The hype has begun. Super Bowl XLVII is less than a week away, but the mega-million-buck auto ad brawl is already underway as three of the eight deep-pocket car?advertisers pre-launch their new commercials to NFL fans. The reason? Economics. And a numbers game.
At between $2.4 million?and $4 million per 30-second commercial, ?this amounts to a huge?expenditure for just one airing. But there?s an even bigger number, with more than 115 million Americans predicted to watch?the game Feb. 3.
Until recently, Super Bowl advertising?has been nothing more than putting up the game-day spot and hoping, maybe, that it will trigger some Monday-morning quarterbacking around the water cooler ? with polls and research adding some arguable, additional value. That was then.?
What?s become apparent is that a fairly large percentage of viewers are more interested in the commercials than the game itself. So, how to take advantage of that and extend the payback beyond just a game-day airing that is over in 30 seconds, whether a viewer was sitting in front of the TV or off grabbing something from the refrigerator?
Now, with the various social media,?like Facebook and Twitter as well as YouTube, along with special contests, promotions and PR hype, the shelf life for a good commercial can be dramatically extended to weeks, even months, resulting in additional views extending well into the millions ? even among consumers who ? gasp ? might not have tuned in on Super Bowl Sunday.
Result? The return on investment is as measurable as any ad investment might be. ?And, of course, makers get to battle it out all over for bragging rights as to who was number one.
?(An) early release extends the life of the commercial, builds consumer interest, and most importantly brings early customers into our dealers," said?Steve Shannon, vice president of marketing at Hyundai Motor America.
The?latter reason, arguably, is the most important for buying the commercial in the first place. With that in mind, here are the early commercial entries into this year?s auto ad brawl:?
Mercedes-Benz During the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Bernie Glaser, vice president of marketing for Mercedes-Benz, said the company has an enviable role in XLVII.?The game will be played in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The ad plan was to pre-release a teaser, but in fact two advance spots were released earlier this week. One sexy little tease spotlighted actress Kate Upton and has already received over 3.4 million hits on YouTube ? but also generated a fury of??negative comments from critics for being overly sexy.?The other is a cinematic mystery tease of what is coming Feb. 3, shot in the Big Easy with some great music.
Hyundai Like every NFL game, it all begins with the coin toss, and in Super?Bowl?XLVII, Hyundai has the primo commercial position ? a 60-second spot for the new seven-passenger?Santa Fe prior to the heads-or-tails call. Check out the not-so-sneak preview.
There are two in game spots, including another for Santa Fe and one for the turbo Sonata. Hyundai also has bought a couple pre-game ads ? featuring the Genesis R-Spec and Santa Fe. Obviously, the new family-size SUV?is getting the most play. The six commercials pre-game and during the game makes Hyundai the biggest car-vertiser in the big show.?
Audi More than a tease, the rising luxury car marquee is asking consumers to vote for the favorite end of their sixth Super Bowl commercial. Viewers of the commercial on YouTube were?given?24?hours?to?pick their favorite from three possibilities. The most popular will be added in post-production and will air in advance of the game --?and?in?the enviable commercial position of the first break after kick-off.?
Lincoln Motor Company?and Chevrolet The newest entry in the auto ad brawl in Super Bowl XLVII is the reborn, revitalized, redesigned, re-engineered Lincoln brand from the renamed Lincoln Motor Company. All previous car companies except Chevrolet have re-upped. Chevy is instead?involved in?the half-time show with Beyonce. As TheDetroitBureau.com previously reported, the pop phenom is expected to receive a new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, a special version of the C7 built just for her.?
Not even Hollywood's most beautiful are inmune to our brain's faulty image processing. Liv Tyler, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Keira Knightley, Christina Hendricks—all of them turn to creepy monsters when you get them through this freaky optical illusion. More »
Writing a Professional Life: Stories of Technical Communicators On and Off the Job (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)
This is the first collection of narratives by practicing technical communicators telling their own personal stories about the workplace and their lives on the job. The authors portray a wide range of jobs: writers, editors, interface designers, marketing writers, and trainers working in 9 different technical fields, including software, R&D, engineering , medicine, transportation, and telecommunications. The stories vividly demonstrate the unique power of narrative as a teaching and learning tool. Unlike fabricated cases, these real-life narratives show new and veteran technical writers at work on the job, dealing with tasks, clients, and co-workers, and revealing their insights, values, and attitudes about their work. The stories also show the skills required in the profession and the ethical and other issues raised in the course of the workday. For anyone interested in technical communication and professional writing.
List Price: $ 53.00 Price: $ 8.00
Effective Communication Skills for Scientific and Technical Professionals
ISBN13: 9780738202877
Condition: New
Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Flatter, more collaborative organizational structures, combined with the pressure to translate innovative ideas into action quickly, are increasing the need by technical professionals-such as computer programmers, design specialists, engineers, and R&D scientists-to expand their repertoire of communication and managerial skills. In this highly accessible and practical book, Harry Chambers offers a wealth of strategies and tactics for building these skills, to the benefit of individuals, teams, and companies. In his trademark shoot-from-the-hip style, Chambers identifies specific real-world challenges that technical professionals face in the workplace, and offers definitive guidelines for enhancing their communication skills-from making presentations to giving and receiving criticism to navigating office politics. Featuring interviews with people in the trenches, as well as self-assessment tools and exercises, Effective Communication Skills will become a valued resource for technical professionals and their colleagues, trainers, and HR departments in all industries.
