Friday, 28 June 2013

PFT: Pats offering free exchanges on Hernandez jerseys

RayGetty Images

If the Ravens? qualification for Super Bowl XLVII dusted off long-forgotten memories of the alleged involvement of Ray Lewis in a double murder, the Aaron Hernandez situation has sandblasted them.? And with the Patriots dumping Hernandez the moment he was arrested in connection with the death of Odin Lloyd, the contrast between the respective approaches of the two franchises to situation involving murder became as sharp as possible.

While many believe the Patriots must have had access to inside information about the Hernandez investigation at the time he was cut, the more accurate assumption would be that the Patriots decided early in the process, without the benefit of any specific intelligence about the case, that no employee arrested in connection with a murder investigation is fit to remain employed by the team.

The Ravens came to the exact opposite conclusion.? The man who coached the team at the time, Brian Billick, recently compiled an exhaustive explanation of the team?s reasoning and approach to the Lewis situation.

Billick explains that the team?s decision to rally around Lewis arose from their faith in his ?overall innocence.?? In so doing, Billick implies that the Patriots had no faith in Hernandez?s innocence.

But Lewis was hardly ?innocent.?? Lewis wouldn?t have been arrested, charged, and prosecuted based on no evidence.? Prosecutors routinely walk away from trying to secure a conviction under the very high standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt if they believe that the evidence, while pointing to the defendant?s guilt, nevertheless creates an opening for an ?if it doesn?t fit, you must acquit? concoction of enough doubt to secure an acquittal.? Moreover, judges don?t allow cases to go to trial absent the existence of enough evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the high bar of proof beyond a reasonable doubt had been met.

For Ray Lewis, the prosecutor eventually decided to cut a deal, and Lewis decided not to tell the prosecutor to pound sand/salt/whatever and force the trial to a verdict.? This wasn?t a case where the charges were dropped with no strings attached.? Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in order to escape the far more serious charge of murder.

The Ravens had no qualms about welcoming back to the team without suspension or other punishment (other than the $250,000 fine imposed by the league) a man who pleaded guilty to obstructing justice in a murder case.? New England?s swift and decisive action regarding Hernandez this week amounts to a clear statement that, even if Hernandez had simply lied to the police or concealed evidence regarding a murder, any alleged wrongdoing regarding a murder provides enough reason to move on.

Right or wrong, the Ravens treated Ray Lewis far differently than the Patriots treated Hernandez.? And while it seems that Billick may be trying in artful fashion to soften some of the harsh, inescapable realities the Ray Lewis case, the fact remains that the Ravens had no qualms about embracing and defending a man who clearly had enough involvement to result in a judge allowing a murder trial to proceed, and in Lewis eventually entering a guilty plea for a crime related to the killings.? The Patriots, in contrast, opted to have no further involvement with anyone who had done anything, actually or allegedly, that would get him arrested in connection with the intentional death of another human.

For each organization, it sets a precedent that they surely hope they?ll never have to use in a similar case.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/28/pats-offering-free-exchanges-on-hernandez-jerseys/related/

target

Officials: Death toll from Iraq bombings up to 36

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi officials say the death toll from a series of bombings late Thursday targeting soccer fans watching a match in cafes in and around Baghdad has risen to 36.

Police and hospital officials said Friday the toll includes 20 killed and 40 wounded at a large cafe in the city of Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad. The first bomb exploded near the entrance, followed by a car bomb targeting onlookers near the blast site. Rescue teams found several bodies on Friday morning.

Authorities late Thursday reported 16 dead and dozens wounded in attacks on other cafes in Baghdad and the Shiite town of Jbala south of the capital.

The officials released the information on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-death-toll-iraq-bombings-36-113238550.html

rubio Affenpinscher Dorner Banana Joe state of the union fat tuesday ash wednesday

Obama, GOP Face Showdown Over EPA Nomination

The White House is headed for a showdown with Senate Republicans over President Obama's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

In his climate-change speech Tuesday, Obama went out of his way to praise his nominee, Gina McCarthy, who is currently the assistant administrator for air quality at EPA.

"Gina has worked for the EPA in my administration, but she's also worked for five Republican governors," Obama said. "She's been held up for months, forced to jump through hoops no Cabinet nominee should ever have to?not because she lacks qualifications, but because there are too many in the Republican Party right now who think that the Environmental Protection Agency has no business protecting our environment from carbon pollution. The Senate should confirm her without any further obstruction or delay."

Obama's full-throttled defense of her in a major policy speech is a sign that the administration isn't backing down on getting McCarthy through the Senate, even as Obama is headed for another clash with Republicans over directing EPA to move ahead on controversial rules controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he will try to schedule a vote on McCarthy's confirmation after the July Fourth recess. Thomas Perez, Obama's choice for Labor secretary, and Samantha Power, his nominee for U.N. Ambassador, are also still pending.?

McCarthy's confirmation is currently being held up by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is frustrated with an interagency review process EPA is involved in. Blunt has said his problem is not with McCarthy, but with the administration more generally. Yet even if Blunt lifts his hold, McCarthy will still face the hurdle of getting enough votes for cloture.

The controversy surrounding McCarthy's nomination has been inflamed by Obama's speech, which predictably infuriated Republicans, many of whom are already fuming over what they say is EPA's overzealous regulation of the coal industry.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo, whose state produces 40 percent of the coal in the entire country, argued Wednesday that the comments Obama made in his climate speech contradict what McCarthy told Congress in her confirmation hearing.

"EPA is not currently developing any existing source GHG regulations for power plants," McCarthy told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in April.

"Her response to the EPW committee with questions about existing coal-fired power plants, and then the president's speech, says to me either she is arrogant or ignorant in terms of her response," Barrasso said Wednesday. "Either she knew, and wasn't truthful with the committee. And if she didn't know, she should have known because she already has such an important role at EPA."

It is unclear how?or whether?Barrasso's accusation will be addressed.

But if Republicans do succeed in blocking her nomination, the administration has a fallback option: McCarthy could execute Obama's climate-change directives from her current post as EPA's top air chief. Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe could remain in his post indefinitely, which is allowed under EPA's organizational plan. Perciasepe even got some praise from Barrasso.

"He has a long history there," Barrasso said. "I think he'd be a better choice."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-gop-face-showdown-over-epa-nomination-120323661.html

buckyballs buckyballs awake mario batali lone ranger aaron brooks dave matthews band

Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Free agent WR Collins suspended 4 games by NFL

NEW YORK (AP) ? New York Giants free-agent wide receiver Brandon Collins has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2013 regular season for violating the NFL Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse.

