fact: He pays about 15 percent of his income in taxes because he lives mostly on investment income and not a paycheck.
Such commissions of candor suggest a presidential candidate who is far from an everyman ? and who may have a tin ear for how he sounds to those who are. That could pose a special challenge to Romney in hard-hit Florida, and beyond. In a general election, Romney, who had a privileged upbringing and made millions as a venture capitalist, would be fighting for the votes of average Americans against a president whose mother at times drew food stamps and who worked his way through Harvard Law School to the pinnacle of power.
"When Barack Obama talks about paying off student loans and struggling, people believe him and it resonates," said Barbara Perry, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. Historically, "the common people have to believe that the president knows them and knows their situation and knows their lives."
Republicans hope that in 2012, American voters struggling to get jobs and pay bills are looking past the candidates' personal stories and to their proposals for stabilizing the economy and cutting the nation's staggering debt.
"Barack Obama had an incredible emotional connection with the American people in 2008," said South Carolina Republican consultant Jim Dyke. In the worst economy since the Great Depression, "that connection has dissipated," he added. "The American people may be more interested in a credible plan to address our problems."
The ranks of presidential candidates, and presidents, throughout history are full of American aristocrats, from George Washington to the Roosevelts, Rockefellers, Kennedys and Bushes. Some won by using policy and rhetoric to win support from lower-income voters, a practice that became known as the politics of the common man after Andrew Jackson's 1828 campaign. He won in part by portraying the nation's central bank as an institution that mostly made rich people richer.
So it's possible to run for president, and even win, while wealthy. Indeed, polls suggest that Americans don't begrudge Romney's family fortune or his own success in the private sector. In an AP-GfK survey last month, for example, about half of the respondents said Romney "understands the problems of ordinary Americans." Roughly the same percentage felt that way about Obama.
And efforts to portray Romney as a "vulture capitalist" fat cat at Bain Capital may have backfired against Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, the Republican rivals who launched them. Perry dropped out of the contest on Thursday.
There's evidence that Romney himself is learning to edit out offhand remarks that may be genuine yet jarring to average voters. In a debate Thursday night, Romney referred to having his tax returns "carefully managed," but mostly stayed clear of lifestyle details.
Instead, he equated his wealth with all-American achievement and upward mobility ? the opposite of coasting on his father's success as head of American Motor Corp., Michigan governor and federal housing secretary.
"What I have, I earned. I worked hard, the American way," Romney said to cheers and applause. "I'm not going to apologize for being successful."
It was a refinement of the way Romney has handled the central challenge of his campaign: winning over people struggling to keep their houses and find work when his own background is so far removed. Making it tougher is that the 2012 contest is happening against a backdrop of anger over income disparity, with "99 percenters" protesting policies that help the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans ? including Romney.
And where the Roosevelts and Kennedys won over ordinary people with social policies like the New Deal, Romney is campaigning on a plan to stabilize the economy through investments and tax breaks for "job creators," including the wealthiest individuals.
"Wealthy Democrats can get away with being wealthy so long as they espouse policies favorable to ordinary folks. Wealthy Republicans, by contrast, take a hit when their policies seem to favor the wealthy," said presidential historian H.W. Brands of the University of Texas. "It's the policies that really matter. The personal history is fluff."
Still, Romney has struggled to strike the right note with the masses.
In New Hampshire last month, he suggested that he's feared job setbacks at various points in his career.
"I know what it's like to worry about whether you're going to get fired. A couple of times I wondered if I was going to get a pink slip," Romney said during a campaign stop in Rochester, NH.
But it's highly unlikely he's ever felt the fear of being let go, or of being unable to find work, without a family fortune to fall back on.
Romney's refusal to release his tax forms put a fine point on the issue.
He grudgingly acknowledged that he might, for the first time, release them. But only one year's worth, and not until April, if he is the GOP's presidential nominee. He did reveal that he pays an effective tax rate of 15 percent, lower than what he would pay if he earned a regular pay check. He then disclosed that he earned speaking fees, "but not very much." The amount turned out to be $373,327.62 from 2010-2011.
In New Hampshire, a day after the pink slip remark, he spoke of the importance of having a choice of health insurance companies and declared, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."
And in a heated debate last month, Romney bet Perry "10,000 bucks," apparently on impulse, when he could have wagered a symbolic dollar, or a beer.
