LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jim Carrey, who raised the hackles of the right wing by calling Fox News - or, rather, "Fux News" - a "giant culture fart" and with his criticism of assault rifles, has fired off another round in the debate, calling some of his harsher critics "thugs" and "a minority."
He also says that he doesn't want to infringe on anyone's Second Amendment rights.
Bemoaning the lack of civility he says he's encountered, Carrey writes in a column published Tuesday on the Huffington Post, "It is shocking to see this concerted effort to brutally intimidate anyone who speaks of a compassionate compromise ... These thugs, though menacing, are a minority, but they will have their way if good people don't step forward now and make a difference."
Carrey also emphasized, "NO ONE IS ASKING ANYONE TO GIVE UP THEIR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS." Instead, he says, he hopes "we can limit" access to weapons that cause "massive devastation to good and innocent people."
"No one is allowed to own a bazooka. In a movie theater an assault rifle with a 100-round drum magazine can cause just as much damage," Carrey writes.
The actor stirred up the gun-control debate last week with his Funny or Die music video "Cold Dead Hand," which criticizes gun-control opponents.
Carrey released a statement later in the week, claiming that he'd seen "Fux News" - presumably, a reference to Fox News Channel - "rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles.
"I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery. That would gain them far too much attention which is all they really care about," Carrey added while giving the network's commentary attention.
Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld subsequently took a shot at Carrey on "The Five," calling Carrey "washed-up."
"I guess Jimmy thought he couldn't lose a debate to a dead man," Gutfeld said, referring to deceased actor and former NRA president Charlton Heston. "That's what's really funny - he did and now Charlton Heston has a brighter future in films than Jim Carrey."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tom Hanks impressed critics with his Broadway debut in "Lucky Guy", Nora Ephron's final play, but the late Hollywood writer and director did not fare so well with her newsroom-set drama that opened on Monday night.
As tabloid journalist Mike McAlary, who won a Pulitzer Prize covering New York police scandals and lurid crimes for the Daily News and New York Post, Hanks rewards audiences "with a committed, generous performance by the real-deal star," Entertainment Weekly said.
The Hollywood Reporter said Hanks, a two-time Oscar winner already seen as a Tony award front-runner for his work in the play, "is not afraid to make the character an abrasive jerk, yet the actor's innate integrity ensures that we feel for Mike when he takes some hard knocks."
McAlary was a hard-drinking, hard-living reporter who died young, at 41, from cancer in 1998.
"Although he hasn't trod the boards in years, the affable movie star takes to the stage like a fish to water," Variety said about Hanks, whose stage acting had been limited to small Shakespeare productions in the 1970s.
But critics were less enthusiastic about Ephron's play.
"Although it's heartfelt, the show is a hodgepodge. Long-winded and overly linear, it skates along on a just-the-facts-ma'am surface like a typical TV movie," the Daily News said.
The New York Post, where Ephron worked for several years early in her career in the 1960s, said, "The show springs from her deep affection for the trade and its ink-stained wretches."
It described the play as a fun, entertaining eulogy.
Like most, the New York Times liked Hanks' work more than the play itself.
"Hanks is always gamely and industriously present to act as an animated illustration for (McAlary's) tales," the newspaper said. "But he's not given much room to be more."
It added that the play "turns out to be little more than the sum of its anecdotes," and "often feels only newsprint deep," in contrast with Ephron's sharp film and essay writing.
Entertainment Weekly described the play as "inconsequential and dramatically inert" and a "dull, stalled play about a not-particularly-noteworthy mug with a flair for self-promotion."
The Hollywood Reporter gave the play a split decision, saying that while it was by no means exceptional drama and not exactly packed with complexity, it was "intelligently written, engrossing and laced with crackling humor."
Hanks had a long collaboration with Ephron, including hit films such as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail." Ephron died in June at the age of 71 of complications from leukemia. Hanks and wife Rita Wilson spoke at her memorial service.
The reviews, in the end, could prove to be irrelevant. In its first week of previews, the play took in more $1 million, along the lines of hits such as "The Book of Mormon," "The Lion King" and "Wicked."
But critics noted that prospects outside New York, or without Hanks in the starring role, were uncertain. Ephron's 2002 Broadway play, "Imaginary Friends," closed after a short run.