List Price: $ 16.50 Price: $ 6.74 Professional SQL Server 2000 Database Design by Louis Davidson (2001, Paperback)
In this photo taken Nov. 3 2012, and made available Monday Jan. 21 2013 Britain's Prince Harry or just plain Captain Wales as he is known in the British Army, races out from the VHR (very high ready-ness) tent to scramble his Apache with fellow Pilots, during his 12 hour shift at the British controlled flight-line in Camp Bastion southern Afghanistan, The Ministry of Defense announced Monday that the 28-year-old prince is returning from a 20-week deployment in Afghanistan, where he served as an Apache helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps. (AP Photo/ John Stillwell, Pool)
In this photo taken Nov. 3 2012, and made available Monday Jan. 21 2013 Britain's Prince Harry or just plain Captain Wales as he is known in the British Army, races out from the VHR (very high ready-ness) tent to scramble his Apache with fellow Pilots, during his 12 hour shift at the British controlled flight-line in Camp Bastion southern Afghanistan, The Ministry of Defense announced Monday that the 28-year-old prince is returning from a 20-week deployment in Afghanistan, where he served as an Apache helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps. (AP Photo/ John Stillwell, Pool)
In this photo taken Dec. 12 2012, made available Monday Jan. 21 2013 Britain's Prince Harry or just plain Captain Wales as he is known in the British Army, wears a Santa hat as he shows to a TV crew his sleeping area at the VHR (very high readiness) tent close to the flight-line, from Camp Bastion southern Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense announced Monday that the 28-year-old prince is returning from a 20-week deployment in Afghanistan, where he served as an Apache helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps. (AP Photo/ John Stillwell, Pool)
In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2012, made available Monday Jan. 21, 2013 of Britain's Prince Harry or just plain Captain Wales as he is known in the British Army, talks to a TV crew after making his early morning pre-flight checks on the flight-line, from Camp Bastion southern Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense announced Monday that the 28-year-old prince is returning from a 20-week deployment in Afghanistan, where he served as an Apache helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps. (AP Photo/ John Stillwell, Pool)
LONDON (AP) ? Prince Harry's off-duty time in Afghanistan appeared to be full of war movies, board games and elaborate candy trades.
The 28-year-old helicopter pilot and fellow members of his squad swapped Kit Kats and Rice Krispies Squares for American soldiers' M&Ms, according to a British media pool report released Sunday.
Harry himself outlined one of his less-prestigious duties. The third-in-line to the U.K. throne said anyone who lost at Uckers ? a military game similar to Ludo or Parcheesi ? had to then wait on his comrades like a Buckingham Palace butler, ready with a fresh cup of tea whenever anyone rang their bell.
"Whoever loses ... then you have to make brews for everybody all day," Harry told journalists ahead of his return to Britain this week.
He also denied rumors that he was far better at PlayStation than at traditional board games.
"I don't know who told you that," he told reporters. "I lost two days ago, and yesterday, so since you guys have been here I've only lost."
Harry returned to Britain on Wednesday after a 20-week deployment in Afghanistan in which he acknowledged that he had targeted Taliban fighters from the cockpit of his Apache attack helicopter.
Asked in an earlier round of interviews whether he had killed anyone, Harry said: "Yeah, so, lots of people have." That admission disturbed some Britons and led to front-page headlines like the one in The Daily Mail that read: "Harry: I Have Killed."
This latest round of interviews, focusing on Harry's daily life at Britain's Camp Bastion military base in Afghanistan, is not likely to draw the same kind of headlines.
The report mainly carried glimpses of the prince's daily routine, including his favorite foods ? chicken and broccoli ? and his favorite movies ? "Full Metal Jacket," ''Apocalypse Now," and "Platoon."
In an interesting twist for an Apache pilot, "Black Hawk Down," the Ridley Scott film about a helicopter raid gone wrong in Somalia, was among the movies spotted in Harry's communal tent.
Firefighters work to douse a fire at the Kiss Club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180. Officials say the fire broke out at the club while a band was performing. At least 200 people were also injured. (AP Photo/Agencia RBS)
Firefighters work to douse a fire at the Kiss Club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180. Officials say the fire broke out at the club while a band was performing. At least 200 people were also injured. (AP Photo/Agencia RBS)
A fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday and killed more than 230 people appears to be the deadliest in more a decade. Here is a look at some of the biggest nightclub fires in the past century:
? A blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, broke out in December 2009, when an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches, killing 152.
? A December 2004 fire killed 194 people at an overcrowded working-class nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after a flare ignited ceiling foam.