The NFL announced the suspension of the first-year player on Monday.

The 24-year-old Collins will be eligible to return to the Giants' active roster on Sept. 30, the day after the team plays the Kansas City Chiefs. The Southeastern Louisiana product spent part of last season on the Giants' practice squad and will be eligible to participate in all offseason and preseason practices and games.

Collins had played well in the recent veterans minicamp.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/free-agent-wr-collins-suspended-4-games-nfl-185700743.html

paleo diet paleo diet earth day Luis Suarez Earth Day 2013 westboro baptist church meteor shower

Monday, 24 June 2013

CommaFeed


CommaFeed (free) straddles two worlds. It offers a Web-based RSS feed reader to be your Google Reader placement: import your feeds and you are good to go in an environment that looks almost like Google Reader. It also lets the intrepid DIY-er download the actual software from GitHub to build a personal RSS reader on RedHat's OpenShift platform. Build it, and you will never have to worry about losing your RSS reader ever again.

If you don't want to deal with code, you just register for an account on CommaFeed.com. If you are looking for a Google Reader replacement, you check off the "Google Reader import" box to kick off the automatic import. To do so, you have to enter your Google credentials on the second screen of the registration process to let CommaFeed handle the import. If the idea of giving your login credentials to a random Website skeeves you out (as it does for me) you leave the box unchecked and just do the manual import later. Giving the user a choice wins CommaFeed good karma points.

Here is bonus karma: You can poke around the almost-full-featured demo to try it out before signing up. I am so tired of having to register an account just to try out a service.

CommaFeed's interface looks really similar to the classic Google Reader, and many of the keyboard shortcuts are the same. The team has promised to add the remaining shortcuts soon. You can also use the built-in sharing options to share posts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Instapaper. Themes are coming, and if you know a little CSS or HTML, you can modify the look and feel anyway you like.

You can also filter the screen to view just the unread items, mark everything in a feed as read, or sort items by date. The search engine lets you find related posts. It was one of my favorite things about Google Reader and I am thrilled CommaFeed included it.

You can toggle between the option to see only headlines, or headline plus a summary underneath. Google Reader lets me see the first few words of the story in headline view; CommaFeed doesn't. Headline view really is just the headline. I kind of miss it, but it's a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things.

Subscribing to a new feed is as simple as clicking the Subscribe button and pasting a feed URL. Removing it is just a matter of selecting the feed on the left sidebar and clicking on the wrench icon. This brings up the feed details page, and you just hit "Unsubscribe." You can change feed details, such as renaming it, changing the category, and changing the order it shows up in the list of feeds.

There isn't any mobile support, which is a bit of a disappointment. It's not a deal-breaker for me since I generally read via my Web browser, even on my mobile devices, but I know a lot of people prefer using native apps. If you are one of them, look at Feedly?or check out the iOS app for Digg Reader.

The site's popularity has surged in the past few days, which has impacted performance. Even so, it hasn't felt particularly sluggish or difficult to use. In fact, I am feeling forgiving because it's clear the team is actually trying to address the performance issues and improve the service with the influx of new users.

I like CommaFeed, and it is almost as good as Editors' Choice?G2Reader, but what really gets me excited is its build-your-own-reader capabilities. I originally tried Tiny Tiny RSS (a PHP application) and was frustrated at how sluggish the application was, so I was nervous about trying CommaFeed (a Java server application). I needn't have worried, because CommaFeed was quite easy to install and I had no performance issues.

CommaFeed is much more flexible, as it can be installed on either Windows or Linux (provided you install a Web server such as Tomcat). I also liked the fact that the GitHub repository had instructions on how to throw up CommaFeed onto RedHat's OpenShift cloud platform (which uses JBoss). I also liked the fact that CommaFeed can be installed on either Windows or Linux. The instructions are thorough for an open source project, but a little opaque to anyone new to server management or building code. Keep Google handy for assistance.

If you want to try OpenShift, the GitHub README file links to a detailed and well-done "alternate" instruction manual that really smoothes out all the bumps in the process.

Overall, CommaFeed is one of the best alternatives to Google Reader that I've ever used, and I am right now trying to decide if I am going to stick with the Web-based version, the version on my server, or OpenShift. It's a great dilemma to have, really. The interface and usability is on par with The Old Reader, but the platform has a little bit more growing up to do before it can completely take on our Editors' Choice G2Reader. But if you want to host your own RSS Reader, you can't go wrong with CommaFeed.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Sqr2W6DEO90/0,2817,2420840,00.asp

titus young Kristen Wiig Leila Fowler Seth Meyers mothers day Mothers Day Cards Players Championship 2013

Saturday, 22 June 2013

Mindscapes: Transported by seizures to a land of bliss

For youtube videos, paste embed code directly in the text box

-

Members do not need to provide an address

-

Rate Article

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Total votes: 0 Select Comment Validation Method
Member
Name/URL (Guest)
FaceBook (Guest) Member Commenting:


Authenticate with Facebook before submitting

OR


Make your LabSpaces comments count. Start earning LabSpaces points by becoming a member! Learn more. Please verify that you are human: Register for LabSpaces
Make your LabSpaces comments count. Start earning LabSpaces points by becoming a member! Learn more.

Please authenticate before trying to post a comment.

If you would like to remain anonymous, please enter a new name and link below


Friends

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128745/Mindscapes__Transported_by_seizures_to_a_land_of_bliss

atlanta braves Happy Easter Game Of Thrones Season 3 campfire Kordell Stewart cesar chavez Wichita State

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Evolution of an outbreak: Complications from contaminated steroid injections

Evolution of an outbreak: Complications from contaminated steroid injections [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 19-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Carole Gan
carole.gan@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
916-734-9047
University of California - Davis Health System

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) A study of the patients who received injections of steroids contaminated with the fungus Exserohilum rostratum from the New England Compounding Center has found that some patients had fungal infections even though they did not experience a worsening of their symptoms and that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help detect infection, especially among those individuals who received injections from highly contaminated lots.

