Homesickness and adjustment in university students

Apr. 9, 2013 ? Sure, many young adults are ecstatic at that first taste of freedom that comes with ?going away to college.? But for some, the intense transition can also trigger intense homesickness. In new research published in the Journal of American College Health, authors Christopher A. Thurber, PhD and Edward A. Walton, MD explore this topic in ?Homesickness and Adjustment in University Students.?

Homesickness by definition is the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home. Sufferers typically report a combination of depressive and anxious symptoms, withdrawn behavior, and difficulty focusing on anything other than missing home. Most people experience some form of this when they are away from their home for an extended period of time, but in some cases of intense homesickness, it can be painful and debilitating.?

Though many new college students have had experiences away from home before, like summer camps, and travel without parents, attending postsecondary school is usually the first experience in which young adults are facing the ?challenges of independently managing their lives; establishing new friends; adjusting to new schedules; and succeeding in various academic, athletic, and artistic pursuits,? explains Thurber and Walton. ?These and other challenges often instill self-doubt and force an uncomfortable recalibration of young adults? academic and social self-concepts. The changes to new students? routines, diets, social milieu, geographical setting, and perceived demands can induce intense homesickness.?

This article discusses the many risk factors of homesickness for university students, such as accumulated stress and social anxiety; adjustments and changes to lifestyle, values, language, culture and environment; and an insecure attachment to parents; as well as the many opportunities for prevention strategies,? many of which most universities can integrate into their pre-arrival programs. ?Homesickness and Adjustment in University Students? also discusses a variety of treatment options for suffering students.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Taylor & Francis, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Christopher A. Thurber, Edward A. Walton. Homesickness and Adjustment in University Students. Journal of American College Health, 2012; 60 (5): 415 DOI: 10.1080/07448481.2012.673520

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/5kQufdJTisE/130409144636.htm

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To be taken seriously, should advice giving innovation consultants ...

Gregg Fraley and I both are? of the opinion that a non-creative innovation consultant who knows the theory, but doesn?t get his hands dirty, has no business in giving game-changing advice.

Via Gregg Fraley in response to this article about creativity gurus:

Interesting that even the experts don?t really know how, exactly, to be more creative. A nicely written, humorous, and thoughtful piece.

When I saw his response, I couldn?t help myself and not respond. Here is my on-going response with Gregg (from Facebook):

Not difficult to separate the posers from the rest. Litmus test question: If you are not innovative with self, then how you can you help others become innovative?

I respect people who walk the talk. If you behave this way, it means you are not afraid to fail. How much is a non-creative creativity consultant risking by regurgitating what is being said in books and everywhere else? Nothing.

Also, innovation is about making things better, and if the person who is advising/challenging you on how to make things better doesn?t act this way, then he/she has no business giving advice on what they don?t do themselves.

I know a couple of people in my neck of the woods who ?sell innovation? and know for a fact that they are running around with frameworks from other people. For me, if you are truly committed to innovation, then you have to challenge the status-quo. That means best practices. And, if you can?t identify when you are simply regurgitating best practices, then why would I expect you to challenge and stretch my thinking?

YES! I?ve never had a great idea come out of using frameworks and tools. Nor have I heard of any game-changing business be born in a strategic planning session where frameworks were used. I understand their value in helping people think, but, true advantage is cognitive.

Tools don?t make a great mind, but a fluid and adaptable mind makes frameworks irrelevant.

Of course, this is a daunting challenge for anyone and even more daunting for an organization.

Do you think creativity/innovation consultants should be held to a higher standard?

Source: http://www.game-changer.net/2013/04/09/should-innovation-consultants-be-innovators-themselves/

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Housing Is Back! Best Moves for Homebuyers | AOL Real Estate

By Beth Braverman

Real estate has finally started to bounce back across the country -- even roar back in some places. Low mortgage rates and pent-up demand have coaxed buyers back into the market, and homeowners who list their houses are seeing more traffic. That quaint relic of the bubble, the bidding war, has even started to re-emerge in some cities. Consider the mounting evidence that the long national real estate nightmare is over: During the past year, home prices increased in 92 of the country's 100 largest metropolitan areas, according to data provider CoreLogic, with prices rising as high as 23 percent in Phoenix and 17 percent in San Francisco. Sales volume rose in 69 of the top 100 markets, and 35 of those showed double-digit gains.

Yet while most economists agree that the bottom is behind us and the five-year outlook for housing is on solid footing, the shorter term is shakier. "2013 and 2014 are going to be transition years," says Mark Fleming, CoreLogic's chief economist. "The market's improving, but it's not totally healed."

Related: Find Homes for Sale in Your Area

Thinking about buying a home? For the first time in more than half a decade, the economics of the market are working against you in most places. Inventory is tight, and bidding wars are back in some parts of the country. To snag your dream home, you'll have to pay up and contend with continuing strict loan requirements. The bright side: Despite rising prices and mortgage rates that are edging upward, buying a home is still cheaper than renting in the majority of the top 100 markets.

Don't Waste Time With a Low-Ball Offer

Yes, home prices are still way down from their highs, but the days when you could scoop up a house for 20% less than the list price are long gone. The typical home sells for pretty close to what the owners asked for, and even in shaky markets, sellers have gotten more realistic about pricing. The median sales-to-list-price ratio in Detroit, for example, is 98 percent; the national number is 97 percent. (To find the figure for your market, go to zillow.com/local-info and click on "More metrics.")

Here's how to figure out how much to offer initially: In places where homes are still selling below list price but deals are being made in less than two months, come in no more than 2% to 3% below the asking price, says Michael Murphree, a realtor in Birmingham, Ala. Where homes are selling above the listing price, make your first offer the asking price.

Be the Winner in a Bidding War

In January and February, 73percent of agents with broker Redfin said their clients' offers faced rival bids, up from 56% who said so in the fall of 2011. You win bidding wars, of course, by raising your price; it also helps to have few contingencies and to move quickly, since today's sellers don't want multiple go-rounds. "You have to give your best offer," says Dallas real estate agent Mary Beth Harrison. "Step up to the plate or walk away."

Be flexible about closing too: Quick deals -- the median time on the market for homes is 71 days, down from 99 a year ago -- have left many sellers scrambling for alternative housing. Leave the closing date blank on your contract for the seller to fill in, or negotiate a leaseback if the seller needs to stay put for a while.

Read the rest of this story on CNNMoney.