Romney will soon get some practice honing his personal story in a state where he would need to be a master of it in the general election. After the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Romney and the GOP field move to Florida, a massive swing state familiar with the toxic cycle of high unemployment, unpaid bills, home foreclosures and despair.
It's no coincidence that Obama announced a new economic initiative there Thursday. The state suffers from 10 percent unemployment, and more than half of its homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth.
In Florida and beyond, Romney may find that sometimes it's best to keep his thoughts to himself.
"Don't try to stop the foreclosure process," he told the Las Vegas Review Journal in October, describing ways to improve the housing market. "Let it run its course and hit the bottom."
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By Robert J. Vickers
Religion News Service
(RNS) The Iowa caucuses revived Rick Santorum's underdog presidential campaign. Now an influential assortment of Christian conservatives has moved to consecrate it.
On Saturday (Jan. 14), the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania sewed up the endorsement from a coalition of prominent national evangelical leaders. And he has basked in the glow of their affirmation.
"Every (GOP) candidate and campaign greatly coveted this endorsement," said Hogan Gidley, Santorum's national campaign spokesman. "Once Rick Santorum received the endorsement, all the other campaigns dismissed it, (but) they all had emissaries in the room trying to get the endorsement."
Gidley predicted the endorsement would spark a late Santorum surge in Saturday's South Carolina GOP primary, similar to the push that saw him come within eight votes of winning the Iowa caucuses.
"We were this far down six days out of Iowa, too," Gidley said, alluding to Santorum's double-digit deficit in the polls. "But this kind of endorsement is the shot in the arm that awakens the activists and gets them behind the candidate they can relate to and trust."
At least until Saturday, evangelicals have elevated Santorum above his Republican rivals and installed him as the anointed conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.
The evangelical nod will provide access to finances that previously eluded Santorum.
Gidley wouldn't give funding specifics, but said the campaign had been financially "blessed' ever since Santorum became the consensus religious conservative candidate.
The cash should provide Santorum with the cushion to push on to the Florida primary later this month.
Even with the sanctified seal of approval bestowed upon Santorum, its effect is probably overstated.
"This certainly gives Santorum a kind of leg up, but the reason Santorum has been chosen is that he's outperformed (Texas Gov. Rick) Perry and (former U.S. House Speaker Newt) Gingrich in Iowa and New Hampshire," said Jeffrey W. Robbins, a professor of religion and politics at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania.
"This is an effort to consolidate under one candidate, but that consolidation has really already taken effect," Robbins said. "They're kind of late to the party."
Laura Olson, who teaches politics and religion at Clemson University in South Carolina, acknowledged the outward significance of the endorsement. But she said South Carolina conservatives won't blindly follow it.
"They'll be aware of these endorsements, but it isn't the case that every evangelical Republican voter simply does what the pastor says they should do," Olson said.
Further, she argued that the evangelical endorsement probably has arrived too late to have any substantive effect on Saturday's primary.
"I can see a mathematical path for Santorum to win, but so many things would have to break his way for that to happen," Olson said. "Had Santorum caught fire when Herman Cain was catching fire, then maybe folks start rallying around him and Gingrich sees the writing on the wall."
Instead, Romney won Iowa and New Hampshire, is coasting to a probable win in South Carolina, and looks like the presumptive GOP nominee.
That has come largely from negative campaign ads that crippled Gingrich's end-of-2011 surge. Gingrich, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and spent his pre-teen years in nearby Hummelstown, responded in kind.
Though pundits say the negative retorts have damaged Gingrich's prospects, a South Carolina Gingrich campaign official says his fight back is playing well in the Palmetto State.
"People in South Carolina want you to stand up," said William Wilkins, co-chair of Gingrich's South Carolina campaign. "If people say something about you that's not true, (South Carolinians) want you to call 'em out on that."
Wilkins credited Gingrich's campaign counterattacks with reviving the campaign's chances in the state. He said the strategy had been effective enough to lure "some folks who were heavy into fundraising" for former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman to switch last week and back Gingrich.
On Monday, Huntsman withdrew from the race and threw his support to Romney.
Wilkins said Gingrich's South Carolina campaign is shifting from the evangelical-rich upstate and will seek to mine votes from the less-strident midlands and lower state.