The study, along with an editorial by UC Davis Assistant Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology George R. Thompson, appears in the June 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The study shows that patients exposed to the contaminated steroids can no longer be reassured that the lack of new or progressive symptoms equates to a lack of fungal infection," Thompson said. "Exposed patients may have paraspinal or spinal infections even though they do not notice any increase in pain or neuropathic symptoms. Magnetic resonance imaging at the injection site is recommended to screen for infection in high-risk patients, but it should not be widely adopted, particularly for patients who received injections in peripheral joints, which the study associated with a much lower attack rate."

In the fall of 2012, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with state and local health departments and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), began investigating an unprecedented multistate outbreak of fungal meningitis among patients who received contaminated steroid injections for the treatment of back pain or neuropathic symptoms. While meningitis was the primary complication after the initial steroid injection, spinal or paraspinal infections can surface weeks to months later. To date, more than 740 patients in 20 states have been diagnosed with meningitis, spinal or paraspinal infections, joint infections or other complications at or near the injection site linked with compouding pharmacy formulations. Patients who received injections in peripheral joints only, such as the knee, shoulder or ankle, could be at risk for joint infection and are also included in the investigation.

"Continued vigilance and collaborative efforts with radiologists experienced in interpreting MRI findings of E rostratum are needed to detect late fungal infections in patients to improve health outcomes," Thompson said.

According to the CDC, Exserohilum is a common mold found in soil and on plants, especially grasses, and it thrives in warm and humid climates. While it is a very rare cause of infection in people, the mold has been known to cause several different types of infections, including infection in the skin or the cornea (the clear, front part of the eye), which are typically due to skin or eye trauma. Exserohilum can also cause more invasive forms of infection in the sinuses, lungs, lining of the heart and bone, which are thought to be more likely to occur in people with weak immune systems.

###

UC Davis Health System is improving lives and transforming health care by providing excellent patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, fostering innovative, interprofessional education, and creating dynamic, productive partnerships with the community. The academic health system includes one of the country's best medical schools, a 619-bed acute-care teaching hospital, a 1000-member physician's practice group and the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. It is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, an international neurodevelopmental institute, a stem cell institute and a comprehensive children's hospital. Other nationally prominent centers focus on advancing telemedicine, improving vascular care, eliminating health disparities and translating research findings into new treatments for patients. Together, they make UC Davis a hub of innovation that is transforming health for all. For more information, visit http://healthsystem.ucdavis.edu.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Evolution of an outbreak: Complications from contaminated steroid injections [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 19-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Carole Gan
carole.gan@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
916-734-9047
University of California - Davis Health System

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) A study of the patients who received injections of steroids contaminated with the fungus Exserohilum rostratum from the New England Compounding Center has found that some patients had fungal infections even though they did not experience a worsening of their symptoms and that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help detect infection, especially among those individuals who received injections from highly contaminated lots.

The study, along with an editorial by UC Davis Assistant Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology George R. Thompson, appears in the June 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The study shows that patients exposed to the contaminated steroids can no longer be reassured that the lack of new or progressive symptoms equates to a lack of fungal infection," Thompson said. "Exposed patients may have paraspinal or spinal infections even though they do not notice any increase in pain or neuropathic symptoms. Magnetic resonance imaging at the injection site is recommended to screen for infection in high-risk patients, but it should not be widely adopted, particularly for patients who received injections in peripheral joints, which the study associated with a much lower attack rate."

In the fall of 2012, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with state and local health departments and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), began investigating an unprecedented multistate outbreak of fungal meningitis among patients who received contaminated steroid injections for the treatment of back pain or neuropathic symptoms. While meningitis was the primary complication after the initial steroid injection, spinal or paraspinal infections can surface weeks to months later. To date, more than 740 patients in 20 states have been diagnosed with meningitis, spinal or paraspinal infections, joint infections or other complications at or near the injection site linked with compouding pharmacy formulations. Patients who received injections in peripheral joints only, such as the knee, shoulder or ankle, could be at risk for joint infection and are also included in the investigation.

"Continued vigilance and collaborative efforts with radiologists experienced in interpreting MRI findings of E rostratum are needed to detect late fungal infections in patients to improve health outcomes," Thompson said.

According to the CDC, Exserohilum is a common mold found in soil and on plants, especially grasses, and it thrives in warm and humid climates. While it is a very rare cause of infection in people, the mold has been known to cause several different types of infections, including infection in the skin or the cornea (the clear, front part of the eye), which are typically due to skin or eye trauma. Exserohilum can also cause more invasive forms of infection in the sinuses, lungs, lining of the heart and bone, which are thought to be more likely to occur in people with weak immune systems.

###

UC Davis Health System is improving lives and transforming health care by providing excellent patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, fostering innovative, interprofessional education, and creating dynamic, productive partnerships with the community. The academic health system includes one of the country's best medical schools, a 619-bed acute-care teaching hospital, a 1000-member physician's practice group and the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. It is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, an international neurodevelopmental institute, a stem cell institute and a comprehensive children's hospital. Other nationally prominent centers focus on advancing telemedicine, improving vascular care, eliminating health disparities and translating research findings into new treatments for patients. Together, they make UC Davis a hub of innovation that is transforming health for all. For more information, visit http://healthsystem.ucdavis.edu.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/uoc--eoa061913.php

duggars peter facinelli bobby rush supreme court justices 19 kids and counting danny o brien alicia silverstone

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Potential genetic drivers behind male heart disease risk

June 18, 2013 ? University of Leicester scientists have discovered a potential genetic contributor to the increased risk of heart disease among men.

A team of researchers including clinicians and scientists have made an important step forward in search of the mechanisms underlying increased risk of coronary artery disease in men who carry a particular type of the Y chromosome (haplogroup I).

The team, from the University's Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and Department of Health Sciences, have followed up their recent award-winning study showing that men with haplogroup I of the Y chromosome have a 50 per cent greater risk of developing the disease.

Their new paper goes further -- and identifies the possible genes of the Y chromosome which could be responsible for its association with coronary artery disease.

Coronary artery disease is the name given to the narrowing of blood vessels delivering blood to the heart, meaning that not enough oxygen can reach it.

This can lead to angina symptoms, such as constriction of the chest, and heart attacks.

Coronary artery disease, also known as coronary heart disease, is responsible for almost 80,000 deaths each year -- over 200 people every single day -- according to figures from the British Heart Foundation, who provided funding for the study.

The figures -- collected between 2009 and 2011 -- also show that one in six men and one in nine women die from heart disease.

The Leicester scientists' research, published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, used a sample of around 2,000 men from four European populations.