Apr. 2, 2013 ? Beekeepers and researchers nationally are reporting growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides may be killing off bumblebees. Now, research at the University of Pittsburgh points toward another potential cause: metal pollution from aluminum and nickel.
Published in the journal Environmental Pollution, the Pitt study finds that bumblebees are at risk of ingesting toxic amounts of metals like aluminum and nickel found in flowers growing in soil that has been contaminated by exhaust from vehicles, industrial machinery, and farming equipment. The Pitt study finds that bumblebees have the ability to taste -- and later ignore -- certain metals such as nickel, but can do so only after they visit a contaminated flower. Therefore, the insects are exposed to toxins before they even sense the presence of metals.
"Although many metals are required by living organisms in small amounts, they can be toxic to both plants and animals when found in moderate to high concentrations," said Tia-Lynn Ashman, principal investigator of the study and professor and associate chair in Pitt's Department of Biological Sciences in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. "Beyond leading to mortality, these metals can interfere with insect taste perception, agility, and working memory -- all necessary attributes for busy bumblebee workers."
Ashman and George Meindl, coauthor of the study and a PhD candidate in Ashman's lab, studied bumblebee behavior using the Impatiens capensis, a North American flower that blooms in summer. Its flowers are large, producing a high volume of sugar-rich nectar each day -- an ideal place for bumblebees to forage. The blooms were collected from the field each morning of the two-week study and were of a similar age, color, and size.
To determine whether nickel and aluminum in the flowers' nectar influenced bumblebee behavior, Ashman and Meindl used two groups of uncontaminated flowers, one group of flowers contaminated by nickel, and another contaminated by aluminum. When a bumblebee visited a flower in an array, the entire visitation was recorded as well as the time spent (in seconds) foraging on each individual flower. This included monitoring whether the bee moved from a contaminated to a noncontaminated flower, whether the bee moved to the same group it had just sampled, or whether the bee left the flower group without visiting other individual blooms. Following each observed visit, all flowers in the array were replaced with new flowers, to ensure accurate results.
"We found that the bees still visited those flowers contaminated by metal, indicating that they can't detect metal from afar," said Ashman. "However, once bumblebees arrive at flowers and sample the nectar, they are able to discriminate against certain metals."
In the study, the bees were able to taste, discriminate against, and leave flowers containing nickel. However, this was not the case for the aluminum-treated flowers, as the bees foraged on the contaminated flowers for time periods equal to those of the noncontaminated flowers.
"It's unclear why the bees didn't sense the aluminum," said Meindl. "However, past studies show that the concentrations of aluminum found throughout blooms tend to be higher than concentrations of nickel. This suggests that the bees may be more tolerant or immune to its presence."
These results also have implications for environmentally friendly efforts to decontaminate soil, in particular a method called phytoremediation -- a promising approach that involves growing metal-accumulating plants on polluted soil to remove such contaminates. Ashman says this approach should be considered with caution because the bees observed in the study foraged on metal-rich flowers. She states that further research is needed to identify plants that are ecologically safe and won't pose threats to local animals that pollinate.
The paper, "The effects of aluminum and nickel in nectar on the foraging behavior of bumblebees" first appeared online March 6 in Environmental Pollution. Funding was provided by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's Powdermill Nature Reserve in Rector, Pa., a Botany-In-Action Fellowship from the Phipps Botanical Garden and Conservatory in Pittsburgh, an Ivey McManus Predoctoral Fellowship to Meindl, and a National Science Foundation grant (DEB 1020523) to Ashman. The bees were observed at a nature reserve in Western Pennsylvania during August and September 2012.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pittsburgh.
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Journal Reference:
George A. Meindl, Tia-Lynn Ashman. The effects of aluminum and nickel in nectar on the foraging behavior of bumblebees. Environmental Pollution, 2013; 177: 78 DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2013.02.017
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2 April 2013Last updated at 08:19 ETBy Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News, Cern, Geneva
Engineer Katy Foraz shows Pallab Ghosh how to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider
Engineers have begun a major upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Their work should double the energy of what's already the most powerful particle accelerator in the world.
BBC News is the first to be allowed to see inside the LHC - on the French-Swiss border - to watch the work being carried out.
Scientists believe the upgrade will enable them to discover new particles which will lead to a more complete theory of how the Universe works.