"The polls show without question that Romney is the leader at this point," Wilkins said. "But if the true conservative candidates would circle the wagons around Newt, he would certainly win the South Carolina primary."
However, the Republican candidate that South Carolina conservatives might be most comfortable with is Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who was born in Pittsburgh and attended Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.
"He's a Baptist" said Michael Vasovski, Paul's South Carolina campaign chair. "So he's got a connection spiritually with a large number of people here."
Vasovski said Paul was "very well received" at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event hours before Monday night's GOP debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Paul held the attention of the Christian conservative activist group for about an hour, Vasovski said.
(Robert J. Vickers writes for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.)
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It's unlikely that President Barack Obama intends to go to the polls in November with the United States engaged in a hot war with Iran, but there is a growing danger that events could conspire to make the decision for him. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that "U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict." Besides planning for the contingency of being dragged into a war started by Israel, the Journal reported that Administration officials from President Obama on down have urged their Israeli counterparts to refrain from unilateral military action. The Israeli response, says the paper, has been "non-committal." Indeed, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is due to visit Israel on Thursday with the purpose, according to Israeli reports, of ascertaining Israel's intentions.
The Iranians would likely hold the U.S. accountable for any Israeli military action, and any retaliation against U.S. assets (or even attacks on Israel) might prompt the U.S. to escalate the confrontation in order to disable Iran's military capability -- and perhaps strike at its nuclear program in the process. Israel's leaders would certainly prefer the U.S. to do the job, because its capacity to sustain an air assault on Iran is far greater than Israel's is. But Israeli leaders have long warned that should Washington fail to stop Iran's nuclear progress, they might be compelled to take military action alone. Israeli media outlets reported Sunday that a massive joint exercise between the Israeli and U.S. military to simulate countering an Iranian missile attack on Israel will be postponed by Washington, in order to ease the dangerous level of tension that has built up with Tehran in recent weeks. (See pictures of people around the world protesting Iran's election.)
Restraining Israel from unilateral action by escalating sanctions pressure has been a dominant theme of the Obama Administration's Iran policy. And current and former Administration officials have said that President Obama would take military action if other methods failed to stop Iran building a nuclear weapon, although the U.S. intelligence assessment is that Iran has not yet decided, let alone begun, to build nuclear weapons despite steadily acquiring the means to do so. But neither Israel's "bad cop" threats of military action or Washington's "good cop" sanctions have changed Iran's calculations, and the nuclear program is steadily expanding its capability. Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran had begun enriching uranium to 20% at its hardened underground facility at Fordo near Qom, a plant built in secret and designed to put some of Iran's capacity to manufacture nuclear fuel beyond the reach of air attack.
The latest round sanctions, which aim to stop Iran selling oil and importing gasoline, are being treated by the Iranians as a sign that the U.S. and its partners are seeking to overthrow the clerical regime -- an assessment that makes them more likely to seek a nuclear deterrent and less likely to compromise. And their response appears to be to escalate pressures of their own. (See pictures of terror in Tehran.)
The Washington Post caused a stir last week by reporting that it had been told by a "senior U.S. intelligence official" that the goal of the new sanctions was, indeed, to bring down the regime in Tehran. The paper quickly corrected itself -- presumably after the alarm bells sounded in the Administration, which can't afford to seen to be pressing for regime change either by the Iranians with whom it may be trying to negotiate, or by the Europeans and others whose support it is enlisting for sanctions. In the revised version, the purpose of the sanctions was stated as to "create hate and discontent at the street level so that Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways." The difference, of course, may be so subtle as to have little practical meaning: It makes clear that the sanctions are specifically aimed at undermining the well-being of ordinary Iranians, in the hope that they will direct the resultant anger at their government -- essentially, a repeat of the strategy used by Israel in blockading Gaza in the hope that economic pressure on the citizenry would result in the ouster of the territory's Hamas rulers.
Israel's Gaza blockade strategy failed, of course, and the hope that squeezing their livelihoods will prompt ordinary Iranians to overthrow their regime or press it to change course may be just as fanciful. Writes Hooman Majd, "the Iranian people, from my greengrocer to college students who resent their government, still consider the nuclear question in generally nationalistic terms... So sanctioning Iran's central bank and embargoing Iranian oil, tactics the White House may be using as a way to avoid having to make a decision for war, will neither change minds in Tehran nor do much of anything besides bring more pain to ordinary Iranians. And making life difficult for them has not, so far, resulted in their rising up to overthrow the autocratic regime, as some might have hoped in Washington or London."