See more on CNNMoney:
Selling Your Home? The Cards Are In Your Favor
Own a Home? Take Advantage of Rising Home Equity

More on AOL Real Estate:
Find out how to calculate mortgage payments.
Find homes for sale in your area.
Find foreclosures in your area.
Find homes for rent in your area.

Follow us on Twitter at @AOLRealEstate or connect with AOL Real Estate on Facebook.

Source: http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/04/09/best-moves-for-homebuyers/

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JetBlue Airways will get first U.S.-made Airbus jet

MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - JetBlue Airways Corp Chief Executive Dave Barger said on Tuesday that his airline will receive the first U.S.-assembled Airbus jet, which will roll off the assembly line in 2016.

Barger spoke at a groundbreaking for a $600 million factory of EADS' Airbus unit in Mobile, Alabama. The plant is expected to create 1,000 jobs, and bolster U.S. spending by Airbus, which already spends $13 billion with U.S. suppliers.

"We'll be the launch customer of this assembly line," Barger said. "We have well over 100 of the A320s today. It's a big day for JetBlue as well."

JetBlue is also expecting delivery of another 100 A320 narrow-body aircraft, he said.

No longer an upstart but not as big as Delta, United or the soon-to-be merged American Airlines-US Airways, JetBlue is one of the larger mid-sized U.S. carriers.

Although assembly is a relatively small part of the work of building a jet, Airbus is betting that having a U.S. facility will boost its credentials and help win deals. The Mobile plant will be only the second Airbus has outside Europe that builds its top-selling workhorse jet. The other is in China.

(Reporting by Karen Jacobs in Mobile, Alabama; Writing by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Nick Zieminski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jetblue-airways-first-u-made-airbus-jet-ceo-175432562--finance.html

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Kids With Autism May Be Less Likely to Imitate 'Silly' Behavior ...

MONDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) ? Unlike typically developing children who copy almost everything they see, kids with autism rarely imitate or repeat any nonsensical or silly behavior, according to a small new study.

The findings were published April 8 in the journal Current Biology.

?The data suggest that children with autism do things efficiently rather than socially, whereas typical children do things socially rather than efficiently,? Antonia Hamilton of the University of Nottingham, in England, said in a journal news release. ?We find that typical children copy everything an adult does, whereas autistic children only do the actions they really need to do.?

The study involved 31 children with autism spectrum disorders, an umbrella term for a group of developmental brain disorders that impair a child?s ability to communicate and socialize. Thirty typically developing children of similar verbal mental age also participated.

During five tests, the kids were asked to watch closely as a demonstrator took a toy out of a box or assembled an object.

Each time the demonstrator took the lid off of the box, which was considered a necessary action. The demonstrator also tapped on the top of the box twice ? an unnecessary action.

After the boxes were reset, each of the children was asked to retrieve or assemble the toy as quickly as possible. However, the children were not specifically instructed to copy any behavior they had seen, the study authors noted.

Although nearly all of the children completed the assigned task, those who did not have an autism spectrum disorder were much more likely to include the ?unnecessary? step, the study revealed. These kids imitated up to 57 percent of these ?silly? actions. In contrast, the children with autism imitated only 22 percent of the unnecessary actions.

The researchers concluded that the social nature of imitation is both important and challenging for children with autism. Looking ahead, they said more research is needed to determine exactly what kind of actions children copy, and how this behavior contributes to human cultural transmission of knowledge.

More information

Visit the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to learn more about autism.

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/04/08/kids-with-autism-may-be-less-likely-to-imitate-silly-behavior/

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'Pharmaceutical' approach boosts oil production from algae

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Taking an approach similar to that used for discovering new therapeutic drugs, chemists at the University of California, Davis, have found several compounds that can boost oil production by green microscopic algae, a potential source of biodiesel and other "green" fuels.

The work appears online in the journal Chemical Biology.

Microalgae are single-celled organisms that, like green plants, use photosynthesis to capture carbon dioxide and turn it into complex compounds, including oils and lipids. Marine algae species can be raised in saltwater ponds and so do not compete with food crops for land or fresh water.

"They can live in saltwater, they take sunlight and carbon dioxide as a building block, and make these long chains of oil that can be converted to biodiesel," said Annaliese Franz, assistant professor of chemistry and an author of the paper.

Franz, graduate students Megan Danielewicz, Diana Wong and Lisa Anderson, and undergraduate student Jordan Boothe screened 83 compounds for their effects on growth and oil production in four strains of microalgae. They identified several that could boost oil production by up to 85 percent, without decreasing growth.

Among the promising compounds were common antioxidants such as epigallocatechin gallate, found in green tea, and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), a common food preservative.

The team has carried out growth experiments in culture volumes of up to half a liter. They calculate that some of the chemicals they analyzed would be cost-effective when scaled up to a 50,000 liter pond. After oils have been extracted from the algae, the remaining mass can be processed for animal feed or other uses.

Franz came to UC Davis in 2007 with a background in pharmaceutical chemistry. Given the campus's emphasis on biofuels, she started thinking about applying high-throughput techniques used to screen for new drugs to looking for compounds that could affect microalgae.

The idea, Franz said, is to look for small molecules that can affect a metabolic pathway in a cell. By setting up large numbers of cell cultures and measuring a simple readout in each, it's possible to screen for large numbers of different compounds in a short time and home in on the most promising.

"The basic concept comes from the pharmaceutical industry, and it's been used for human cells, plants, yeast, but not so far for algae," she said.

"There are many cases where small molecules are having an effect to treat a disease, so it makes sense that if you can affect a pathway in a human for a disease, you can affect a pathway in an algal cell," Franz said.

Patents on the work are pending. The research was funded by Chevron Technology Ventures through a cooperative agreement with UC Davis.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Davis.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Annaliese K. Franz, Megan A. Danielewicz, Diana M. Wong, Lisa A. Anderson, Jordan R. Boothe. Phenotypic Screening with Oleaginous Microalgae Reveals Modulators of Lipid Productivity. ACS Chemical Biology, 2013; : 130322131504001 DOI: 10.1021/cb300573r

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/J5Iv6vVkoLQ/130408152951.htm

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Screenstagram Livens Up Your Screensaver with Instagram Photos

Windows/OS X: Screenstagram is an attractive, cross-platform screensaver that displays the best of Instagram on your screen.

Out of the box, Screenstagram defaults to displaying the most popular photos on Instagram. If you supply it with your login credentials, you'll also get the option to only see photos from your feed, posts that you've liked, or pictures that match specified tags. Photos slide and fade in and out of view within Screenstagram's attractive tile grid, but I wish there were a few more options to customize the layout. Even so, Screenstagram is free and worth checking out if you're in the market for a new screensaver.