A project leader with the LHC's Atlas experiment, Dr Pippa Wells told BBC News that there was much more to come from the LHC.
"The past two years have been the most exciting in my time as a particle physicist. People are absolutely fired up. They've made one new discovery (the Higgs) and they want to make more discoveries with the new high energies that the upgrade will give us. We could find a new realm of particle physics".
I was taken by the technical coordinator for the upgrade project, Katy Foraz and Cern's UK communications manager Stephanie Hills, to one of the many access points to the LHC's underground tunnels.
Continue reading the main story
LHC Upgrade
Replace 10,000 connections
Install 5,000 insulation systems
10170 leak tests
18,000 electrical tests
Total cost ?70m
We entered a lift shaft with two buttons marked zero and minus 1. Katy hit minus 1 and we made our way 100 metered below the surface.
As the lift doors opened we walked to a large heavy green door which we strained to open.
As we went through it was like entering Aladdin's cave.
No jewels or gold - but one of the largest and most complex machines ever built. A bright blue superconducting beam-line stretches into the distance - around it are gleaming precision instruments to make the line one of the coldest places in the Universe.
In front of me engineers were replacing some the first connectors. In all 10,000 will need to be changed. 800 people are involved in this project which will cost ?70m.
The tasks also include testing and replacing some of the LHC's main dipole and quadrupole magnets, which are used to bend the paths of the particles and keep them tightly bunched; conducting tests to detect any irregularities in the magnets or imperfections in the electrical insulation; and a range of other work to improve the machine.
Continue reading the main story
?Start Quote
We are always at the limit of what we know in terms of the technology. It is very exciting for an engineer to be close to all these new technologies?
End QuoteKaty ForazLHC Upgrade coordinator
The LHC is known for its cutting edge science. But as we walked to this scientific wonderland Katy told me that for her and her team people forget that the particle accelerator is also on the cutting edge of engineering, after all creating the conditions of the beginning of the Universe is no easy feat.
"We are always at the limit of what we know in terms of the technology. It is very exciting: as the coordinator I have access to all the technology and they really are at their limit in terms of superconductivity cryogenics. It is very exciting for an engineer to be close to all these new technologies," she said.
Katy and her team of engineers are calling the work an "upgrade". But critics say it's a repair.
As we walked passed a team replacing a damaged connector Cern's Stephanie Hills was quick to respond to the charge that this expensive refit is putting right a mistake that shouldn't have been made in the first place.
"Nobody has ever done this kind of technology before. Everything from the most basic welding to the most complicated beam diagnostics is pushing the boundaries of technology, and sometimes these things just don't go right simply because we don't know how it's going to work," she told me.
"You can see in front of us the way that we're managing the upgrade is meticulous. There is lots and lots of quality control, making sure that everything's absolutely spot-on so that when we turn the machine back on we are absolutely ready for some more fantastic scientific discoveries."
The damage was done shortly after the switch on of the Large Hadron Collider in September 2008.
The LHC upgrade will enable it to discover new particles. Pallab Ghosh explains how this will lead to a radical change in our understanding of how the Universe works.
Nine days later it broke down because the connections between the superconducting magnets simply couldn't take the current running through them.
It took a year and ?24 million pounds of taxpayer's money to repair the damage. Even then it could only operate on half power. That was enough to discover the much sought-after Higgs Boson.
Continue reading the main story
?Start Quote
The LHC is more than just a one trick pony, We hope to find something completely new that will change our understanding of the Universe. ?
End QuoteDr Pippa WellsAtlas Project Leader
Those in charge made a pragmatic decision. They decided to press ahead to keep their funders happy.
To their joy and relief scientists had found their prize last summer. And so at the beginning of this year it was politically possible for Cern to begin the long shut down to fix faulty connections.
Back above ground, students from around the world are shown the Atlas control room, one of the places where data from the LHC will be gathered when it is switched back on. That is something for the students to look forward to - because after the upgrade the beams will be crashing into each other at twice the power.
This will enable researchers here to move on to their ultimate goal: to find evidence of so-called "new physics", which they believe, will lead to a new more compete theory of sub-atomic physics.
The discovery of the Higgs last year was the end of a successful chapter of late 20th century physics.
This was the development of the current theory in the 1960s and 70s called the "Standard Model".