The study found that men in haplogroup I have lower numbers of copies of two important Y chromosome genes in macrophages -- the type of white blood cells involved in both defence against infections and atherosclerosis.

Specifically, men with haplogroup I were shown to have decreased expression of 2 genes: the ubiquitously transcribed tetratricopeptide repeat, Y-linked gene (UTY) and protein kinase, Y-linked, pseudogene (PRKY) in macrophages.

The team found no association between haplogroup I and traditional cardiovascular risk factors -- such as high blood pressure, smoking and obesity.

Principal investigator Dr Maciej Tomaszewski, a clinical senior lecturer at the University's Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, said: "I am very pleased with publication of this piece of research. It was conducted as a part of Lisa Bloomer's PhD studentship in my laboratory.

"I believe, we have made another step forward to deciphering the genetic background behind increased risk of coronary artery disease in men with haplogroup I.

"We now want to investigate whether and how the down-regulation of UTY and PRKY genes in macrophages may translate into increased risk of coronary artery disease.

"Ultimately, we wish to understand how human Y chromosome regulates susceptibility to cardiovascular diseases and if there is anything we can do to better diagnose, prevent or treat them."

Shannon Amoils, Senior Research Advisor at the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, said: "This study continues prize-winning research into the Y chromosome and heart health.

"What's intriguing about these latest findings is the discovery of two specific genes that may be linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease.

"This is the first time this connection has been made, so it will be interesting to find out more as scientists explore the area further."

The research was funded primarily by Departmental PhD scholarship, the British Heart Foundation, and the University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/heart_disease/~3/fAJOciv-Pgw/130618101512.htm

epo suits PlayStation Network chip kelly NRA Golden Globes 2013 Anna Kendrick

New Android apps worth downloading: Cloud Print, StudyBlue, Beejumbled

Google's newly released Cloud Print app lets Android users send documents and photos to their Wi-Fi connected printers. It's a handy app that's usefulness propelled it to the lead position on today's Apps Worth Downloading list. Following Cloud Print is StudyBlue, an app for making study flashcards and connecting with other students to help maximize study efficiency. Finally, Beejumbled puts a new twist on Boggle-like word scramble games.

Cloud PrintWhat?s it about? Google's Cloud Print app is finally here, allowing users to print from their Android devices to printers connected to their Wi-Fi networks.

What?s cool? At its simplest, Google's Cloud Print lets users connect a printer to a Wi-Fi network, hook it up with Cloud Print, and then send print jobs to it from any Android device connected to that network. It's a principle other apps have handled in the past, but Google's version brings the company's classic simple and elegant app design along with it. You can monitor your print jobs from the app to see how they're doing, and send documents and images from your device's Gallery for printing quickly and easily.

Who?s it for? If you've got printers you can access on your Wi-Fi network and want an easy way to print from your phone or tablet, Google has provided it.

What?s it like? Other cloud printing apps include HP e-Print and Cloud Print from developer Paulo Fernandez.

StudyBlue (Free)

StudyBlueWhat?s it about? Study app StudyBlue allows students to make flashcards to make studying easier, and includes a number of other features to help them be successful in school.

What?s cool? Studying efficiently and effectively is one of the toughest skills to learn in school, and StudyBlue aims to help students with that issue by making it easy for them to create flashcards that can help. You can snap a photo of an item and record your own information about it to create a card, and then use that card to help you remember what you need to know. The app includes stats that let you focus on what you're struggling with over what you already know, and you can also search online for flashcards from other students. The app even includes a messaging feature, so you can use it with other students in your class and help each other study better.

Who?s it for? StudyBlue is specifically aimed at students, but anyone who needs to study particular information can get some use out of it. Just note you'll need to create a free account on StudyBlue.com to use the app.

What?s it like? Check out Dictionary.com Flashcards and RU Studying Custom Flashcards for some studying alternatives.

BeejumbledWhat?s it about? Beejumbled is a word game in which players find words in a jumble of letters and earn points for creating specific ones.

What?s cool? Beejumbled isn't unlike titles such as Boggle, in which players are handed a pile of letters and asked to create words out of them by linking adjacent letter tiles together. In Beejumbled, however, the interesting twist comes from which ?bees? you choose as your characters in each round. Like other word titles, you get extra points for making longer words, but you also score more if you adhere to your bee's special ability ? one gives more points with words containing the letter ?k,? for example, while another might add points for words that end in ?ick.? There's also a head-to-head multiplayer mode and weekly tournaments to keep you engaged in the larger competition.

Who?s it for? Fans of word games and jumbles will find some interesting new takes on those games in Beejumbled.

What?s it like? As mentioned, Boggle is another title with an angle on word scrambles, and you'll find some other cool ideas in W.E.L.D.E.R.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13538-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-cloud-print-studyblue-beejumbled

jeff carter chomp national enquirer kate gosselin helicopter crash matt jones whitney houston in casket photo

You Start Exactly Where You Are........ - Strange Gift

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://groundedinsmiles.blogspot.com/2013/06/you-start-exactly-where-you-are.html

Barcelona celtics harry connick jr cher Marc Maron amanda knox Carolyn Moos

Paris Air Show peek: Wide-body battle and drones

PARIS (AP) ? The Paris Air Show, which opens for business on Monday, brings hundreds of aircraft to the skies around the French capital, the usual tense competition between aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus, and a slew of innovations large and small. Here's what to look for over the show:

BATTLE OF THE WIDE-BODIES

The much-anticipated Airbus A350 flew for the first time on Friday, launching a new air race between the European plane maker and Boeing for long-haul wide-body aircraft.

Boeing has dominated the market so far, but troubles with the lithium ion batteries in its 787 Dreamliner are giving customers a reason to give a close look at Airbus' first all-new plane in eight years. The CEO of Airbus parent EADS, Tom Enders, has said he expects a "few hundred" new orders. Boeing executives, meanwhile, downplayed the air show's importance for orders, noting that the two companies have historically split the commercial aircraft market.

A year ago, at the Paris Air Show's sister event in Britain, Boeing beat Airbus for the number of orders announced. The U.S. company took in $37 billion in orders and commitments, well above Airbus' $16.9 billion.

But the announcements during the air shows are not always a reliable indicator of business since prices are often negotiated down heavily and big orders don't always coincide with the event.