Screenstagram (Free) | The Barbarian Group via @adampash

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/IMzbIzhVKpc/screenstagram-livens-up-your-screensaver-with-instagram-photos

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UConn, Louisville To Meet In Women's NCAA Tournament Final

NEW ORLEANS -- Connecticut beat Louisville comfortably back in January and didn't even have star Breanna Stewart on the floor at the time.

That doesn't mean the Huskies are going to be brimming with confidence about their chances of winning an eighth NCAA national title on Tuesday night against the Cardinals.

After all, Louisville (29-8) has become the master of the upset.

The Cardinals beat Cal 64-57 in the semifinals in the latest game they weren't supposed to win, rallying from 10 down to do it. Louisville stunned defending national champion Baylor and knocked off perennial power Tennessee just to get to New Orleans.

Next up are the Huskies, who know how little one should read into previous meetings. UConn (34-4) lost to Notre Dame three times this season, only to beat the Irish handily, 83-65, in Sunday night's other semifinal.

"We've got a problem Tuesday night, I think, because I think Louisville really thinks they're the best team in the country right now," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "After the way they've played and what they've done in these last couple weeks, they probably think there's nobody that can beat them."

If the Louisville women pull off a fourth-straight upset and the men's team beats Michigan on Monday night in Atlanta, then Louisville would become the first school to win men's and women's NCAA titles in the same year since UConn did it in 2004.

"If it were easy, it would have been done a lot of times, but the fact it's only been done once shows you how difficult it is to do," Auriemma said. "At the same time, this has been a magical year for Louisville. ... It's just amazing what they've been able to do, so I think we're playing against Louisville and we're playing against a certain karma maybe."

Incidentally, that 2004 women's title for Connecticut came in New Orleans.

The last time Louisville made it to a title game was in 2009, losing to ? that's right ? Connecticut, 76-54.

Louisville coach Jeff Walz has a simple answer when asked what changed between the end of the regular season and the NCAA tournament to make his team so tough to beat.

"We're playing our best basketball at the end of the year and that's all that matters," Walz said. "We're figuring out a way to pull them out and win and play well at the right time."

Still, there are reasons to wonder how Louisville will manage to do it against UConn. They will need to deal with Stewart, who poured in 29 points against Notre Dame on Sunday night. She did not play when the Huskies beat Louisville by 14 points nearly three months ago.

UConn is a complete team, strong on defense (allowing about 50 points per game) with an array of scoring options.

Four of their starters average double-figures in points, including 6-foot forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis at about 17 per game (she had 16 against the Irish) and 6-5 center Stefanie Dolson, who's averaged nearly 14 points.

Advantage UConn?

The Cardinals aren't all that concerned with history, unless they're the ones making it. By beating Cal, the Cardinals, who were seeded fifth in the Oklahoma City Region, became the first team seeded worse than fourth to win a game in the women's Final Four.

Louisville has been carried mostly by its offense in the tournament, with Antonita Slaughter hitting a lot of 3s ? six against Cal ? and Shoni Schimmel hitting from all over the court. Schimmel's younger sister, Jude, has also been a clutch play-maker in a reserve role.

"Right now anything can happen," Walz said. "Why not us?"

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/uconn-louisville-ncaa-womens-final_n_3034837.html

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WHO talks with China on sending bird flu team

BEIJING (AP) ? The World Health Organization is talking with the Chinese government about sending international experts to China to help investigate a new bird flu strain that has sickened at least 21 people, killing six of them.

Michael O'Leary, head of WHO's office in China, told reporters in Beijing on Monday that the international health organization had confidence in China's efforts to track and control the outbreak of H7N9 infections, but that growing interest in the virus globally has prompted WHO to consider sending a team.

The cases are of "great interest not only in the scientific community but in the world at large," O'Leary said. "WHO's responsibility in part is to make sure that we serve as liaison and linkage between China and the rest of the world."

The team would likely include epidemiological, laboratory and communications experts, but the matter was still being discussed by the two sides and it remained unclear if and when such a group would arrive, O'Leary said.

China reported three more cases of human infection of the H7N9 bird flu virus on Sunday, raising the total number of cases to 21 ? all in the eastern part of the country. Most of the 21 have become severely ill, and six of them have died.

The H7N9 strain previously was known only to infect birds, and officials say they do not know why the virus is infecting humans now. They are still determining how people were exposed to it. The virus has been detected in live poultry in several food markets where human cases have been found, leading officials to think people are most likely contracting the virus through direct contact with infected fowl.

They say further investigations are underway and that, for now, there's no evidence the virus is spreading easily between people.

Authorities have halted live poultry trade in cities where cases have been reported, and slaughtered fowl in markets where the virus has been detected.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/talks-china-sending-bird-flu-team-042428687.html

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Google 'Asymmetric Warfare' With Patent Trolls - Business Insider

Google ? along with Blackberry and other tech companies ? has asked the FTC to pay greater attention to patent trolls, who embroil companies in expensive litigation over bogus claims on the ownership of new technologies.

Patent trolls, or "patent assertion entities," cost U.S. companies $30 billion a year in "direct costs" for fighting off legal challenges from companies that don't make anything but simply want to be paid to stop suing, Google wrote on its public policy blog.

Their latest tactic is "asymmetric warfare," in which a company that possesses legitimate patents may split them up and sell them to troll companies, who then sue others for using them on multiple fronts, even though the trolls have no interest in actually manufacturing any of the patented products.

Using unusually robust language, Google described patent litigation as a war against trolls that would require "nuclear deterrence" to end it:

This trend has been referred to as ?patent privateering?: a company sells patents to trolls with the goal of waging asymmetric warfare against its competitors.

... ?It also undermines incentives for companies to work together towards ?patent peace? through good-faith negotiation and cross-licensing. If cross-licensing is nuclear deterrence for patents, then privateering has the opposite effect, facilitating patent proliferation and aggression.

About 62 percent of all patent litigation comes from trolls, Google said, using this chart to illustrate how prevalent trolls have become in the courts:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-asymmetric-warfare-with-patent-trolls-2013-4

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Rights concerns overshadow trade ties on Putin's European trip

By Steve Gutterman and Alexandra Hudson

MOSCOW/BERLIN (Reuters) - Growing Western concerns about Vladimir Putin's record on human rights and democracy could mean a chilly reception for the Russian president on a trip to Germany and the Netherlands, Moscow's biggest trade partners in Europe.