This theory says that most of the forces of nature, the objects around us and our own existence, is all down to the interaction of the Higgs with 16 other particles. It successfully explains how electricity, magnetism and light operate.
Since then, all the particles predicted by the Standard Model have been discovered - most recently the Higgs.
The problem though is that more recently scientists have found that this theory is limited. It explains the world around us extremely well - but it can't explain the way most of the Universe behaves.
Physicists hope that by operating at full power, the LHC will be able to find evidence of so-called supersymmetric particles. These are like the particles on the Standard Model - but more massive.
One form of supersymmetry predicts that there should be five Higgs Bosons, which are each slightly different. The first order of business for LHC scientists when the collisions resume in 2015 will be to test the Higgs that's been discovered, to see if it shows any of the properties predicted by supersymmetry, according to Dr Wells.
"The LHC is more than just a one trick pony," said Dr Wells. "It wasn't designed to find just the Higgs. We hope to find something completely new that will change our understanding of the Universe. We are on the threshold of finding many more new particles."
Apr. 1, 2013 ? In a crucial step towards developing a successful HIV vaccine, researchers have been able, for the first time, to stimulate immune cells that can produce broadly neutralizing antibodies: a feat that has eluded vaccine researchers for decades. The exciting results are published in this month's issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
It is widely accepted that a successful vaccine against HIV/AIDS would have to elicit antibodies to prevent infection from a wide spectrum of HIV strains. So far, no candidate vaccine for HIV has been able to produce such antibodies.
Leonidas Stamatatos, Andrew McGuire and their team of researchers at Seattle BioMed, in collaboration with colleagues at The Rockefeller University, the Scripps Research Institute and CalTech, wanted to understand why that was the case. A major goal of an HIV vaccine is to stimulate B cells to create antibodies that can effectively block HIV from entering a human host cell. The first generation of antibodies -- called "germline antibodies" -- are partially embedded in a B cell's membrane. If a germline antibody binds to a protein (called an "envelope protein") on the surface of HIV, even weakly, then the B cell is activated and begins producing antibodies not only on the surface of B cells, but also in the bloodstream. Activated B cells evolve to produce antibodies with even higher binding affinity to HIV, eventually resulting in a "mature" antibody. Some mature antibodies can bind to envelope proteins of many different HIV strains and prevent them from infecting cells. For this reason, these antibodies are called "broadly neutralizing antibodies." These are the antibodies a vaccine needs to elicit.
A small number of people infected with HIV naturally produce broadly neutralizing antibodies. By sequencing the DNA of their mature antibodies, Stamatatos and McGuire were able to deduce what the originating germline antibodies likely looked like. They then tested how well the mature and germline antibodies bound to the envelope protein of different HIV strains from around the world. Some of these envelope proteins have been tested previously as vaccine candidates, but they did not elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies. While the mature antibodies were able to bind 80-90% of these diverse envelope proteins, the germline antibodies did not bind at all. This indicated that a problem with previously tested HIV vaccines is that they do not bind to germline antibodies on B cells that ultimately give rise to mature, broadly neutralizing antibodies. Without this first binding step, the immune response to HIV is stopped before it can even truly begin.
Next, they turned to the structure of the HIV envelope proteins to determine why they were able to bind to the mature antibodies but not the germline. They discovered that several sugar molecules, called glycans, which HIV adds to its envelope protein to evade the immune system, were blocking the germline antibody from binding to and activating B cells.
After engineering an HIV envelope protein that lacks specific glycans, McGuire and Stamatatos ran their binding tests again. This time, the germline antibodies were able to bind the modified HIV protein. They also verified that the modified HIV protein was capable of starting the process of antibody maturation in B cells, kicking off an immune response that could eventually result in broadly neutralizing antibodies.
"We have overcome the first obstacle to elicit one type of anti-HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies through vaccination," explains McGuire. By administering the modified HIV protein as a vaccine, the immune system could become equipped to combat the real virus when it is encountered years down the line.
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A Dutch company wants to send four people, selected via reality-show-style elimination, on a permanent trip to the Red Planet in 2022.
By David Mielach,?Business News Daily / April 1, 2013
A scientist participates in a month-long Mars field simulation in the northern Sahara near Erfoud in Morocco, February 2013. Directed by a Mission Support Center in Austria, the small field crew conducted experiments to prepare for future human Mars missions.