The race for the title of biggest plane maker is as tight as ever. Over the whole of 2012, Airbus delivered 588 planes. That was a record, but one Boeing beat with 601 deliveries, the first time since 2003 it came out on top.

NO HANDS ON DECK

They have swooped into wildfires to take temperatures and tracked animals across Africa. They have guided a fuel tanker to safety through icy waters. Drones are increasingly being used for non-military purposes and are expected to feature prominently at the Paris Air Show.

There are still tough restrictions on their flight for safety reasons, but while the Federal Aviation Authority works on new rules, the makers of drones will aim to show off innovation and technical prowess at the show. Eurocopter, a company based in France, will showcase new technology that can transform a manned helicopter into one that flies without a pilot.

EVEN IN PARIS, SEQUESTRATION TAKES TOLL

American fighter jets aren't taking to the skies above Paris, nor will they be seen on the ground, for the first time in more than two decades thanks to the U.S. government's spending cuts - the infamous 'sequestration'.

The U.S. pavilion remains the largest, but the event will be less of a sales showcase for latest military hardware and more a place for suppliers to meet up with potential customers.

Russia, on the other hand, is looking to make a splash by presenting fighter jets and military helicopters at the show for the first time since 2001. The Sukhoi manufacturer will showcase its Su-35, a twin-engine multipurpose fighter, for the first time outside Russia. Britain and France also will have fighter jets on display.

"It's two different trends between commercial aircraft and defense," said Eric Bernardini, a consultant for AlixPartners who follows the aerospace industry.

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS

Less flashy but just as important for the industry will be the myriad technological innovations that parts suppliers will come to Paris to present. The biggest issue? The cost of fuel.

The price of jet fuel has more than tripled worldwide since 2003 ? a trend both jet manufacturers and airlines expect to continue. Electric- or solar-powered commercial flights are wildly improbable and biofuels aren't yet economically viable, so airlines are looking to improve mileage any way possible.

For long-haul flights, that means more carbon-fiber in airplane bodies and other design tweaks, such as electric motors for taxiing. For passengers, it means no end in sight on extra baggage fees.

___

Follow Lori Hinnant at: https://twitter.com/lhinnant

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paris-air-show-peek-wide-body-battle-drones-080137533.html

madison bumgarner wnba draft tax day april 17 tu pac hologram shuttle pippa middleton

Monday, 17 June 2013

Adobe Photoshop CC

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Copyright 1996-2013 Ziff Davis, Inc. All Rights Reserved. PC Magazine is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, Inc. is prohibited.

logoEvidon Logo

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/O2NMnXz30LI/0,2817,0,00.asp

Mcdonalds Restaurants Open on Christmas Day jessica simpson santa tracker happy holidays Stores Open On Christmas Day Santa Claus

Noble gases hitch a ride on hydrous minerals

Noble gases hitch a ride on hydrous minerals [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 16-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kevin Stacey
kevin_stacey@brown.edu
401-863-3766
Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] The noble gases get their collective moniker from their tendency toward snobbishness. The six elements in the family, which includes helium and neon, don't normally bond with other elements and they don't dissolve into minerals the way other gases do. But now, geochemists from Brown University have found a mineral structure with which the nobles deign to fraternize.

Researchers led by Colin Jackson, a graduate student in geological sciences, have found noble gases to be highly soluble in amphibole, a mineral commonly found in oceanic crust. "We found remarkably high solubility," said Stephen Parman, assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown and Jackson's Ph.D. adviser. "It was three or four orders of magnitude higher than in any other mineral than had been measured."

The findings, which are published in Nature Geoscience, are a step toward answering puzzling questions about how noble gases are cycled between the atmosphere and the depths of the Earth.

Completing the cycle

Gases in the air we breathe are on a geological conveyor belt of sorts, cycled from the Earth's mantle to the atmosphere and back again. Carbon dioxide, water vapor and other gases are released into the atmosphere and oceans from molten magma during volcanic eruptions, and then returned to depths through subduction, when one tectonic plate slides underneath another. The subducting crust is injected deep into the mantle, taking water and any other volatiles it may carry along for the ride.

Noble gases are also released during volcanic activity, but the amount of those gases returned to the mantle through subduction was long thought to be minimal. After all, if noble gases don't dissolve in minerals, they would lack a vehicle to make the trip. Recent research, however, has suggested that some noble gases are indeed recycled, leaving scientists at a loss to find a mechanism for it. By showing definitively that noble gases are soluble in amphibole, Jackson and his colleagues have shown how noble gases could be carried in subducting slabs.

The key to amphibole's ability to dissolve noble gases, the researchers say, is its lattice structure. Amphibole and other silicate minerals are made up of tetrahedral and octahedral structures linked together in a way that creates a series of rings. It's those rings, called A-sites, that provide a home for otherwise finicky noble gases, the research suggests.

Jackson performed a series of experiments to see if the number of empty rings in different types of amphibole were correlated to its ability to dissolve noble gases. He placed cut amphibole gems into a tube with helium or neon under high pressure and temperature, and then used a mass spectrometer to see how much of the gas had dissolved in each gem over the duration of each experiment. The experiments showed that noble gas solubility was highest in types of amphibole with the most unoccupied ring structures.

"This was the meat of the paper," Parman said. "It's telling us a specific site where we think the noble gases are. It might be the first time anyone has made a positive identification of where noble gases are going into a mineral."

Importantly, the researchers said, amphibole isn't the only crustal mineral with these ring structures. Ring structures are actually quite common in crustal minerals, and could provide a wide variety of potential vehicles that could take noble gases back to the depths via subduction.

A high-fidelity fingerprint

Understanding how noble gases are cycled between the Earth's surface and interior could shed new light on how other volatiles are recycled, the researchers said.

Scientists are particularly interested in tracking the cycling of water and carbon. Water is obviously vital for life, and carbon cycling has an important impact on the climate. Scientists try to track the cycle by looking at isotope ratios, which can provide a fingerprint that helps to identify where elements originated. Butarbon and the hydrogen in water have only a few isotopes that scientists can use for tracking, and in the case of hydrogen, the isotope ratios are easily thrown off by all kinds of natural processes.

The noble gases, on the other hand, have lots of isotopes, giving scientists ways to track them with great specificity. So if noble gases are cycled in the same minerals that cycle other volatiles like water and carbon, they could be used as a marker to track those other volatiles. "It's a very high-fidelity fingerprint because you have so many isotopes to play with," Jackson said.