President Obama appears to have little say over whether Israel attacks Iran, but even his control over U.S. sanctions policy may be less than he might like. Last month, sanctions that effectively blockade all of Iran's international trade through imposing sanctions on third-country corporations that do business with Tehran's central bank, were adopted by an overwhelming majority in both chambers of Congress -- despite the Administration's misgivings. The purpose of those sanctions, routinely described as "tightening the noose" by State Department officials, is to choke off Iran's economy. In an election year in which painting Obama as weak on Iran is the centerpiece of the Republican foreign policy discussion, and with congressional Democrats far more hawkish on the issue than the White House is, putting the brakes on a sanctions policy to which Iran may respond as if to an act of war carries a heavy political cost to the president. (See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle.)
And if sanctions and Israeli air strikes are two potential triggers for war over which the White House has less than optimal control, it may have even less say over the covert war against Iran that could could also provoke full-blown hostilities.
The realization that the Administration's options are being narrowed by the actions of others may account for the vehemence with which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week condemned the murder of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran. The general assumption, both in Tehran and in Western capitals, is that Israel is behind the attacks -- a suspicion reinforced by the Israeli response which has been to effectively encourage it without claiming -- or denying -- responsibility.
Even more alarming, if true, were the claims made in Foreign Policy magazine by military analyst Mark Perry, last week, alleging that an internal CIA assessment had concluded that Israeli Mossad agents masqueraded as CIA operatives while recruiting members of a Sunni jihadist group to wage proxy operations in Iran. An anonymous Israeli official speaking to Haaretz dismissed the charge as "absolute nonsense," while U.S. officials did not comment for Perry's story. (See pictures of Iran's presidential elections and their turbulent aftermath.)
First and foremost among those who could take the decision to start a war out of Obama's hands, of course, are the Iranians.
"We should not be surprised that a country faced with economic warfare would remind the world that it, too, can create mischief," warns former National Security Council Iran specialist Dr. Gary Sick. "Iran cannot close the Strait of Hormuz for a prolonged period of time, but it is capable of impeding oil traffic out of the Persian Gulf for many months. The loss of its own oil exports would be the trigger for such action, which would drive up the price of oil to unforeseeable levels and risk a wider regional war." (Other analysts suggest that closing the strait may be Iran's trump card, which it would hold in reserve for when it comes under military attack, and might instead seek other methods of retaliation for sanctions pressure.)
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has repeatedly warned Iran that closing the Strait, through which some 40% of global oil traffic passes, is a "red line" that would draw a military response. The New York Times reported Friday that the U.S. had used a secret channel to send that same message to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. But if the message is simply that Iran had better surrender or else sit still while the West chokes off its economic lifeblood, it might as well haven been delivered through a bullhorn. The key question is whether these "secret channels" are being used to communicate anything besides threats.
Until now, the "diplomatic" conversation between the Administration and Iran has largely been restricted to ultimatums, with neither side showing signs of buckling. Turkey appears to have brokered a new round of talks between Iran and the Western powers plus Russia and China. And Iran has agreed to receive a new delegation of IAEA inspectors (besides those who permanently monitor Iran's enrichment activities), although the extent of cooperation Tehran plans to offer remains to be seen.
"The central problem is that this is a zero-sum diplomatic game and each side's move are inherently dual-use and therefore subject to the most malign interpretations," warns Shashank Joshi, an analyst at Britain's Royal United Services Institute. "Enrichment is seen as synonymous with weaponisation, and sanctions are seen as tantamount to regime change. All the while, Tehran has negotiated in obviously bad faith, but the U.S. has also shown little willingness to take risks or offer up carrots commensurate with the sticks." Domestic politics on each side also militate against making confidence-building concessions to the others. "That is where we stand," writes Joshi. "Diplomacy that hasn't worked, sanctions whose effects are unpredictable, and each side lashing themselves ever tighter to the mast."