The nations need Russia for energy and as a market for exports ranging from Volkswagen Touaregs to tulips, but are uneasy about the influence its oil and gas give it and about Putin's treatment of opponents and activists in his new Kremlin term.

A wave of state inspections of foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia, including two German think-tanks, has drawn warnings from Berlin and sharp criticism from the European Union.

The inspections - along with Russian criticism of the German-orchestrated financial bailout of Cyprus and persistent differences over Syria's civil war - are likely to undermine upbeat messages on a trip meant to be mainly about trade.

Putin, who began his six-year third term as president last May, is to attend an industrial trade fair in Hanover with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and Monday, then head to Amsterdam.

Germany gets 30 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its gas from Russia, making it one of state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom's largest energy buyers. German investment in Russia is worth some $30 billion.

But Merkel is under pressure to criticize Putin over the NGO inspections and other steps Kremlin opponents say are designed to silence dissent.

"The situation in Russia has nothing to do with democracy any more. What you are experiencing there is the despot Putin," Claudia Roth, joint leader of the German Greens party, told Die Welt newspaper.

Andreas Schockenhoff, a lawmaker from Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), said Putin's policies were destroying Russia's hopes of becoming a modern, competitive economic power.

"Intimidation of NGOs and civil society is fatal to Russia's future and its competitiveness," he told Reuters.

Putin, in an interview with German broadcaster ARD, dismissed criticism of the NGO inspections and said they would not cast a shadow over the visit, echoing his repeated rejection of Western worries about his domestic policies.

"It is you that is scaring the German public," he said, adding there was nothing unusual about a law he signed last year requiring foreign-funded NGOs to register as "foreign agents" - a term that to many evokes Soviet-era oppression and espionage.

GAS DIPLOMACY

Putin - a former Soviet KGB officer who was stationed in East Germany, where Merkel grew up - has accused Western states of using NGOs to spy on Russia and influence politics.

He said in the interview that Russians have a right to know which NGOs are foreign-funded "and for what purposes".

He sent warmer signals on economic issues, expressing confidence in the euro and toning down criticism of the Cyprus bailout by saying he hoped more money would flow into Russia as a result.

Putin courted the Netherlands in an article for Dutch paper De Telegraaf, mentioning Tsar Peter the Great's close ties with the country 300 years ago and ending with a reference to "this beautiful land of tulips".

The Netherlands is Russia's biggest bilateral trade partner after China.

Dutch investment in Russia is double that of Germany -- but largely because many foreign companies register holdings in the Netherlands due to favorable tax rules.

The Netherlands is important to Russia's drive to expand gas supplies and - echoing Peter the Great's use of Dutch expertise to wrench Russia into modernity - as a source of the know-how it needs to tap hard-to-recover energy reserves.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Gazprom Neft and Royal Dutch Shell would agree during the visit to drill for shale oil in Siberia and explore Russia's Arctic shelf.

It confirmed plans for an agreement with Dutch firm Gasunie to expand Gazprom's supply network to western Europe.

Putin is to meet Dutch Queen Beatrix and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who told journalists on Friday that he plans to discuss issues including NGO inspections, gay rights and the posthumous trial of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, which has deepened Western concerns about justice and the rule of law in Russia.

"I will again point out that for a country such as Russia, which is growing, which has big ambitions economically ... it is of great importance to have a stable legal system because that is in the interest of stable investments," Rutte said.

(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishcuk and Lidia Kelly in Moscow, and Sara Webb and Gilbert Kreijger in Amsterdam; edited by Richard Meares)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rights-concerns-overshadow-trade-ties-putins-european-trip-040744411.html

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Embassies staying put in North Korea despite tension

By Ben Blanchard and Jane Chung

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - China deplored rising tension on the Korean peninsula on Sunday, but said its embassy was operating normally in the North Korean capital and asked authorities there to ensure its diplomats and other citizens were kept safe.

North Korea, angry at new sanctions imposed on it for testing nuclear weapons, has made increasingly strident warnings of an imminent war with South Korea and the United States.

It told diplomats on Friday to consider leaving Pyongyang because of rising tension, but diplomatic missions appeared to view the appeal as more rhetoric and stayed put.

The United States, keen to avoid actions which could provoke the North, on Saturday postponed a long-scheduled missile test in California.

China is North Korea's sole major diplomatic and financial backer, but official statements have reflected a degree of impatience at the actions of authorities under 30-year-old leader Kim Jong-un.

"At present tensions on the Korean peninsula are rising unceasingly, and China expresses grave concern about this," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn).

"The Chinese government has already asked the North Korea side to earnestly ensure the safety of Chinese diplomats in North Korea, in accordance with the Vienna Convention and international laws and norms."

The Chinese embassy, it said, was "understood" to be operating normally in Pyongyang. China would "protect the legal rights and safety of Chinese citizens and Chinese-invested organizations in North Korea".

A ministry statement late on Saturday quoting Foreign Minister Wang Yi, said Beijing would "not allow troublemaking on China's doorstep".

Chinese President Xi Jinping, addressing a forum on Sunday, appeared to refer further to boosted tensions when he said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

"Stability in Asia now faces new challenges, as hot spot issues keep emerging and both traditional and non-traditional security threats exist," he said on the southern island of Hainan.

"LOGICAL, PRUDENT, RESPONSIBLE"

In Washington, a defense official said a test of the Minuteman III intercontinental missile, scheduled for next week at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, would now be postponed.

"This is the logical, prudent and responsible course of action to take," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the test had been unconnected to "anything related to North Korea" and added that another test launch could be expected next month. The United States remained fully prepared to respond to any North Korean threat, the official said.

North Korean anger over the sanctions following its third nuclear weapons test in February has been compounded by joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began on March 1.

North Korea has always condemned the exercises held by U.S. forces and their South Korean allies. But its comments have been especially vitriolic this year as the United States dispatched B-2 bombers from its home bases to stage mock runs.

China's Xinhua news agency, reporting on the North's suggestion to diplomats to evacuate, quoted the North's Foreign Ministry at the weekend as saying the issue was no longer whether but when a war would break out.

North Korean television provided little evidence of tension in the reclusive state on Sunday, with newscasts showing old footage of Kim visiting military units and other items concerning the country's leaders.

Nor was there any trace of tension in the South Korean capital, Seoul, with residents ignoring an early spring chill to stroll in the city centre.

South Korean media on Friday said the North had moved two medium-range missiles to the country's east coast, but there has been no confirmation of such a move. That prompted the White House to say that Washington would "not be surprised" if the North staged another missile test.