Katja Zanella-Kux/OeWF/Reuters
Enlarge
Humans may not have landed on Mars just yet, but that isn?t stopping a Dutch company from devising a plan to send four people to the Red Planet within the next 10 years. The initiative, dubbed Mars One, aims to send a small group of people to Mars in 2022 and eventually establish a permanent colony on the planet.
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"Everything we need to go to Mars exists,? said Mars One?co-founder Bas Lansdorp. ?We have the rockets to send people to Mars, the equipment to land on Mars, the robotics to prepare the settlement for humans ? so, for a one-way mission, all the technology exists.?
But that?s the caveat: The four astronauts chosen for the trip will be stuck on Mars?? forever.? And despite Mars One?s thorough planning, there are a number of challenges that may prevent the mission from ever taking place. The biggest road block could be the mission?s $6 billion price tag. However, Lansdorp is confident that Mars One will be able to fund the project by selling the broadcast rights for the mission and subsequent experiences living on the planet.
Those broadcast rights will also play a part in helping to select the people who will be sent to Mars. Lansdorp said the company will hold a national selection process akin to a reality show. Lansdorp is expecting at least 1 million applications from people around the world, ABC News reports.?
In addition to the cost, several other potential problems could inhibit the mission to Mars. ? ?
"To send people there with life support, with food, with air, with all the other things that they'll need ? books, entertainment, means of communication and means of providing for their own resources for a long stay on Mars ? that's even more challenging,? said Adam Baker, senior lecturer in space engineering at Kingston University in London. ?The sheer size of the rockets you'd need to do this would be absolutely colossal.?
However, Mars One is up to the challenge. The company hopes to launch a rocket in 2022 and land on Mars in 2023. ABC News reports that the initial group would work on constructing a colony on Mars, while additional team members?would continue to land on the planet every two years.?
Email?David Mielach?or follow him @D_M89. Follow us?@bndarticles,?Facebook?or?Google+.
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April 4 public rally called off; party to hold public meetin?g in Nauder?o House on April 3.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. PHOTO: AFP
KARACHI:?
Putting an end to a guessing game about his tiff with his father, Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Tuesday that he would lead the election campaign of his party which will kick-start on April 3 from Naudero House in Larkana.
The PPP was supposed to stage a big public rally in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, the ancestral village of the Bhutto family, on the anniversary of the hanging of its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on April 4, 1979.
The rally was, however, called off for security reasons.? ?We are not organising a big national-level rally this time. Meetings are being held at district level separately,? Naudero House spokesperson Ghulam Mustafa Leghari said.
Speaking to members of PPP?s provincial and federal parliamentary boards via video link from Bilawal House in Karachi, the scion of the Bhutto family directed them to finalise the allotment of party tickets without any delay.
?It is high time party workers and leadership stood up and started preparations for the upcoming election. We want a massive campaign across the country,? he said.
Senior PPP leaders dispelled the rumours that their party would not stage public rallies as part of its election campaign due to security threats.
?At least 20 massive public rallies will be held in different cities and towns, which will be addressed by Bilawal Bhutto,? Qamar Zaman Kaira told The Express Tribune. Bilawal would also address corner meetings of the party during the election campaign.
At Tuesday?s meeting seven committees were formed to monitor the election campaign, with a central committee to be supervised by Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
Punjab has been divided into three parts:? former premier Raja Pervaiz Asharf is responsible for upper Punjab, former chief minister Mian Manzoor Wattoo for central Punjab and former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani for south Punjab.
Sindh?s former chief minister Qaim Ali Shah will lead PPP?s election campaign in Sindh, Anwar Saifullah in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sadiq Umrani and Sardar Fateh Muhammad Hasni in Balochistan.
Party Chairperson Bilawal directed Kaira to activate the party?s media cells and start mobilising the media about the PPP election campaign. ?Bilawal Bhutto has said election cells be established at provincial and district levels,? said a PPP leader, who attended the meeting.
Meanwhile, a large number of PPP workers belonging to its minority wing protested outside Bilawal House against alleged discrimination in the award of party tickets. They claimed that the party was awarding tickets only to well-off Hindus and neglecting its jiyalas from the Christian and scheduled caste communities.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2013.
