LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Gwyneth Paltrow says she's thrilled to be picked by People magazine as "World's Most Beautiful Woman" for 2013 but it's "obviously not true."
Paltrow questioned her own selection as she walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of "Iron Man 3" Wednesday night.
"It's funny, these things, because it's like obviously not true. But it's very sweet to be named that," Paltrow told The Associated Press. "Because I mean you can't say that, you know! But it's been wonderful. It's been very wonderful. And as my friend said, it's so nice that someone who has kids and is a mom and is not like 21 is named that. It's really an honor."
Paltrow said her two children weren't aware of the news in this week's edition of the magazine, but she'd been getting plenty of congratulatory emails from friends and family.
The 40-year-old actress stars as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's love interest and assistant-turned-business partner in the "Iron Man" trilogy. Her co-stars in "Iron Man 3" praised People's proclamation.
"Completely justified. Completely justified. She's gorgeous," said Guy Pearce.
"Let me tell you: She is as gracious and beautiful inside as she is outside. She's got a good heart. She's got a good heart. A lovely girl," said Ben Kingsley.
Apr. 24, 2013 ? Billions of people worldwide burn animal dung, crop residues, wood and charcoal to cook their meals. And the chemicals produced and inhaled sicken or kill millions. At particular risk are women who prepare their families' food and children 5-years-old or younger.
Up to now, most interventions have focused on improving the cookstove to lower emissions. And that would be fine, if there were enough improved cookstoves to go around. But there aren't. In 2012, only 2.5 million improved cookstoves were distributed, improving the household air pollution situation for exactly one-half of 1 percent of the world's biomass burners.
So an interdisciplinary team of Michigan Technological University students took a different tack. They decided to look for ways to improve the cooking environment, not just the stove. And they found a low-cost, highly effective way to reduce the impact of cooking over biomass fires without designing and installing high-tech, costly stoves.
Better ventilation.
The cookstove project was born in small town on the Guatemalan border with Mexico, where Michigan Tech environmental engineering graduate student Kelli Whelan was working on an Engineers Without Borders project. She noticed that the kitchen of a family who had built an attic to insulate their house from a hot aluminum roof was much cooler than others she had visited, although they all used the same kind of wood-burning cookstove.
"That made me wonder if the temperature difference helped clear the smoke out, either by a draft or the greater temperature differential between the fire and the surrounding space," she explains.
When she returned to Michigan Tech, Whelan and several fellow environmental engineering graduate students started work on a project to explore the situation. They built both a working model of a biomass cookstove and a computer model to test different kitchen and cooking conditions.
After receiving the EPA P3 grant, they surveyed Peace Corps Master's International and Pavlis Global Technological Leadership Institute students at Tech who had worked in countries where biomass-burning cookstoves are used. They also conducted more physical and computational model tests, 57 of them, testing for the presence and transport of particulate matter, carbon monoxide and carbon, as well as comparing wind speed, temperature, humidity, roofing materials, wall height, cookstove placement and windows and doors open or closed.
"Our focus was not on ventilation, but on trying to determine which factors really influence the air quality in a kitchen and which do not," said Whelan.
They discovered that ventilation is very important. "The improved cookstoves, which are supposed to reduce emissions, actually made the air quality worse under completely enclosed conditions," she said. "In contrast, we saw the greatest reduction in ambient particulate matter and carbon monoxide with an improved cookstove and with windows and doors open."
They also learned that not all ventilation helps. "Having two windows open on opposite ends of the kitchen was best, whereas having all the windows and doors open was worse," Whelan said. "This is because having all outlets open creates turbulence inside the kitchen, and the smoke is not forced out."
The Michigan Tech students took the results of their field and computer modeling analysis of cookstove air pollution to the EPA Sustainable Design Expo in Washington, DC, last week.