Kim Jong-un is the third member of his dynasty to rule North Korea. He took over in December 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, who staged confrontations with South Korea and the United States throughout his 17-year rule.

Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency, in a dispatch from London, quoted British diplomatic sources as saying North Korea believed the situation could be stabilized if U.S. President Barack Obama personally called Kim.

"North Korea is waiting for that call from Washington," Tass quoted the source as saying.

North Korea has not shut down a symbol of joint cooperation with the South, the Kaesong industrial zone just inside its border. But last week it prevented South Koreans from entering the complex and about 100 of them who remained were due to return home on Saturday, leaving a further 500 there.

On Sunday, a South Korean who had fallen ill was taken out of the industrial zone by car.

(Writing by Ron Popeski; Additional reporting by Koh Gui Qing in HAINNAN and Phil Stewart in WASHINGTON)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/embassies-staying-put-north-korea-despite-tension-001315898--business.html

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Breaking with Oral Tradition - The Health Journal

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Written by Donna C. Gregory

?

Your budget may not allow for extravagances like designer clothes, fancy cars or million-dollar homes, but thanks to cosmetic dentistry, you can imitate the bright, white smiles of your favorite Hollywood celebrities.

Dental offices aren?t just for check-ups, extractions and fillings anymore. While cosmetic dentistry has been around for decades, new materials and procedures now make it possible for nearly anyone to achieve a smile that?s red-carpet ready.?

?Cosmetic dentistry can literally transform a smile by offering a variety of solutions to ? commonly occurring dental concerns,? says Dr. Lisa Marie Samaha with Port Warwick Dental Arts in Newport News.?

?

White teeth are always in style

The marketplace is flooded with products that promise a gleaming, white smile. Many over-the-counter options, like bleaching strips and gels, do work with some success, but dental office products typically deliver more intense whitening.?

?The stuff that?s sold in [dental] offices is stronger and can have greater effects in terms of getting rid of discoloration of the teeth,? explains Dr. Clay Weisberg with Eastern Virginia Family & Cosmetic Dentistry in Chesapeake.?

At Port Warwick Dental, Samaha uses the K?r Whitening system, which delivers fast results with minimal-to-no tooth sensitivity.?

?The great thing about teeth whitening is nearly everyone?s a candidate,? Samaha says. ?So long as your teeth and gums are healthy and free of disease prior to whitening, you can receive this safe, effective treatment to lighten the shade of your teeth for a natural-looking, whiter smile.??

?

Blending in

Bonding is one of the most common cosmetic dentistry procedures. Chipped teeth can be repaired relatively easily using a composite resin. The resin comes in different shades, so your dentist can match the patched area to the color of your teeth.

Many dentists also have stopped using traditional silver amalgam fillings because they contain small amounts of mercury and can be unsightly. Tooth-colored fillings made from a material similar to bonding are a more cosmetically pleasing option since they blend in with the teeth.

?

Getting it straight

Years of being called ?metal mouth? is no longer a requirement if you want to straighten your teeth. There are several products, such as Six Month Smile and Invisalign, which straighten teeth without having to endure a mouthful of ugly, metal wires.?

Six Month Smile uses tooth-colored braces and wires that match the natural color of the teeth, offering a quick, discreet way to correct crowding, close up spaces between teeth, correct bite issues and straighten tilted or flared teeth.?

In contrast, Invisalign uses thin, clear trays to slowly straighten teeth?no braces required!

?

Pricier options

Veneers and dental implants are the Cadillacs of cosmetic dentistry. Both are pricey, but offer long-term results.?

Veneers can totally change the appearance of a smile by filling large gaps, correcting alignment and fixing other surface flaws. They are made from ultra-thin pieces of porcelain that are then bonded to the fronts of the teeth.?

Dental implants are an option for people with missing teeth. In simple terms, the procedure involves inserting artificial tooth roots into the jawbone, which then holds a replacement tooth or bridge.?

?

Getting started

Cosmetic dentistry offers many options to help you achieve a beautiful smile, but don?t forget the basics. There?s no substitute for proper oral hygiene and regular dental visits.?

?The biggest thing is making sure you start at the beginning and get a good [dental] exam and figure out what the patient?s goals are,? Weisberg says. ?You want to make sure you?re attacking the problem at the source.??

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Source: http://www.thehealthjournals.com/2013/04/cosmetic-dentistry/

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Best Strategies for Internet Marketing

This is a guest post by?Priyanka Arora.

Internet marketing doesn?t need any introduction. The use of Internet technology has revolutionized the way we conduct businesses. Business models have shifted from brick and mortar setups to online models where a complete business is run from websites. Marketing has changed too. From hanging hoarding and banners to selling products online. These days we come across expert internet marketers willing to sell business products in lieu for a commission or a fee. Whether you are a business owner or an internet marketer, you should be aware of time proven internet marketing strategies. The strategies are given below.

(1) Sell Product with Freebies

Internet marketers swear by this method. In this, you sell a product and to make it attractive, the marketer offer freebies such as free domain name, free eBooks, free webinars and others. It helps to get more buyers. The best thing is that you do not need to create the freebies yourself. Scour online for useful eBooks available for free and offer it to your subscribers. Or, do a joint venture with another marketer to conduct a webinar. Lastly, spend $10 to get good domains, conduct a product giveaway and gift winner the domain name as well.

(2) Email Marketing

Email marketing is considered to be one of the best ways to make money online. It is believed that ?money is in the list? and internet marketers spend months to make this list. Some popular ways to build email marketing lists is to offer a free eBook or content locking. Once the list is substantial, marketers send promotional emails to generate sales. Another way is to take advantage of solo ads. Here, the internet marketer asks someone else with a huge list to promote a product and in return, negotiate a mutually beneficial financial arrangement.

(3) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In basic terms, SEO is a way to rank higher on search engines, primarily the Google search engine. There are both white-hat and black-hat techniques to do SEO, but genuine internet marketers will follow the first option. There is also on-page and off-page SEO to customize a website and bring more visitors.

(4) Use Classified Websites

Classified websites are a free and ever useful way to do internet marketing. Assuming you want to sell some product or service, you can Google for a list of free classified websites, create your ad and send it out to the free ad classifieds. There is software like Ad Blaster which can automate the process but its best to do it manually, especially in high authority classified.

(5) Social Media Promotion

The Internet audience descends on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Evidently, it has become a popular source for internet marketing too. Marketers talk about products and services on social media and generate sales. Some examples would be customized Facebook pages often used for product promotion. You can download freebies by giving a ?Like? or use the Heyo.com tool to create a custom sales portal on the Facebook page!