? A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling.
?In China's worst nightclub disaster in recent years, a fire blamed on a welding accident tore through a disco in the central city of Luoyang in December 2000, killing 309 people.
?A fire at the Ozone Disco Pub in 1996 in Quezon City, Philippines, killed 162 people, many of them students celebrating the end of the school year.
?In 1977, 165 people perished and more than 200 were injured when the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, which touted itself as the Showplace of the Nation, burned to the ground.
?A fire killed 492 people at Boston's Cocoanut Grove club in 1942, the deadliest nightclub blaze in U.S. history. The fire led to the enactment of requirements for sprinkler systems and accessible exits with emergency lights not linked to the regular lighting system.
?In 1940, a fire ignited the decorative Spanish moss draping the ceiling of the Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Mississippi, killing 209 people. Hundreds of patrons ran to the only exit. The windows had been boarded shut to keep unwanted guests from sneaking in.
Despite our busy schedules, coming home to a pet or two can surely paint a smile on our faces. Pets can be any breed and any kind. If you are fond of the seas and the beaches then you will probably find joy in caring for fishes. It does not matter what kind of fish you raise as long as you love them then that is all that matters. On the other hand, if you prefer mammals like dogs and cats then raise one or two. These pets can surely make your home livelier and more welcoming.
Nevertheless, being a pet owner you also have some responsibilities. Regardless of their size and breed, there is still a need for you to take care of them. You need to provide them their basic needs like food and shelter. If you choose dogs as pets then you need to make sure that you get adequate physical activity everyday. You do not have to worry about food though because pet foods can be bought at any local grocery shop or pet shop. As for the fishes, fish food is also available. The same thing for dogs, there is always an adequate supply of dogfood. Then for cats, you can expect sufficient supply of cat food as well.
Now, the food part is already taken cared of; clothes on the other hand are merely accessories but not requirements. If you do not let your pets inside the house then providing them with pet houses is necessary. Nonetheless, some pets still need pet houses even when you let them inside. There is a respective pet house for every kind of pet. Take for example the fishes. Fishes reside in the water. Thus, their pet house should be something that can hold water and copy their natural habitat. The aquarium is the fitting pet house especially if you want to raise fishes for pets. To make sure that the fishes feel at home, you need to put the necessary accessories in the aquarium.
If aquariums are for fishes then birdcages are for birds. Depending on the bird that you have, this type of pet house comes in different shapes and sizes. You may need to get a bigger birdcage or build an aviary if the bird that you have has to fly around. If the bird that you have does not have to fly then you may settle for the regular birdcage.
Lastly, the dog house is the most popular type of pet house. Canines are very popular pets. There are even dog owners who are willing to spend and pamper their dogs as much as possible. Truth is, there are dog houses that are miniature replicas of the pet owner?s residence. Different materials and different designs can be utilized. The best thing that you do as the pet owner is to provide your pets their basic needs like food and the appropriate pet house.
Best thing is, pet houses help keep your house tidy. It also ensures your pet?s safety because their pet houses serve as their protection from external harm. Other than shelter, your pet?s food can be prepared using your thermos grill.
Bob Proctor has been writing articles since 2005 and is an expert on pet houses, however he?s also interested in thermos grill for personal use.
If diminutive, portable projectors catch your eye on the regular, Vivitek's latest may be worth a gander. The outfit has announced the Qumi Q7 HD LED pocket projector at CES, touting up to 800 lumens of brightness and a 30,000:1 contrast ratio. Packing 720p native WXGA resolution at 1,280 x 800, the unit is also 3D-capable thanks to Texas Instrument's DLP Link and sports 2D to 3D content conversion tech. In terms of connections, the Q7 wields HDMI, VGA, composite video, RCA audio-in and USB ports alongside 4GB of built-in storage. All of this is packed into a 3.1-pound (1.4kg) frame that measures 6.3 inches (16cm) x 4.3 inches (10.9cm) and is 1.3 inches (3.3cm) thick. If the list of specs piques your interest, you have until sometime this summer to save up the $999 it'll take to snag one. Looking for a few more details? The full PR lies just beyond the break with just that.
Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
New path to more efficient organic solar cells uncovered at Berkeley Lab's advanced light sourcePublic release date: 7-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar energy lighting up Earth's land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency. For polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells, which are far less expensive to manufacture than silicon-based solar cells, scientists have long believed that the key to high efficiencies rests in the purity of the polymer/organic cell's two domains acceptor and donor. Now, however, an alternate and possibly easier route forward has been shown.
Working at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a premier source of X-ray and ultraviolet light beams for research, an international team of scientists found that for highly efficient polymer/organic photovoltaic cells, size matters.
"We've shown that impure domains if made sufficiently small can also lead to improved performances in polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells," says Harald Ade, a physicist at North Carolina State University, who led this research. "There seems to be a happy medium, a sweet-spot of sorts, between purity and domain size that should be much easier to achieve than ultra-high purity."