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Dwayne Johnson, who many of us know as “The Rock”, tweeted fans a photo of himself in a Superman tee from his hospital bed, following his emergency hernia surgery. Johnson, who was unable to attend the LA premiere for his new film “Pain & Gain”, had to have an emergency operation to repair three hernial ...
At this point, you're almost weirder if you don't use any social networks than if you were a social media obsessive who tweets, Facebooks, Instagram and hashtags the hell out of your vocabulary. It's how weird the world is now. Social networks are real life. But who are the people who make up these worlds? If there are 12 personality types in social networks, which one are you? More »
The First Lutheran Church of Oklahoma City dug up and opened its Century Chest, a time capsule that was buried under the church 100 years ago.
The artifacts inside the copper chest were remarkably well intact. Credit for that goes to the church's Ladies Aide Society, the group that buried the capsule a century ago. The group buried the chest in double concrete walls and under 12 inches of concrete, according Fox News. It also left guidelines on how to unearth the capsule.
The chest was full of treasures. Among the finds: a newspaper from the day the capsule was buried (April 22, 1913); a dress; a telephone; a flag; a pen used by President William McKinley; a camera; and a pair of women's shoes that still had their shine. Perhaps most remarkable was a phonograph record featuring voices of citizens from the era.
The Oklahoma Gazette reported that the project was the brainchild of Virginia Sohlberg. Her great-granddaughter, Virginia Eason Weinmann, was especially moved by a book that contained family photos and poetry.
Experts from the Oklahoma Historical Society worked with the church to make sure the objects were handled with care. All of the items will be displayed at the Oklahoma History Center.
This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this? Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)
This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this? Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)
NEW YORK (AP) ? It's a vexing puzzle about the Boston Marathon bombings: The younger of the two accused brothers hardly seemed headed for a monumental act of violence. How could he team up with his older brother to do this?
Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week at age 26 in a shootout with police, and his 19-year-old sibling Dzhokhar are hardly the first brothers involved in criminal acts. Three pairs of brothers were among the 9/11 terrorists, for example, and three brothers were convicted in 2008 for planning to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
"There are a lot of criminal enterprises where you have brothers involved," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "It is almost always the older brother who is the leader. ... Typically the younger brother looks up to the older brother in many ways."
Friends and relatives paint markedly different pictures of the Tsarnaev pair. Tamerlan could be argumentative and sullen, saying at one point he hadn't made a single American friend since immigrating years earlier, and he was arrested in 2009 for assault and battery on a girlfriend before those charges were dismissed. Dzhokhar appears to have been well-adjusted and well-liked in both high school and college.
Tamerlan seemed to be the dominant sibling in the family.
"He was the eldest one and he, in many ways, was the role model for his sisters and his brother," said Elmirza Khozhugov, 26, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister, Ailina. "You could always hear his younger brother and sisters say, 'Tamerlan said this,' and 'Tamerlan said that.' Dzhokhar loved him. He would do whatever Tamerlan would say."
Federal officials say their initial questioning of Dzhokhar suggests both brothers were motivated by a radical brand of Islam without apparent connections to terrorist groups. Their uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, has blamed their alleged bombing partnership on Tamerlan, saying Dzhokhar has been "absolutely wasted by his older brother ... He used him ... for what we see they've done."
Research shows that older brothers can have a direct influence on younger ones, says Katherine Conger, an associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of California-Davis.
"Sometimes it's through having a high quality relationship. So they spend time together, they enjoy doing things together and kind of hang out," she said. But other times, she said, it's through coercion and threats.
Studies show that children and adolescents can be influenced toward theft, vandalism and alcohol use by their older siblings. The influence is even more pronounced when parenting is harsh, inconsistent or absent, and when the two siblings share the same friends, experts said.
So how might that apply to the Tsarnaev brothers? There are several reasons to be wary about extrapolating the research to this case: So little is known about the brothers' family lives and other details. And most sibling research examines more ordinary infractions occurring in Western cultures ? not the extreme behavior believed carried out by the Tsarnaevs, who shared both an American culture and an ethnic Chechen background.