(6) Affiliate Marketing

I consider affiliate marketing to be an off-shoot of internet marketing. Here, you affiliate yourself with one or more manufacturer and work towards generating sales for the manufacturers. In return for generating sales, the manufacturer gives you a share per sale. Concept is easy, but implementing it is tough.

(7) Blogging

Blogging is perhaps the most excessively used method of internet marketing. Thousands of blogs go live daily but only few survive to create a passive income out of the blog. Blogging gives good ROI if done the right way but there is no map to show you the ?right way?. The ?right way? to blog and market products comes with series of testing and experimentation.

There are more methods for internet marketing but if you are just starting out or have a little experience, consider using the six methods I have listed above. Research more on them online and start with a few. Be completely honest in your efforts. These methods are recommended because they work.

Author Bio

Priyanka Arora is a professional blogger and an internet marketing strategist. She is helping online marketers to generate popularity and sales through free online classifieds. She is currently working with wohho.com ? a free classified site in India where you can search and post free classifieds ads for real estate, marketing, business promotion etc.

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Source: http://slymarketing.com/best-strategies-for-internet-marketing/

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Depardieu a no-show in court over drunk driving

FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013 file photo, French actor Gerard Depardieu visits the museum of Akhmad Kadyrov, a warlord who switched sides and became a pro-Russian leader, in Chechnya's provincial capital Grozny, Russia. A lawyer for Gerard Depardieu said Friday, April 5, 2013 that the actor again couldn't make it in court to face drunken driving charges. Defense attorney Eric de Caumont says Depardieu was too busy filming a movie in the United States about another Frenchman known for run-ins with the law: former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013 file photo, French actor Gerard Depardieu visits the museum of Akhmad Kadyrov, a warlord who switched sides and became a pro-Russian leader, in Chechnya's provincial capital Grozny, Russia. A lawyer for Gerard Depardieu said Friday, April 5, 2013 that the actor again couldn't make it in court to face drunken driving charges. Defense attorney Eric de Caumont says Depardieu was too busy filming a movie in the United States about another Frenchman known for run-ins with the law: former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev, File)

PARIS (AP) ? Gerard Depardieu again couldn't make it to trial to face drunken driving charges, but a lawyer for the combative French actor wrested yet another court date Friday.

A Paris criminal court adjourned Friday's hearing after scheduling a new one on May 24, said defense attorney Eric de Caumont. The actor wasn't there because he was in the United States filming a movie about another Frenchman known for run-ins with the law, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the lawyer said.

The court agreed to the delay because investigators turned up new evidence about the harmless incident in November, when Depardieu toppled over on his scooter in Paris and was charged with drunken driving, the lawyer said. If convicted, Depardieu could face up to two years in prison and a 4,500-euro ($5,700) fine, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.

It was Depardieu's second straight no-show of in court: He had already skipped out in January on a previous summons to appear.

The 64-year-old is possibly France's best-known actor, with roles in some 150 films such as "Green Card." He has made headlines recently after threatening to renounce his French citizenship, becoming a Russian citizen and taking up residency just hundreds of meters (yards) inside neighboring Belgium ? a move that the local mayor said was aimed to avoid rising French taxes.

Depardieu, a political conservative, months ago got into a public war of words with Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who presented a new epithet for the actor: "pathetic." Depardieu responded in an open letter in mid-December, saying the country he loved was no longer his home.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-05-France-Depardieu/id-acbfa7908e9343c38bca0d7cdddd8ba1

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Mario Lopez's Wife Flaunts Her Baby Bump in a Bikini!

Mario Lopez and Courtney Mazza can't wait to meet their little one! Check out other cute and candid moments from the stars

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/celebrity-twitter-pictures/1-b-229669?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Acelebrity-twitter-pictures-229669

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How Facebook Brought the Cellphone Back Down to Earth

With the big (and promising!) Thursday reveal of Facebook Home, the haute-tech blogger set seems to have come to terms with the reality that smartphones are now a commodity of the masses, sometimes not made for their very particular tastes. Indeed, the new sub-$100 HTC First device that will be, uh, first to run the new Facebook-first version of Android's cellphone software ? well, it just isn't for the insider crowd, what with their fancy hardware and latest-and-greatest software platforms. However,?aware that over 1 billion people on Earth now own a smartphone, even technology taste makers are trying?really?hard to conceptualize the future: You ? yes, even you, and you and you ? might actually want to buy this "Facebook Phone" thing.

RELATED: Facebook Will Finally Resolve Rumors of the Fabled Facebook Phone in One Week

Despite their own privacy concerns (there will?be ads, and there will?be data mining)?and their insistence that users want more and more apps (beyond, you know, "Chat Heads"), the conventional wisdom among Silicon Valley's functional equivalent of Morning Joe?is that the?plebeians ? you know, people with normal brain power, thin wallets, and general technological savvy of our times ? will want what Facebook has to offer. Which is to say: The social network's takeover of the everyman phone is for you... not for them.

RELATED: So What's Facebook Big Reveal Today?

Despite calling it a "laughable" proposition for the "tech set," Mat Honan at Wired?says?"millions of Americans" will want the Facebook phone:

Will businesses take to it? Almost certainly not. No business, other than maybe Buzzfeed, wants its employees spending more time on Facebook. Will it be a hit with early adopters and the tech set? That?s laughable. No. Will millions of Americans just want a handset that can run Facebook? That seems like a bet I?d take.

Just who are these "millions" of real?people, you ask? Poor people, with poor taste, Honan suggests: "I suspect there is a strong correlation between people who want a 'free' smartphone with people who really dig Facebook," he writes. You people who value bargains over privacy and utility and style are already buying up all those mid-level Android phones because you people have no idea what's what, as SplatF's Dan Frommer explains. So?"the types of people who, every couple of years, go into the Verizon or AT&T shop and walk out with whatever newish thing the store rep says they should buy" will be drawn to the HTC First and its ilk. Or, in a similar vein, Frommer says, those "who have bought Android phones ? and some iPhones, probably ? who don't really care that they're Android phones, or even smartphones" also fall in the Facebook sucker category.

RELATED: All of Facebook's Phone Secrets, Divulged

Within these others, the "tech set" also suggests another, sicker subset: "Facebook addicts."?Slate's Farhad Manjoo,?who comes right out and says "I don't think Facebook Home is for me," guesses that people with an unhealthy attachment to the social network will love the new Facebook-fronted Android platform. That's like saying a nicotine addict would definitely like a pack of cigarettes.?ReadWrite's Mark Hachman?agrees with that proposition, by the way: "If you're obsessed with Facebook, Home is for you. But if you'd like to use your Android phone for something else ? like checking email, for example ? you'll probably find Home more trouble than it's worth," he writes. It's unclear how we diagnose the addicts. But if they truly have a health issue, perhaps we shouldn't prescribe a phone with the drug of choice right on its home screen.