There's more work to be done before noble gases could be used as such a fingerprint, but this work does provide a first step: showing which kinds of minerals could be responsible for noble gas recycling.

###

Other authors on the paper were Simon Kelley of The Open University in the United Kingdom and Reid Cooper, professor of geological sciences at Brown. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences (1019229).

Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call (401) 863-2476.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Noble gases hitch a ride on hydrous minerals [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 16-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kevin Stacey
kevin_stacey@brown.edu
401-863-3766
Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] The noble gases get their collective moniker from their tendency toward snobbishness. The six elements in the family, which includes helium and neon, don't normally bond with other elements and they don't dissolve into minerals the way other gases do. But now, geochemists from Brown University have found a mineral structure with which the nobles deign to fraternize.

Researchers led by Colin Jackson, a graduate student in geological sciences, have found noble gases to be highly soluble in amphibole, a mineral commonly found in oceanic crust. "We found remarkably high solubility," said Stephen Parman, assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown and Jackson's Ph.D. adviser. "It was three or four orders of magnitude higher than in any other mineral than had been measured."

The findings, which are published in Nature Geoscience, are a step toward answering puzzling questions about how noble gases are cycled between the atmosphere and the depths of the Earth.

Completing the cycle

Gases in the air we breathe are on a geological conveyor belt of sorts, cycled from the Earth's mantle to the atmosphere and back again. Carbon dioxide, water vapor and other gases are released into the atmosphere and oceans from molten magma during volcanic eruptions, and then returned to depths through subduction, when one tectonic plate slides underneath another. The subducting crust is injected deep into the mantle, taking water and any other volatiles it may carry along for the ride.

Noble gases are also released during volcanic activity, but the amount of those gases returned to the mantle through subduction was long thought to be minimal. After all, if noble gases don't dissolve in minerals, they would lack a vehicle to make the trip. Recent research, however, has suggested that some noble gases are indeed recycled, leaving scientists at a loss to find a mechanism for it. By showing definitively that noble gases are soluble in amphibole, Jackson and his colleagues have shown how noble gases could be carried in subducting slabs.

The key to amphibole's ability to dissolve noble gases, the researchers say, is its lattice structure. Amphibole and other silicate minerals are made up of tetrahedral and octahedral structures linked together in a way that creates a series of rings. It's those rings, called A-sites, that provide a home for otherwise finicky noble gases, the research suggests.

Jackson performed a series of experiments to see if the number of empty rings in different types of amphibole were correlated to its ability to dissolve noble gases. He placed cut amphibole gems into a tube with helium or neon under high pressure and temperature, and then used a mass spectrometer to see how much of the gas had dissolved in each gem over the duration of each experiment. The experiments showed that noble gas solubility was highest in types of amphibole with the most unoccupied ring structures.

"This was the meat of the paper," Parman said. "It's telling us a specific site where we think the noble gases are. It might be the first time anyone has made a positive identification of where noble gases are going into a mineral."

Importantly, the researchers said, amphibole isn't the only crustal mineral with these ring structures. Ring structures are actually quite common in crustal minerals, and could provide a wide variety of potential vehicles that could take noble gases back to the depths via subduction.

A high-fidelity fingerprint

Understanding how noble gases are cycled between the Earth's surface and interior could shed new light on how other volatiles are recycled, the researchers said.

Scientists are particularly interested in tracking the cycling of water and carbon. Water is obviously vital for life, and carbon cycling has an important impact on the climate. Scientists try to track the cycle by looking at isotope ratios, which can provide a fingerprint that helps to identify where elements originated. Butarbon and the hydrogen in water have only a few isotopes that scientists can use for tracking, and in the case of hydrogen, the isotope ratios are easily thrown off by all kinds of natural processes.

The noble gases, on the other hand, have lots of isotopes, giving scientists ways to track them with great specificity. So if noble gases are cycled in the same minerals that cycle other volatiles like water and carbon, they could be used as a marker to track those other volatiles. "It's a very high-fidelity fingerprint because you have so many isotopes to play with," Jackson said.

There's more work to be done before noble gases could be used as such a fingerprint, but this work does provide a first step: showing which kinds of minerals could be responsible for noble gas recycling.

###

Other authors on the paper were Simon Kelley of The Open University in the United Kingdom and Reid Cooper, professor of geological sciences at Brown. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences (1019229).

Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call (401) 863-2476.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/bu-ngh061313.php

applebees jeff gordon veterans day When Is Veterans Day 2012 brooke burke Alexa Vega Bram Stoker books

Video: Schieffer to Snowden: Come home, face the consequences (cbsnews)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/313126813?client_source=feed&format=rss

Ryan Freel Melissa Nelson foot locker champs champs calvin johnson calvin johnson

AP IMPACT: Snowden's life surrounded by spycraft

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. The man who told the world about the U.S. government?s gigantic data grab also talked a lot about himself. Mostly through his own words, a picture of Edward Snowden is emerging: fresh-faced computer whiz, high school and Army dropout, independent thinker, trustee of official secrets. And leaker on the lam. (AP Photo/The Guardian) MANDATORY CREDIT

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. The man who told the world about the U.S. government?s gigantic data grab also talked a lot about himself. Mostly through his own words, a picture of Edward Snowden is emerging: fresh-faced computer whiz, high school and Army dropout, independent thinker, trustee of official secrets. And leaker on the lam. (AP Photo/The Guardian) MANDATORY CREDIT

FILE - This Sept. 19, 2007, file photo, shows the National Security Agency building at Fort Meade, Md. The government is secretly collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top-secret court order, according to the Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cailf., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Obama administration is defending the National Security Agency's need to collect such records, but critics are calling it a huge over-reach. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

A real estate sign stands in front of a home in Waipahu, Hawaii, Sunday, June 9, 2013, where Edward Snowden, source of disclosures about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs, lived with his girlfriend until recently. A Hawaii real estate agent says Snowden and his girlfriend moved out of the home near Honolulu on May 1, leaving nothing behind. (AP Photo/Anita Hofschneider)

(AP) ? In the suburbs edged by woods midway between Baltimore and the nation's capital, residents long joked that the government spy shop next door was so ultra-secretive its initials stood for "No Such Agency." But when Edward Snowden grew up here, the National Security Agency's looming presence was both a very visible and accepted part of everyday life.