Ade, a longtime user of the ALS, is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work in Advanced Energy Materials titled "Absolute Measurement of Domain Composition and Nanoscale Size Distribution Explains Performance in PTB7:PC71 BM Solar Cells." Co-authors are Brian Collins, Zhe Li, John Tumbleston, Eliot Gann and Christopher McNeill.
Solar cell conversion efficiency in polymer/organic photovoltaic cells hinges on excitons electron/hole pairs energized by sunlight getting to the interfaces of the donor and acceptor domains quickly so as to minimize energy lost as heat. Conventional wisdom held that the greater the purity of the domains, the fewer the impedances and the faster the exciton journey.
Ade and his co-authors became the first to simultaneously measure the domain size, composition and crystallinity of an organic solar cell. This feat was made possible by ALS beamlines 11.0.1.2, a Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (R-SoXS) facility; 7.3.3, a Small- and Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS/WAXS/) end-station; and 5.3.2, an end-station for Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy (STXM).
Says Collins, the first author on the Advanced Energy Materials paper, "The combination of these three ALS beamlines enabled us to obtain comprehensive pictures of polymer-based organic photovoltaic film morphology from the nano- to the meso-scales. Until now, this information has been unattainable."
The international team used the trifecta of ALS beams to study the polymer/fullerence blend PTB7:PC71BM in thin films made from chlorobenzene solution with and without the addition (three-percent by volume) of the solvent diiodooctane. The films were composed of droplet-like dispersions in which the dominant acceptor domain size without the additive was about 177 nanometers. The addition of the solvent shrank the acceptor domain size down to about 34 nanometers while preserving the film's composition and crystallinity. This resulted in an efficiency gain of 42-percent.
"In showing for the first time just how pure and how large the acceptor domains in organic solar devices actually are, as well as what the interface with the donor domain looks like, we've demonstrated that the impact of solvents and additives on device performance can be dramatic and can be systematically studied," Ade says. "In the future, our technique should help advance the rational design of polymer-based organic photovoltaic films."
This research was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science, which also supports the ALS.
###
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the Office of Science website at science.energy.gov/.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New path to more efficient organic solar cells uncovered at Berkeley Lab's advanced light sourcePublic release date: 7-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar energy lighting up Earth's land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency. For polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells, which are far less expensive to manufacture than silicon-based solar cells, scientists have long believed that the key to high efficiencies rests in the purity of the polymer/organic cell's two domains acceptor and donor. Now, however, an alternate and possibly easier route forward has been shown.
Working at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a premier source of X-ray and ultraviolet light beams for research, an international team of scientists found that for highly efficient polymer/organic photovoltaic cells, size matters.
"We've shown that impure domains if made sufficiently small can also lead to improved performances in polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells," says Harald Ade, a physicist at North Carolina State University, who led this research. "There seems to be a happy medium, a sweet-spot of sorts, between purity and domain size that should be much easier to achieve than ultra-high purity."
Ade, a longtime user of the ALS, is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work in Advanced Energy Materials titled "Absolute Measurement of Domain Composition and Nanoscale Size Distribution Explains Performance in PTB7:PC71 BM Solar Cells." Co-authors are Brian Collins, Zhe Li, John Tumbleston, Eliot Gann and Christopher McNeill.
Solar cell conversion efficiency in polymer/organic photovoltaic cells hinges on excitons electron/hole pairs energized by sunlight getting to the interfaces of the donor and acceptor domains quickly so as to minimize energy lost as heat. Conventional wisdom held that the greater the purity of the domains, the fewer the impedances and the faster the exciton journey.
Ade and his co-authors became the first to simultaneously measure the domain size, composition and crystallinity of an organic solar cell. This feat was made possible by ALS beamlines 11.0.1.2, a Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (R-SoXS) facility; 7.3.3, a Small- and Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS/WAXS/) end-station; and 5.3.2, an end-station for Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy (STXM).
Says Collins, the first author on the Advanced Energy Materials paper, "The combination of these three ALS beamlines enabled us to obtain comprehensive pictures of polymer-based organic photovoltaic film morphology from the nano- to the meso-scales. Until now, this information has been unattainable."
The international team used the trifecta of ALS beams to study the polymer/fullerence blend PTB7:PC71BM in thin films made from chlorobenzene solution with and without the addition (three-percent by volume) of the solvent diiodooctane. The films were composed of droplet-like dispersions in which the dominant acceptor domain size without the additive was about 177 nanometers. The addition of the solvent shrank the acceptor domain size down to about 34 nanometers while preserving the film's composition and crystallinity. This resulted in an efficiency gain of 42-percent.
"In showing for the first time just how pure and how large the acceptor domains in organic solar devices actually are, as well as what the interface with the donor domain looks like, we've demonstrated that the impact of solvents and additives on device performance can be dramatic and can be systematically studied," Ade says. "In the future, our technique should help advance the rational design of polymer-based organic photovoltaic films."
This research was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science, which also supports the ALS.