RELATED: Facebook Has Built a New Kind of Search

In reality, none of the reality check from the "tech set" is very helpful to an actual person deciding if he or she want to buy a new Facebook phone. (Beyond the HTC First, the Home software will be available for select Android phones, both top-tier and mid-level, beginning April 12.) More likely, the tech bloggers want to cover their hides on this one. They don't like it, nor do they understand it, and they certainly won't buy it. But instead of coming right out and saying you shouldn't buy this thing, they're preparing for the moment if and when the Facebook phone sells millions of units in the U.S. (Another theory, by the way, is that Facebook made this phone for its overseas markets.) In that case, they can look back and say: We knew this would happen to you people.?

RELATED: This Is Very Probably the Facebook Phone

If you really want to know if the "Facebook Phone" is for you, you might consider the following questions posed by The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal:

Will it be worth opening up every part of your phone interaction to Facebook in order to access that experience? Do you want your definition of a computer to center on Facebook Friends and the limited set of actions you can take with them? I can't answer that for you, but I can say that it is a tradeoff, and the more you think about it, the better.

Maybe you don't care about any of those things. And in that case, the HTC First is pretty, pretty cheap, and Facebook sure has?built in some nice features.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-brought-cellphone-back-down-earth-142156851.html

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Splunk to add 2000 customers this year as "big data" thrives

By Sayantani Ghosh

(Reuters) - Data analytics software maker Splunk Inc expects to break even on an adjusted basis and is looking to increase its customer base by about 40 percent, or 2,000 customers, this year, its chief executive told Reuters.

The company, which had 5,200 customers and 736 employees as of January 31, 2012, has enjoyed high revenue growth rate for the last couple of years. But it is yet to record a profit as it continues to invest heavily in adding employees and new products.

It expects employee headcount to grow at least 40 percent for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2014.

"Our investors are encouraging us to continue to run at a breakeven pace so that we can capture fast moving market opportunities," CEO Godfrey Sullivan said.

"They are pretty pleased. You see that reflected in the stock price," said Sullivan who earlier headed data analytics firm Hyperion Solutions, which was bought by Oracle Corp for $4.5 billion in 2007.

Shares of the San Francisco-based company, which debuted at $17 on the Nasdaq, have more than doubled since its IPO made a splash with in April last year.

Splunk is one of the first "big data" start ups that caught the attention of investors and has now made the term a much-used, much-favored one in the data analytics industry.

The company's high growth rate has prompted speculation about takeover interest from rivals like IBM Corp or VMware Inc, but some analysts say that its rich valuations might prove a deterrent.

"Some customers are enthusiastic about us because we are an independent company," said Sullivan, who admitted that Splunk received some offers before it went public.

Splunk's return on equity has jumped more than five times in the last year, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

The company counts Riverbed Technology Inc, Verisign Inc, Autodesk Inc and the Liverpool Football Club among its customers.

Big Data is expected to drive $54.59 billion in IT spending by 2016, compared with about $27 billion in 2011, according to data from market research firm Gartner.

Splunk's software indexes and manages machine data from computers, servers and mobile devices and uses a Google-like interface that makes it easy to search and navigate a company's database.

The company later changed its name from the mundane Transactions Engine to Splunk ? inspired by "spelunking," an American term for caving, or pot-holing ? a reference to the fact that it allows customers to mine data they can use real-time to make better decisions.

Splunk's revenue grew 64 percent last year and it has forecast a revenue growth of 31 percent to 36 percent for this fiscal year.

The company, which also competes with Hewlett-Packard Co and start-ups like Sumo Logic and Cloudera, expects to sustain a revenue growth rate above 30 percent in the long term.

Sullivan, who said Splunk is working on an app for smartphones, expects data from websites and mobile users to drive the next round of growth at Splunk and its rivals.

"Now just like we make it easy for you to look at your server traffic, we can show you your web traffic or mobile traffic and you can analyze that just as easily," he said.

"This is the next generation of business analytics."

(Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/splunk-add-2000-customers-big-data-thrives-190044979--sector.html

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Listening to the Big Bang -- in high fidelity

Apr. 4, 2013 ? A decade ago, spurred by a question for a fifth-grade science project, University of Washington physicist John Cramer devised an audio recreation of the Big Bang that started our universe nearly 14 billion years ago.

Now, armed with more sophisticated data from a satellite mission observing the cosmic microwave background -- a faint glow in the universe that acts as sort of a fossilized fingerprint of the Big Bang -- Cramer has produced new recordings that fill in higher frequencies to create a fuller and richer sound. (The sound files run from 20 seconds to a little longer than 8 minutes. See link at bottom of article.)

The effect is similar to what seismologists describe as a magnitude 9 earthquake causing the entire planet to actually ring. In this case, however, the ringing covered the entire universe -- before it grew to such gargantuan proportions.

"Space-time itself is ringing when the universe is sufficiently small," Cramer said.

In 2001, Cramer wrote a science-based column for Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine describing the likely sound of the Big Bang based on cosmic microwave background radiation observations taken from balloon experiments and satellites.

A couple of years later that article prompted a question from a mother in Pennsylvania whose 11-year-old son was working on a project about the Big Bang: Is the sound of the Big Bang actually recorded anywhere?

Cramer answered that it wasn't -- but then began thinking that it could be. He used data from the cosmic microwave background on temperature fluctuations in the very early universe. The data on those wavelength changes were fed into a computer program called Mathematica, which converted them to sound. A 100-second recording represents the sound from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang until until about 760,000 years after the Big Bang.

"The original sound waves were not temperature variations, though, but were real sound waves propagating around the universe," he said.

Cramer noted, however, that the 2003 data lacked high-frequency structure. More complete data were recently gathered by an international collaboration using the European Space Agency's Planck satellite mission, which has detectors so sensitive that they can distinguish temperature variations of a few millionths of a degree in the cosmic microwave background. That data were released in late March and led to the new recordings.

As the universe cooled and expanded, it stretched the wavelengths to create "more of a bass instrument," Cramer said. The sound gets lower as the wavelengths are stretched farther, and at first it gets louder but then gradually fades. The sound was, in fact, so "bass" that he had to boost the frequency 100 septillion times (that's a 100 followed by 24 more zeroes) just to get the recordings into a range where they can be heard by humans.