When Snowden ?the 29-year-old intelligence contractor whose leak of top-secret documents has exposed sweeping government surveillance programs ? went to Arundel High School, the agency regularly sent employees from its nearby black-glass headquarters to tutor struggling math students.

When Snowden went on to Anne Arundel Community College in the spring of 1999 after leaving high school halfway through his sophomore year, he arrived on a campus developing a specialty in cybersecurity training for future employees of the NSA and Department of Defense, though, according to the records, he never took such a class.

And when Snowden joined friends in his late teens to edit a website built around a shared interest in Japanese animation, they chartered the venture from an apartment in military housing at Fort George G. Meade, the 8-square-mile installation that houses the NSA center dubbed the Puzzle Palace and calls itself the "nation's pre-eminent center for information, intelligence and cyber."

In this setting, it's easy to see how the young Snowden was exposed to the notion of spycraft as a career, first with the Central Intelligence Agency and later as a systems analyst for two companies under contract to the NSA. But details of his early life ? in the agency's shadows and with both parents working for other branches of the federal government ? only magnify the contradictions inherent in Snowden's decision to become a leaker.

What, after all, did he think he was getting into when he signed up to work for the nation's espionage agencies? And what specifically triggered a "crisis of conscience" ? as described by a friend who knew him when he worked for the CIA ? so profound that it convinced him to betray the secrets he was sworn to keep?

The latter is a question that even Snowden, in interviews since his disclosures, has answered piecemeal, describing his decisions as the same ones any thoughtful person would make if put in his position.

"I'm no different from anybody else," he said in a video interview with The Guardian, seated with his back to a mirror in what appears to be a Hong Kong hotel room, the tropical sunlight filtering through a curtained window. "I don't have special skills. I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watches what's happening and goes: This is not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong."

Posts to online blogs and forums, public records and interviews with Snowden's neighbors, teachers and acquaintances reveal someone who prized the American ideal of personal freedom but became disenchanted with the way government secretly operates in the name of national security.

Those who knew him describe him as introspective, but seem puzzled by where the mindset led him.

"He's very nice, shy, reserved," Jonathan Mills, the father of Snowden's longtime girlfriend, told The Associated Press outside his home in Laurel, Md. "He's always had strong convictions of right and wrong, and it kind of makes sense, but still, a shock."

Snowden, who was born in 1983, spent his early years in Elizabeth City, N.C., before his family moved to the Maryland suburbs when he was 9. His father, Lonnie, was a warrant officer for the U.S. Coast Guard, since retired. His mother, Elizabeth, who goes by Wendy, went to work for the U.S. District Court in Maryland in 1998 and is now its chief deputy of administration and information technology. An older sister, Jessica, is a lawyer working as a research associate for the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, according to LinkedIn.

In the suburbs south of Baltimore, the younger Snowden attended public elementary and middle schools in Crofton. In the fall of 1997, he enrolled at Arundel High School, a four-year school with about 2,000 students.

At all three schools, many parents worked for the military, nearby federal agencies and the contractors serving them. But those employed at the NSA were tight-lipped, said Jerud Ryker, a math teacher who retired from Arundel in 1998. He recounted conversations over the years with people who mentioned they worked for the spy agency.

"Oh, what do you do?" Ryker says he asked. The answer was always the same: "Nothing that I can talk about."

At Arundel, Snowden stayed only through the first half of his sophomore year, a school district spokesman said. Former teachers and classmates interviewed in the days since he surfaced as the leaker said they had no recollection of him.

It's not clear why he left. Four years later, in a post Snowden wrote for the anime website jokingly explaining his irritation with cartoon convention volunteers, he wrote: "I really am a nice guy, though. You see, I act arrogant and cruel because I was not hugged enough as a child, and because the public education system turned its wretched, spiked back on me."

Years later, he "made a big deal of it (failing to finish high school), just in our everyday conversations," Mavanee Anderson, who met Snowden when they worked together in Switzerland in 2007, said in an interview with MSNBC. "I think he was slightly embarrassed by it."

With high school behind him, Snowden registered at the community college, taking for-credit classes from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, as well as some non-credit classes in between, spokeswoman Laurie Farrell said. Snowden told friends and reporters that he later earned a high school GED certificate.

In 2001, Snowden's parents divorced and his father moved to Pennsylvania. The next year his mother bought a gray clapboard-sided condominium in nearby Ellicott City, Md., and her son, then 19, moved in by himself. His mother dropped by with groceries from time to time and a girlfriend visited on weekends, said Joyce Kinsey, a neighbor who lives across the street from the unit, where Snowden's mother now resides.

Otherwise, Snowden appeared most often by himself, said Kinsey, who recalled seeing him working on a computer through the open blinds "at all times of the day and night," a period that coincided with his work on the anime venture, Ryuhana Press.

During this same time, it appears Snowden became a prolific participant in a technology blog, Arstechnica, under the pseudonym TheTrueHOOHA, posting more than 750 comments between late 2001 and mid-2012. In 2002, he posted a query asking for advice about getting an information technology job in Japan and mentioned he was studying Japanese. Later he argued that by pirating poorly made software he was justly punishing companies for their ineptitude.

But he also touched on questions of security and privacy.

In one October 2003 thread, he asked so many questions about how to hide the identity of his computer server that another discussion participant asked why he was being so paranoid.

Snowden's answer: "Patriot Act. If they misinterpret that actions I perform, I could be a cyb4r terrorist and that would be very ... bad."

In another post that fall, he mulled the politics of personal identity.

"This is entirely dependent on the individual -- as is the definition of freedom. Freedom isn't a word the can be (pardon) freely defined," he wrote. "The saying goes, 'Live free or die,' I believe. That seems to intimate a conditional dependence on freedom as a requirement for happiness."

In that discussion, Snowden mentioned that he had identified himself as a Buddhist in paperwork he filled out for the Army. And in May 2004, he enlisted, with aspirations of becoming a Green Beret.

"I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression," he told The Guardian. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone."

Snowden reported to Fort Benning, Ga., in June 2004, where "he attempted to qualify to become a special forces soldier but did not complete the requisite training and was administratively discharged," said an Army spokesman, Col. David H. Patterson Jr.

Snowden left the Army at the end of that September. He mentioned on the tech forum that he was discharged after breaking both legs in accident, a detail the Army could not confirm.