###
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the Office of Science website at science.energy.gov/.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) ? Josh Brolin spent some of New Year's Day and the following morning in a Southern California jail cell after getting arrested for misdemeanor public intoxication.
Santa Monica Police Lt. Darrell Lowe says the actor was not given a citation for the Tuesday arrest, which means he likely won't have to appear in court.
Lowe says Brolin was arrested just before midnight January 1, when officers found him heavily intoxicated on a Santa Monica sidewalk. He was booked into jail and released about six hours later after he had sobered up.
A call to a publicist for Brolin was not immediately returned Sunday.
Brolin is starring in the crime film "Gangster Squad," which opens this week.
Jan. 7, 2013 ? Chemists at the University of California, Davis, have engineered blue-green algae to grow chemical precursors for fuels and plastics -- the first step in replacing fossil fuels as raw materials for the chemical industry.
"Most chemical feedstocks come from petroleum and natural gas, and we need other sources," said Shota Atsumi, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Davis and lead author on the study published Jan. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of obtaining a quarter of industrial chemicals from biological processes by 2025.
Biological reactions are good at forming carbon-carbon bonds, using carbon dioxide as a raw material for reactions powered by sunlight. It's called photosynthesis, and cyanobacteria, also known as "blue-green algae," have been doing it for more than 3 billion years.
Using cyanobacteria to grow chemicals has other advantages: they do not compete with food needs, like corn's role in the creation of ethanol.
The challenge is to get the cyanobacteria to make significant amounts of chemicals that can be readily converted to chemical feedstocks. With support from Japanese chemical manufacturer Asahi Kasei Corp., Atsumi's lab at UC Davis has been working on introducing new chemical pathways into the cyanobacteria.
The researchers identified enzymes from online databases that carried out the reactions they were looking for, and then introduced the DNA for these enzymes into the cells. Working a step at a time, they built up a three-step pathway that allows the cyanobacteria to convert carbon dioxide into 2,3 butanediol, a chemical that can be used to make paint, solvents, plastics and fuels.
Because enzymes may work differently in different organisms, it is nearly impossible to predict how well the pathway will work before testing it in an experiment, Atsumi said.
After three weeks growth, the cyanobacteria yielded 2.4 grams of 2,3 butanediol per liter of growth medium -- the highest productivity yet achieved for chemicals grown by cyanobacteria and with potential for commercial development, Atsumi said.
Atsumi hopes to tune the system to increase productivity further and experiment with other products, while corporate partners explore scaling up the technology.
Coauthors on the paper are graduate student John Oliver, postdoctoral researcher Iara Machado sand Hisanari Yoneda, a visiting researcher from Asahi Kasei Corp.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Davis, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
John W. K. Oliver, Iara M. P. Machado, Hisanari Yoneda, and Shota Atsumi. Cyanobacterial conversion of carbon dioxide to 2,3-butanediol. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1213024110
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Darlene "Dar" Miller passed away?four years ago today. Here is the original article in the Anchorage Daily News.
WASILLA -- Darlene "Dar" Miller's death in a house fire last week staggered coworkers all too familiar with death, loss and grief.
Miller spent the last eight years as a nurse with Mat-Su Regional Homecare and Hospice, an organization that provides in-home care for terminally ill patients and support for their families.
Her peers are finding there's no coping mechanism to ease the shock of such a sudden, traumatic loss.
"We're experts in grief and the dying process, but it's different when it's one of your own," said Barbara Mistler, the center's director. "Who takes care of the caregivers?"
Firefighters found the 54-year-old Miller unconscious and badly burned, but still alive in her Wasilla home Jan. 5. Though a cause has yet to be established, the long-smoldering fire apparently started near a bed on the first floor, burning so hot it charred beams and melted pictures on the wall. Miller's two dogs died next to her.
She was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for burn treatment, but she died the next day.
Miller shared the home with partner Michaele Hannam. She was not available for comment.
Mistler told staffers about Miller's death the afternoon of Jan. 6. A mental health counselor conducted two debriefing sessions. The director tried to lighten workloads where she could, to give stunned employees a break.
"We deal with death every day. But when it's somebody close, it's like all these deaths... you tuck away a little of the hurt," said Judy Hayes, a hospice nurse who considered Miller her mentor. "When it's somebody you know, it all comes out. The emotions aren't just for Dar. It's a bigger hurt, a bigger loss."
Miller's desk at the center's Bogard Road office remains as she left it: a tidy memorial with a picture of her dogs -- spunky cattle dogs called heelers, one young, one old.
A common thread emerged about Miller's personal side during a visit Monday to her office.
She was a rugged Canadian woman who wore mukluks and a leather coat in winter and had a thing for pickup trucks. She loved escaping to her Trapper Creek cabin with Hannam. She possessed a dry sense of humor, amazing penmanship and a propensity for goofy sayings like "God love a duck."
She combined a knack for listening without judging and a total lack of phoniness, said Vicki Turtle, a home health aide and information technician with 23 years at Mat-Su home care and hospice.