Finding a diplomatic path out of the crisis has become increasingly urgent in the eyes of some in Washington -- where the U.S. military establishment believes that a military confrontation will do more harm than good, and will at best only delay Iran's progress but make weaponization more likely -- and in allied capitals. But diplomatic solutions would require compromises unlikely to appeal to more hawkish voices, and getting there would require a protracted process of talking and confidence-building gestures that defy the minutes-to-midnight clock imposed on the standoff by those pressing for tougher action. And the track record of the Iranian leadership suggests that covert warfare and effective sanctions are more likely to push them to respond with escalations of their own rather than with concessions.
For pessimistic hawks -- those who believe military action is inevitable, and necessary, unless Iran caves on its nuclear program -- squeezing Iran to the point that it initiates such hostilities is not necessarily a policy failure. Asked that question by Yahoo columnist Laura Rozen, Patrick Clawson of the hawkish Washington Institute for Near East Policy explained, "I think it's heading towards confrontation," Clawson said. "The whole point from the beginning is if we put pressure on the regime, the Iranians will crack at some point." If there is to be fight, he explained, it's preferable that it be initiated by Iran, adding by way of anaology, "Better to enter World War II after Pearl Harbor." (See the top 10 Ahmadinejad-isms.)
Pearl Harbor, of course, allowed President Roosevelt to enter a war he'd been trying to join. But an Iranian equivalent would plunge President Obama, despite himself, into a war he'd hoped to avoid.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? Many Burmese refugee children bound for the U.S. may have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, a new government study finds.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that of 642 U.S.-bound Burmese children, 90 percent had some amount of lead in their blood. Overall, 5 percent had lead poisoning -- including nearly 15 percent of children younger than 2.
High lead exposure is especially dangerous for young children, since it can permanently damage their developing brains.
In the U.S. and other developed countries, children's lead exposure dropped substantially after the heavy metal was removed from gasoline, house paints and other products. But studies have found that lead poisoning is still fairly common among refugee children who come from countries where lead exposure is a bigger problem.
For the new study, CDC researchers focused on Burmese children who were living in one of three Thailand refugee camps before coming to the U.S.
In 2008, there had been reports of high lead poisoning rates among children who were resettled in the U.S. after living in those camps -- suggesting that at least some of their lead exposure happened in the camps.
The CDC researchers found that of 642 refugee-camp children tested over two months in 2009, nearly all had some detectable lead in their blood. And the number with lead poisoning was several times higher than what's seen in U.S. children.
Of children younger than 6 -- the most at-risk age group -- about 7 percent had lead poisoning. In the U.S., it's estimated that 1 percent of kids in that age range suffer lead poisoning.
What's more, refugee children younger than 2 had a lead poisoning rate of 14.5 percent.
Children were considered to have lead poisoning if their levels were at least 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. That's the CDC's current threshold.
A federal advisory panel, however, just recommended that the threshold be lowered to 5 micrograms. It has long been known that even lead exposures lower than 10 micrograms per deciliter are linked to lower IQ in children.
The CDC already recommends that all refugee children have their lead levels checked within three months of arriving in the U.S.
CAR BATTERIES, REMEDIES, ANEMIA AT FAULT?
The current study is the first to test children's lead concentrations before they come to the U.S., according to the CDC researchers, led by Dr. Tarissa Mitchell.
And the findings point to some factors that put children at particular risk while they're still in refugee camps.
Many children with lead poisoning were exposed to car batteries in their homes, which families used to generate power for electronic items. Children younger than 2 were particularly likely to have touched or "mouthed" the batteries.
Young children who'd been given traditional remedies at the camps were also at increased risk of lead poisoning, the researchers found.
Past studies have found that some traditional medicines are contaminated with lead. When Mitchell's team tested seven remedies sold at the Thai refugee camps, they found that one -- a "multipurpose infant remedy" called Gaw Mo Dah -- had lead levels far above what's considered acceptable in foods in the U.S.
But the biggest factor seemed to be anemia, which is most often caused by iron deficiency. Anemia is known to make children more vulnerable to lead poisoning.
The CDC recommends that when refugee children in the U.S. are tested for lead levels, they also be screened for anemia and have a "nutritional assessment."
But the current findings also show that efforts are needed in the refugee camps themselves, according to Mitchell's team.
The Thai camps, they say, have already started educational campaigns to warn families about the dangers of lead exposure.
Once children are in the U.S., the CDC researchers say, families should be placed in "lead-safe" housing. And after their first lead test, children younger than 6 should be re-tested within six months of settling into permanent housing.