Cramer is a UW physics professor who has been part of a large collaboration studying what the universe might have been like moments after the Big Bang by causing collisions between heavy ions such as gold in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.

Creating a sound profile for the Big Bang was something to do on the side, Cramer said.

"It was an interesting thing to do that I wanted to share. It's another way to look at the work these people are doing," he said.

Sound of the Big Bang are available in several lengths here: http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/BBSound_2013.html

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Soft US economic figures keep a lid on markets

LONDON (AP) ? Soft U.S. economic figures hit stocks and the dollar Wednesday ahead of key government jobs data at the end of the week. Japanese shares, however, outperformed all others as investors anticipated aggressive policy action from the Bank of Japan.

Investor sentiment, which was already fairly flat following a solid trading session on Tuesday, was dented by a soft private jobs report for the U.S. from payrolls processor ADP as well as a weaker-than-anticipated non-manufacturing survey from the Institute for Supply Management.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.03 percent at 6,423 while Germany's DAX fell 0.9 percent to 7,874. The CAC-40 in France was 1.3 percent lower at 3,754.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.43 percent at 14,598 while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.76 percent to 1,558.

The dollar was also on the retreat following the disappointing economic news. The euro was up 0.19 percent at $1.2843 while the dollar fell 0.47 percent to 92.93 yen.

The soft tone in markets gathered pace after ADP found that private employers added 158,000 jobs in March, way down on February's gain of 237,000 and expectations for a rise of about 200,000.

The survey came ahead of Friday's official nonfarm payrolls figures for March, an indicator that often sets the market tone for a week or two. This time the payrolls figures could have an even bigger bearing as investors try and work out when the Federal Reserve will start withdrawing its economic stimulus.

"Not that this is a good measure of the actual payroll report but the ADP will keep the bulls from boosting their payroll estimates between now and Friday," said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities.

A disappointing survey from the Institute for Supply Management fueled the prevailing caution too. Its main index of non-manufacturing activity fell to 54.4 last month from 56 in February. Though the sector continues to grow ? any reading above 50 signals expansion ? March's figure is the lowest in seven months.

Earlier, Japan was in focus as the country's central bank started its first policy meeting under a new governor committed to aggressive monetary action to end years of economic malaise. There are expectations that the bank will announce a big monetary stimulus at the end of its meeting on Thursday.

Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda has vowed to do whatever it takes to get Japan out of its debilitating deflation. Kuroda, who assumed his post March 19, has pledged to cooperate with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's program of big government spending, monetary easing and economic reforms aimed at improving Japan's competitiveness.

Optimism about the meeting's outcome sent the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo soaring 3 percent to close at 12,362.20.

"The Nikkei is the standout, jumping 3 percent as the Bank of Japan's two-day monetary policy meeting kicked off, and the market is anticipating some bold stimulative action under new governor Kuroda," said Robert Kavcic, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

The Bank of Japan is not the only central bank announcing policy decisions Thursday. However, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are not expected to alter policy.

Elsewhere in Asia, stock markets struggled despite the Nikkei's surge. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.1 percent to 22,337.49 while South Korea's Kospi shed 0.2 percent to 1,983.22.

Oil prices tracked most equity markets lower, with the benchmark New York rate down $1.88 at $95.32 a barrel.

___

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soft-us-economic-figures-keep-lid-markets-143829994--finance.html

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NASA team investigates complex chemistry at Saturn's moon Titan

Apr. 3, 2013 ? A laboratory experiment at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., simulating the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan suggests complex organic chemistry that could eventually lead to the building blocks of life extends lower in the atmosphere than previously thought. The results now point out another region on the moon that could brew up prebiotic materials.

The paper was published in Nature Communications this week.

"Scientists previously thought that as we got closer to the surface of Titan, the moon's atmospheric chemistry was basically inert and dull," said Murthy Gudipati, the paper's lead author at JPL. "Our experiment shows that's not true. The same kind of light that drives biological chemistry on Earth's surface could also drive chemistry on Titan, even though Titan receives far less light from the sun and is much colder. Titan is not a sleeping giant in the lower atmosphere, but at least half awake in its chemical activity."

Scientists have known since NASA's Voyager mission flew by the Saturn system in the early 1980s that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a thick, hazy atmosphere with hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane. These simple organic molecules can develop into smog-like, airborne molecules with carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen bonds, which astronomer Carl Sagan called "tholins."

"We've known that Titan's upper atmosphere is hospitable to the formation of complex organic molecules," said co-author Mark Allen, principal investigator of the JPL Titan team that is a part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, headquartered at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Now we know that sunlight in the Titan lower atmosphere can kick-start more complex organic chemistry in liquids and solids rather than just in gases."

The team examined an ice form of dicyanoacetylene -- a molecule detected on Titan that is related to a compound that turned brown after being exposed to ambient light in Allen's lab 40 years ago.

In this latest experiment, dicyanoacetylene was exposed to laser light at wavelengths as long as 355 nanometers. Light of that wavelength can filter down to Titan's lower atmosphere at a modest intensity, somewhat like the amount of light that comes through protective glasses when Earthlings view a solar eclipse, Gudipati said. The result was the formation of a brownish haze between the two panes of glass containing the experiment, confirming that organic-ice photochemistry at conditions like Titan's lower atmosphere could produce tholins.

The complex organics could coat the "rocks" of water ice at Titan's surface and they could possibly seep through the crust, to a liquid water layer under Titan's surface. In previous laboratory experiments, tholins like these were exposed to liquid water over time and developed into biologically significant molecules, such as amino acids and the nucleotide bases that form RNA.

"These results suggest that the volume of Titan's atmosphere involved in the production of more complex organic chemicals is much larger than previously believed," said Edward Goolish, acting director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute. "This new information makes Titan an even more interesting environment for astrobiological study."

The team included Isabelle Couturier of the University of Provence, Marseille, France; Ronen Jacovi, a NASA postdoctoral fellow from Israel; and Antti Lignell, a Finnish Academy of Science postdoctoral fellow from Helsinki at JPL.

Founded in 1998, the NASA Astrobiology Institute is a partnership between NASA, 15 U.S. teams and 13 international consortia. It is based at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The Institute's goals are to promote, conduct and lead interdisciplinary astrobiology research, train a new generation of astrobiology researchers, and share the excitement of astrobiology with learners of all ages. The NAI is part of NASA's Astrobiology program, which supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and the potential for life elsewhere. For more information, visit http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

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