Miller started out as a neo-natal nurse practitioner but wearied of watching babies die, coworkers said. Starting with the Mat-Su organization in 2001, Miller took on the role of mentor. She was one of four hospice nurses and worked as a case manager.
Turtle remembered hearing Miller telling new nurses, "We cannot resolve everybody's problems. We're here to make them comfortable and get them to the next place."
Longtime home health aide Ahna Simonds leaned on Miller in tough situations -- patients with problems that made dressing changes painful or clients as young as 10.
"Dealing with younger patients, it's really hard to go into a home," Simonds said. "You've got to be able to talk with somebody, or just cry together and be angry."
Miller's loss also sends ripples through the lives of an unknown number of patients and their families in homes and assisted-care facilities throughout the Mat-Su.
Last year, 120 hospice patients died. Miller knew them all, Hayes said, as well as those from years past.
One was Mary Hann, who died in October at the age of 84.
Miller was Hann's primary hospice nurse over a remarkable two-year period; patients don't qualify for hospice until they're given less than six months to live, but Hann died slowly, a little at a time, as the arteries of her brain hardened, her daughter said.
Miller showed empathy and compassion even as Hann "pretended she could function better than she could," said daughter Melinda Glass. Hannam, a hospice volunteer, would take Hann on trips to get books, get out of the house.
Glass was glad her mother died before she had to hear the news of Miller's death, she said. "I would not have told her. It would have destroyed her."
Miller had 12 patients when she died, said Hayes, the other hospice case manager at the office. She spent last week sharing the sad news over and over again, patient by patient.
Mistler said she plans to post a photo of Miller in the hospice room as a remembrance. Some employees are still so stricken by her death they can't talk about it.
Some say she'd be telling them to buck up.
"I can just hear her," Turtle said. " 'Don't fuss over me. Have a party. Move on.' "
LONDON (AP) ? Airport officials say an antique Spitfire aircraft owned by engine company Rolls Royce collapsed shortly after landing at East Midlands Airport in central England.
The airport said in a statement the World War II-era plane's undercarriage failed as it touched down Monday afternoon. The pilot was unharmed and the damaged aircraft was towed away.
The sleek-looking Spitfire played a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain, when the single-seat fighter helped beat back waves of German bombers. More than 20,000 were built, although only a few dozen remain in working order today.
Rolls Royce, which built the Merlin engines used to power the fighters, says it bought this plane in 1996. It typically appears at airshows and corporate functions.
If Gov. Rick Scott wants to make up ground in the Interstate 4 corridor in his bid for re-election, he might want to start in the Tampa Bay area's two largest counties.
After a bit of craziness yesterday where the mobile version of Google Maps stopped working for Windows Phone 8 users, Google has clarified/changed its story. According to reports by The Next Web, Google Maps mobile is coming back after all. More »
He may prefer to get 5 things 80 percent done rather than one thing 100 percent done, and he may not make his bed in the morning, but Lazy Man isn?t really lazy; he just uses his time wisely and chooses to work smarter rather than harder. This week?s Personal Finance Blogger of the Week is Corey, the founder and publisher of Lazy Man and Money.
Corey is one of the old-school personal finance bloggers, having been around since 2006. His blog covers the gamut of budgeting, using credit wisely, investing, and debt reduction, along with his biggest pet peeve ? Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scams. He is well-known for being a consumer advocate and helping people avoid financial scams and he pulls no punches in doing so.
[Free Resource: Check your free credit report and score]
With a brand new baby and a recent cross-country move back to his (and my own) hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, Lazy Man and Money will surely be a great source of personal finance and lifestyle advice in the coming years.
Without hesitation I can recommend you add Lazy Man and Money to your personal finance reading list. After all, his Five Minute Financial Fixes alone could get you started on the path to financial stability right away. So what are you waiting for?
Quizzle.com is the easiest way to get a complete understanding of your credit. Visit Quizzle.com to get your free credit report and score. No credit card or social security number necessary!
NORTH BEND, Wash. (AP) ? A more focused search for a skydiver who vanished during a jump above Washington's Cascade foothills failed to locate the Florida man as darkness fell Saturday.
About 145 searchers combed the Mount Si area east of Seattle for 29-year-old Kurt Ruppert, who disappeared Thursday afternoon after he jumped out of a helicopter at 6,500 feet.
King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said they looked specifically in a quarter-mile-square area near the summit, but kept searching other areas as well.
At the time of the jump, Ruppert, of Lake City, Fla., was wearing a special wing suit with fabric under the arms to allow him to glide like a flying squirrel. The suit is brown and green, and likely blends into the terrain, though his parachute was reportedly blue.
He was skydiving with two friends, and they were taking turns jumping from the helicopter. The friends were waiting at a grassy landing area, but no one saw whether Ruppert's chute deployed.
West said they made the decision to narrow the search area based on the flight pattern of the helicopter he jumped from and information from his cellphone's location just before the jump.
She expected the search to resume at dawn Sunday.