He returned home, enrolling again in classes at the community college and working through most of 2005 as a security guard at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Study of Language, a mile off campus. The center, affiliated with the Department of Defense, says on its LinkedIn page that it was founded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to help the intelligence community improve language preparedness. But a university spokesman said the center's work is not classified.

When he went public with his decision to leak the NSA's documents, Snowden told interviewers that he studied at Maryland, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Liverpool.

A Maryland spokesman, Crystal Brown, said Snowden did not take classes at the school's flagship campus. However, Robert Ludwig, a spokesman for the University of Maryland University College, which offers classes online and at military bases, said Snowden registered for one term in its Asia Division in the summer of 2009, but did not earn a certificate or degree.

Johns Hopkins said it had no record of Snowden taking classes. The only possibility, the school said, is that he might have enrolled at a private, for-profit entity that offered career training under the name Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The university said it ended its relationship with the training school in 2009 and it had since shut down, making it impossible to check any records.

Liverpool said in a statement that Snowden had registered for an online masters' program in computer security in 2011, but never completed it.

Snowden has said that he was hired by the CIA to work on information technology security and in 2007 was assigned by the agency to work in Geneva, Switzerland. Anderson, Snowden's friend at the time, made the same assertion.

The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed that Snowden lived and worked in Geneva, where it says he was accredited to the United Nations as a U.S. Mission employee from March 2007 to February 2009.

Snowden appears to have been well-known among U.S. staff in Geneva, though none of those contacted by the AP would comment about him. But Anderson, who met Snowden when she spent part of 2007 as a legal intern at the mission, said many others can't speak out in his defense, for fear of losing their jobs. In both the cable TV interview and an op-ed piece for Tennessee's Chattanooga Times Free Press, she recalled him fondly as very intelligent ? and increasingly troubled about his work.

"During that time period he did quit the CIA, so I knew that he was having a crisis of conscience of sorts," Anderson said in the TV interview. "But I am still surprised, even shocked. He never gave me any indication that he would reveal anything that was top secret." She could not be reached for additional comment.

Snowden told The Guardian he was discouraged by an incident in which he claimed CIA agents tried to recruit a Swiss banker to provide secret information. They purposely got him drunk, Snowden said, and when he was arrested for driving while intoxicated, an agent offered to help as a way to forge a bond.

"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he said.

Snowden has said he left the embassy to take a job with private contractors for the NSA ? first with Dell, the computer company.

That work appears to have taken him to multiple locations. Public records show Snowden had a mailing address with the U.S. military in Asia, and he has said that he worked at an NSA installation on a U.S. military base in Japan. His girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, wrote on her blog that the two had fallen in love with Japanese street festivals.

By then, Snowden and Mills ? who was raised in Laurel, Md., on the opposite side of Fort Meade from where Snowden grew up ? had long been a couple, albeit a study in contrasts. The 28-year-old Mills, who earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, styles herself a performer, frequently posting carefully composed photos to a blog and Facebook page, many of them showing her scantily clad, pole dancing and doing acrobatics.

A friend of Mills from Laurel High School, Erin Shaw, said that back then Mills was a creative spirit, notable in the photography work they did together on the school newspaper, The Shield. But she also was relatively quiet, making it a surprise that she ended up comfortable as a performer, rather than in an arts-related job behind the camera or backstage, Shaw said.

"Lindsay is a wonderful, sweet, caring person who is artistic and beautiful," Shaw said, speaking in the midst of a move from Texas to California. "The idea of caring about state secrets does not occur to me that is anything she would be part of or care about."

After Japan, Snowden's work took him back to Maryland. In March 2012, he listed an address in Columbia when he made a donation to Rep. Ron Paul's campaign for president. But when he made another contribution to the campaign two months later, Snowden listed an address in Hawaii. Mills, his girlfriend, joined him in Hawaii in June of last year, and they settled into a rented blue house on a corner lot fringed with palmettos.

Neighbors said the couple were pleasant, quiet and kept to themselves.

Angel Cunanan, a 79-year-old doctor who lives next door, said he would wave to them and say hello in the morning.

"Sometimes I said, 'Why don't you come in for a cup of coffee?' But they never did," Cunanan said. Cunanan says Snowden said he worked for the military.

Another neighbor, Carolyn Tijing, said the couple always left the blinds closed and stacked the garage from floor to ceiling with moving boxes, so high they blocked any view inside.

Mills' online posts hint at a happy home life in Hawaii together: pictures of sunsets, time on the beach and his-and-hers cups of Japanese shaved ice.

But by January of this year, Snowden secretly was edging forward with a plan to leak NSA documents, contacting documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras with an anonymous offer to share information on U.S. intelligence. The following month he contacted Glenn Greenwald, an American living in Brazil who writes on surveillance issues for The Guardian, as well as Barton Gellman, a reporter for The Washington Post.

In March, Snowden switched employers, moving to contractor Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii. The company confirmed he was employee for less than three months, at an annual salary of $122,000.

Snowden and Mills prepared for a May 1 move a couple of blocks away, because the owner of the rental wanted to put it up for sale.

"E and I received the keys to our next abode yesterday," Mills wrote on her blog on April 15. "We took time to envision what each room could look like once we crammed our things in them. And even discussed hanging silks in the two-story main room."

Mills headed back to the East Coast for a visit and when she returned to Hawaii, she wrote, Snowden unexpectedly told her he, too, needed to get away; he told his employer that he needed some time off for medical treatment. On May 20, Snowden flew to Hong Kong.

Three weeks later, as intelligence officials raced to control the damage from the NSA leaks, Snowden revealed himself as the person responsible.

"When you're in positions of privileged access," Snowden told The Guardian, "you see things that may be disturbing...until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public ? not by somebody who is simply hired by the government."

___

Geller reported from New York. AP writers Oskar Garcia and Anita Hofschneider in Hawaii; John Heilprin in Geneva; Kimberly Dozier, Jack Gillum and Jessica Gresko in Washington, D.C.; Emery Dalesio in Raleigh, N.C.; Brock Vergakis in Elizabeth City, N.C.; Sylvia Hui in London; and AP researchers Judith Ausuebel, Rhonda Shafner and Monika Mathur in New York contributed to this story. Geller can be reached at features @ ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdGeller

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate@ap.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-15-US-NSA%20Surveillance-Snowden%20Profile/id-8ca697d395c7420c860c8f2ac8244727

finish line kentucky derby Iron Man 3 Emmett Till margaret thatcher MET GALA 2013 proflowers