Burma, also known as Myanmar, was under military rule until last year, when a civilian government was installed following elections. Each year since 2007, up to 15,000 Burmese refugees have resettled in the U.S. from camps in Thailand.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/zNNv7x Pediatrics, online January 16, 2012.
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Screen grab from youtube video showing the arrest of Occupy LA activist Sergio Ballesteros on Thursday, Jan. 12. Ballesteros, 30, was released on $50,000 bail early Tuesday. He is charged with "lynching"--a felony charge originally drafted to deal with vigilante mobs.
By Kari Huus, msnbc.com
Sergio Ballesteros, 30, has been involved in Occupy LA since the movement had its California launch in October. But this week, his activism took an abrupt turn when?he was arrested on a felony charge ? lynching.
Under the California penal code, lynching is ?taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer," where "riot" is defined as two or more people threatening violence or disturbing the peace. The original purpose of the legal code section 405(a)?was to protect defendants in police custody from vigilante mobs ? especially black defendants from racist groups.
Whether the police allegation in this case will be pursued by by California?s courts is uncertain. But the felony charge ? which carries a potential?four-year prison sentence ? is the kind of accusation that can change the landscape for would-be demonstrators.
Occupy protesters bring their discontent to Congress
"Felonies really heighten the stakes for the protesters," said Baher Azmy, legal director at Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. "I think in situations where there are mass demonstrations and a confrontation between protesters and police, one always has to be on the lookout for exaggerated interpretations of legal rules that attempt to punish or squelch the protesters."
Ballesteros, a teacher-turned-social-activist,?was one of two people arrested during an "art walk" in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday. He and other Occupy LA activists ? maybe 200, he said ? had joined the procession to bring their message about social injustice to the thousands of gallery-goers.
Adam Alders, a protester who was playing a drum was arrested after stepping off the curb into the street.?Ballesteros said that in doing so, the drummer was joining hundreds of other people who could not fit on the crowded sidewalk.
Occupy protesters underwhelmed by senator's staff
Ballesteros said he was across the street when he saw the arrest ? which he said looked excessively rough -- and it was ?startling.? Under legal advice, Ballesteros is not providing additional detail, but apparently he objected ? in some fashion ? to the arrest. A video of the crowded scene posted on YouTube?shows Ballesteros on the ground, being handcuffed.
The police report says officers called for backup when Ballesteros pulled Alders out into the crowd, which was "hostile."
A video of the event shows the crowd chanting "let him go!"
He was booked into jail on a felony charge, the Los Angeles Police department confirmed, and released on $50,000 bail early Tuesday morning.
'I can't go out and express myself'
Ballesteros is not the first protester to face this 1933 California law.
Occupy Oakland activist Tiffany Tran, 23, was arrested?Dec. 30 and charged with "lynching." At an arraignment four days later,? prosecutors opted not to file the charges,?the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported. They could change their minds until the one-year statute of limitations expires.
"Now I feel I can?t go out and express myself as I should be able to," Tran told the paper.
Houston DA turns up the heat on Occupy activists?
In the handful of protest cases in which lynching has been used as a charge?in the past, it later has been dropped. However, in one case, a court concluded that ?lynching? could include ?a person who takes part in a riot leading to his escape from custody."
Many states have laws against lynching ? largely drafted to prevent white supremacists and other vigilante groups from using violence against African Americans?and?white people who supported them. Hundreds of lynchings of this sort took place in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.
Ballesteros' lawyer?said?use of this?law was perhaps less appealing to the District Attorney than to the police.
Ballesteros is an activist?outside the Occupy movement -- building homes through Habitat for Humanity during his spring breaks, aiding at a children's camp for the poorest kids in the Appalachians during the summer, and acting as mentor for kids in the Los Angeles area.
"Whether the District Attorney has the stomach to charge this model young man with a felony is questionable," saidd Mieka ter Poorten, an LA criminal defense attorney who is handling this case pro bono.
Trying to silence?
Ballesteros, who?spoke to msnbc.com on Tuesday, said that he does not believe he will be convicted of lynching.
?They don?t have much,? he said of the case against him.