Searchers were hoping Ruppert was stuck in a tree with his parachute or perhaps lost in rugged state-owned land around 4,200-foot Mount Si, West said.
Ruppert has been skydiving seven or eight years and is good at handling a wing suit, said a friend, Art Shaffer, owner of Skydive Palatka in Palatka, Fla.
Shaffer jumped with Ruppert at midnight on New Year's Eve and said Ruppert left Tuesday to jump with friends in Washington.
Ruppert is not married and once owned a landscaping business, said Shaffer, who is in contact with Ruppert's family and friends.
Jan. 4, 2013 ? The most comprehensive retrospective study ever conducted comparing how the major types of prostate cancer treatments stack up to each other in terms of saving lives and cost effectiveness is reported this week by a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Appearing in the British Journal of Urology International, the work analyzed 232 papers published in the last decade that report results from clinical studies following patients with low-, intermediate- and high-risk forms of prostate cancer who were treated with one or more of the standard treatments -- radiation therapy, surgery, hormone therapies and brachytherapy.
The analysis shows that for people with low-risk prostate cancer, the various forms of treatment vary only slightly in terms of survival -- the odds of which are quite good for men with this type of cancer, with a 5-year cancer-specific survival rate of nearly 100 percent. But the cost of radiation therapy is significantly more expensive than surgery for low-risk prostate cancer, they found.
For intermediate- and high-risk cancers, both survival and cost generally favored surgery over other forms of treatment -- although combination external-beam radiation and brachytherapy together were comparable in terms of quality of life-adjusted survival for high-risk prostate cancer.
"Our findings support a greater role for surgery for high-risk disease than we have generally seen it used in most practice settings," said urologist Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH who led the research. Cooperberg is an assistant professor of urology and epidemiology and biostatistics in the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of the country's leading research and clinical care centers, and it is the only comprehensive cancer center in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Many Treatment Options, but Few Cost Analyses
Localized prostate cancer accounts for about 81 percent of the quarter-million cases of prostate cancers that occur in the United States every year, according to the National Cancer Institute. It is defined by tumors that have not metastasized and spread outside the prostate gland to other parts of the body.
There are multiple types of treatment for this form of the disease, including various types of surgery (open, laparoscopic or robot-assisted); radiation therapy (dose-escalated three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy and brachytherapy); hormone therapies; and combinations of each of these. Many men with low-risk prostate cancer do not need any of these treatments, and can be safely observed, at least initially.
Treatment plans for localized prostate cancer often vary dramatically from one treatment center to another. As Cooperberg put it, one person may have surgery, while someone across town with a very similar tumor may have radiation therapy, and a third may undergo active surveillance. All treatment regimens may do equally well.
"There is very little solid evidence that one [approach] is better than another," said Cooperberg. The motivation for the new study, however, was that there are also few data examining the differences in terms of cost-effectiveness -- the price to the health care system for every year of life gained, with adjustment for complications and side effects of treatments.
The new study was the most comprehensive cost analysis ever, and it compared the costs and outcomes associated with the various types of treatment for all forms of the disease, which ranged from $19,901 for robot-assisted prostatectomy to treat low-risk disease, to $50,276 for combined radiation therapy for high-risk disease.
The study did not consider two other approaches for dealing with prostate cancer: active surveillance, where patients with low-risk cancer are followed closely with blood tests and biopsies and avoid any initial treatment; and proton therapy, which is much more expensive and has already been shown in multiple studies not to be cost-effective, said Cooperberg.
The article, "Primary treatments for clinically localised prostate cancer: a comprehensive lifetime cost-utility analysis" is authored by Matthew R. Cooperberg, Naren R. Ramakrishna, Steven B. Duff, Kathleen E. Hughes, Sara Sadownik, Joseph A. Smith and Ashutosh K. Tewari. It was published online on Dec. 28, 2012 by the British Journal of Urology International.
In addition to UCSF, authors on the study are affiliated with Veritas Health Economics Consulting, Inc. in Carlsbad, CA; MD Anderson Cancer Center in Orlando, FL; Avalere Health LLC, in Washington, DC; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN; and Cornell University in New York.
In addition to UCSF and Kaiser Permanente, authors on this study are affiliated with the University of Washington in Seattle, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Michigan and the California Department of Public Health.
The work was supported by the National Cancer Institute, a component of the National Institutes of Health through grant #5RC1CA146596, and by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality through grant #1U01CA88160.
The cost effectiveness analysis in the paper was performed by Avalere Health LLC and Veritas Health Economics Consulting, Inc., which were both commissioned by Intuitive Surgical of Sunnyvale, CA. The authors report that the study sponsor had no role in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data; in writing or approving the manuscript; or in the decision to submit for publication.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Matthew R. Cooperberg, Naren R. Ramakrishna, Steven B. Duff, Kathleen E. Hughes, Sara Sadownik, Joseph A. Smith, Ashutosh K. Tewari. Primary treatments for clinically localised prostate cancer: a comprehensive lifetime cost-utility analysis. BJU International, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2012.11597.x
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.
Microsoft could be cutting new inroads into the world of home automation, based on rumors that it has purchased id8 Group R2 Studios. This acquisition will reportedly bolster Microsoft's Xbox division, which is likely to introduce a next-generation game console later this year. Aside from an Android application that can control heating and lighting systems, R2 Studios currently does not have any products.
With its billion or so active members, Facebook once again dominates?the?World Map of Social Networks. As the No. 1-ranked social network in 127 countries out of the 137 tracked, Faceboook?seemingly swallows its competition in its march towards world dominance. But Facebook's competitors have over a billion members of their own ? you just haven't heard of most of them.
A quick look at the?December?2009 version of a social media map, composed bi-annually by strategist Vincenzo Cosenza using info from Internet metrics firm Alexa, notes that while Facebook was on top even?way back then, it had 16 competitors that bested it in various countries. Now there are only four that have bigger numbers, and in just?10 countries. Four plus Twitter, that is ? did you know that China is one of?Twitter's most active countries, even though it's blocked there?
It seems Facebook's planetary ubiquity is?inevitable?... until you take a look at the sheer size of?those competitors:?Total membership of the four major non-U.S. networks is?778 million.?Combine that with Twitter's 500 million active users around the globe, and you've got a social horde?that eclipses Facebook's.?Besides Twitter,?who are these plucky social networks standing firm outside the U.S.? Let's have a look.
Qzone - 552 million users A massive social network that?dominates China and South Korea,?Qzone is sort of a cross between Facebook and Myspace. Users are encouraged to keep both diaries and blogs, share photos and listen to music, and as such,?attracts?mostly 18- to?24-year-olds. Qzone is owned by ?Shenzhen-based Internet portal Tencent, which also operates China's extremely popular instant-messaging service QQ.
The synergy of the social media platforms no doubt aids Qzone's popularity, but?of course, it also?helps that Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter are among the 2,600 websites blocked in mainland China. (As we noted earlier, however,?Twitter's most active users are reportedly in China, subverting government filters by using proxy servers. So if people in China really did want to use Facebook, it seems they'd find a way.)
V Kontakte - 190 million users?
Mark Zuckerberg took a tour of Russia last October, meeting with Russian Prime?Minister?Dmitry Medvedev, but the Facebook founder and CEO has a tough road ahead of him when it comes to establishing a foothold in that country. Unabashed Facebook clone?V Kontakte?(know these days as "VK") is not only the dominant social network in the Russian territories, it's also the second-most visited website in that part of the world (mostly by men, 35 and younger).?And since VK looks and operates a lot like Facebook, with profiles, messages, photo sharing and even a "Like" button, users have little reason to migrate.
Odnoklassniki - 45 million users VK?isn't the only competition Facebook faces in the Russian territories.?Odnoklassniki?( "Classmates" in Russian), is also among the top five social networks. Designed?to reunite school chums and old friends,?Odnoklassniki gets its traffic mostly from?25- to?34-year-olds with kids and graduate degrees. It's also?is the?7th most-visited website in Russian, 60th worldwide, according to Alexa,?and a two-time winner of the Runet Prize, a mass-media award from the Russian government. Odnoklassniki's focus is largely on sharing photographs, and allows users to interact by rating those photos.
Cloob - 1 million users Though?its user base is comparatively minute, Cloob is the top?social network in Iran, where its primary users are men over 65. Cloob is one of several social networks that emerged after the Iranian government blocked the former top network in that country,?Orkut (yes, Orkut), along with Facebook, Twitter and?other social networks. Cloob states on its site that it operates within the laws of the Iranian government. It is invitation-only and offers many social media features found elsewhere, including email, communities, photo sharing, news sharing, classifieds and resumes.
Qzone,??V Kontakte,?Odnoklassniki?and Cloob aren't the only social networks that challenge Facebook's hegemony. We talked about Twitter earlier, and there's also a little thing called Pinterest, which has about 25 million users.?Earlier?this week, we learned from Google Trends that "Tumblr" ??the short-form blogging platform ??recently surpassed "blog" in Google searches. Speaking of Google, the search giant is adding to its social ranks by forcing people into signing up for Google+, even if they just?want to use Gmail, YouTube and other services, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Even though it often feels like?it's all about Facebook,?there's lots more going on out there in the social media eco-system. Think of it this way:?You know everybody in the U.S. is all "Oh, that PSY with his 'Gangam Style' is just a one-hit wonder blah blah blah!"? In South Korea, he's been selling hit records since 2001. Just because it doesn't happen in the U.S. doesn't mean it's not happening.
Helen A.S. Popkin?goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on?Twitter?and/or?Facebook.?Also,?Google+.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 7-Jan-2013
Share ] 
He may prefer to get 5 things 80 percent done rather than one thing 100 percent done, and he may not make his bed in the morning, but Lazy Man isn?t really lazy; he just uses his time wisely and chooses to work smarter rather than harder. This week?s Personal Finance Blogger of the Week is Corey, the founder and publisher of Lazy Man and Money.