Ballesteros lawyer, Meika ter Poorten, who is working pro bono on the case, says
He also faces a misdemeanor charge for his arrest?Nov. 30, when he was among more than 200 people who defied eviction from an encampment on the grounds of Los Angeles' City Hall. There was an arraignment for protesters arrested that day, but they were told no charges yet had been filed.
?They have a year to do so,? said Ballesteros. "Now they certainly will. It?s obvious. It?s all political.?
Ballesteros took part in a live video forum between Occupy movement activists and Tea Party activists just a day before his arrest. Click here to hear the discussion.
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The promised release of three activists who boarded a Japanese whaling ship a few days ago signals a victory for behind-the-scenes diplomacy with Australia.
An unscheduled meeting between Japan?s whalers and environmental activists on the high seas seems an unlikely backdrop to an outbreak of d?tente.
Skip to next paragraphBut Australia was quietly celebrating a minor victory for diplomacy on Tuesday after Japan agreed to release three anti-whaling activists who illegally boarded one of its whaling ships over the weekend.?
The trio, all Australian citizens, have been detained on the Shonan Maru 2, which is providing security to the fleet, after clambering aboard early Sunday morning to protest Japan?s annual hunts in the Antarctic.?The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 but allows Japan to hunt a limited number of whales for ?scientific research.??The fleet left port last month with plans to kill some 900 whales this season.
The incident threatened to cause tension between Australia and Japan, close trade and security partners.?Soon after the men were detained it seemed likely that they would be kept aboard the Shonan Maru 2 and taken to Japan, where they faced a trial and possible imprisonment for trespassing.
By late Monday evening, however, Japan had agreed to release the trio, a move welcomed by Australia?s prime minister, Julia Gillard.
Prime Minister Gillard, who came under immediate pressure at home to secure the activists? release, thanked Japan for its cooperation, but sounded a warning to campaigners thinking of employing similar forms of direct action.
?No one should assume that because an agreement has been reached with?the Japanese government in this instance that individuals will not be charged and convicted in the future,? she said in a statement. ?The best way to stop whaling once and for all is through our court action.
Australia has lodged a legal challenge to the annual whale hunts with the international court of justice in the Hague but a decision is not expected until 2013 at the earliest.
Canberra?s delicate task was to balance an election pledge to end the whale hunts with a public show of respect for maritime law.
The release, which won?t happen until an Australian coastguard boat rendezvouses with the Shona Maru 2 in several days? time, was welcomed by Sea Shepherd?s founder, Paul Watson.
But in an interview with Macquarie Radio, Mr. Watson said: ?If the Australian government would do their job and fulfill their election promises, these things wouldn?t be happening.?
Japan, meanwhile, insisted the decision to release the men did not mean it had gone soft on Sea Shepherd.
The trio are not members of the group ? they belong to another organization called Forest Rescue ? and had not injured any members of the Shonan Maru 2?s crew when they boarded, Japan?s chief cabinet secretary, Osamu Fujimura, told reporters.
?The three activists were not violent during or after they boarded the whaling vessel,? he said. ?There was no evidence that they were part of Sea Shepherd, which has been engaged in obstructing the fleet.?
Japan may have also had in mind the negative international publicity it attracted in 2010, when it prosecuted former Sea Shepherd member Pete Bethune, who had boarded the Shonan Maru 2 to protest the sinking of the group?s high-tech speedboat. Mr. Bethune, who had been carrying a knife, was given a suspended sentence and deported.
Official support for the whaling program was also put under the spotlight last month when it was revealed that the government had used 2.28 billion yen ($30 million) of taxpayer money intended for the tsunami recovery effort to fund this year?s hunt, on top an existing $6 million annual subsidy. The fisheries agency said the use of the fund was justified because one of the towns destroyed in the disaster was a whaling port.
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Mac: Spotlight search on a Mac is one of of the best features in OS X, but if you need a little more control for hunting down files it doesn't have a lot of options. iFileX is a desktop search engine that has a set of filters to help you pinpoint files.
With iFileX, you can search by different criteria so you can find files faster. If you want, you can search by name, but by clicking the plus symbol next to each search box you can add date and size filters to the mix. Your results include hidden files and package content, so it makes it easy to see what's really on your hard drive. It's not exactly a replacement for Spotlight, but it's a great tool to filter search results if you're hunting down something specific. It's a free download from the developer's site below.
iFileX | OSX Bytes via Addictive Tips
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