Still, from the sketchy details in press reports, some experts said it makes sense that Tamerlan could have had a major influence on his younger brother. That may have been through a close relationship or coercion, Conger said. "It's really hard to know."
Lew Bank of Portland State University in Oregon said Dzhokhar may have looked up to his older brother and wanted to please him. "It was very likely exciting for the younger brother to be so intensively at work with his big brother at something that seemed so important to them both," Bank said.
The relationship may have intensified when both parents left the country within the past year or so, leaving Tamerlan as Dzhokhar's dominant family member, he said. Tamerlan may have taken on a father-like role, said Avidan Milevsky of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.
But for Laurie Kramer of the University of Illinois, a key question remains. Why couldn't Dzhokhar tell his older brother, "This isn't right, this isn't acceptable?" she asked. "This seems to be a case where a little bit more sibling conflict might have been useful."
Tumblr has updated its iOS application for iPhone and iPad with new sharing options and other features – a move which follows yesterday’s launch of Tumblr for Windows Phone. Unfortunately, however, the iOS version didn’t get the fancy new, almost Path-like animations the Android version received earlier this month. So yeah, the Android version is currently the better application. Surprise! Okay, that’s a subjective call, I’ll admit. But I rather like the now-trendy, little, round buttons in the Tumblr Android version, which pop out when you tap the “compose” option. And no, I don’t care if everyone is doing round now. Besides, only hipsters will whine about Tumblr copying Path at this point anyway. As for today’s iOS enhancements, the company touts the release as offering you tools that let you “do more than just reblog.” Specifically, you can share to Twitter and Facebook, save items in Instapaper and Pocket, email posts in a templated format, and more. A couple of new tweaks are included as well, such as a gesture that lets you close photos by flinging them up or down, and the ability to search your Following list, which is now organized and grouped by the first letter of their name. Also ads. Oh, and the absolutely most important feature update ever? GIFs now animate when you scroll. WHEN YOU SCROLL. It’s almost like the real Internet now. This feature only works on iPad 2, 3, 4 and iPad mini, iPod Touch 5th gen., and iPhone 4S and 5 – so, nearly everything but your kid’s old hand-me down iPad, and dad’s iPhone 3GS which he thinks still works just fine, thank you very much. But I don’t think those guys are on Tumblr yet so we’re good. iOS: Android:
The specter of the Boston Marathon bombings ? and the fact that they were allegedly carried out by two immigrants to the United States ? continues to hang over the immigration reform efforts underway in the Senate.
A seven-hour hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday showed that those opposed to the Gang of Eight?s legislation seem willing to point to national security concerns as a reason to delay or significantly alter the immigration bill.
?The background checks in this bill are insufficient to prevent a terrorist from getting the amnesty,? argued Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who helped author Arizona?s famously strict immigration law. ?The Tamerlan Tsarnaev example demonstrates how important an alien's ability to have freedom of movement and to travel abroad for terrorist connections and terrorist training is and how dangerous it can be for Americans,? he said, referring to one of the men suspected in the Boston bombings.
Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies who advocates for lower immigration levels, raised questions about why the Tsarnaev brothers were given visas to come to the U.S. in the first place.
?The Boston bombing is not an excuse for delay of considering this immigration bill, but it is an illustration of certain problems that exist with our immigration system,? he said. ?What does it say about the automated background checks that this bill would subject 11 million illegal immigrants to, that in-person interviews by FBI agent of Tamerlan Tsarnaev resulted in no action, even though it was actually based on concerns about terrorism??
But the Republican lawmakers who have expressed opposition to aspects of the Gang of Eight?s bill declined to follow up on the Boston-related sections of Kobach?s and Krikorian?s testimony. Instead, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, John Cornyn, R-Texas, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, focused on other issues, ranging from border security to the legalization provisions.
Grassley in particular was so averse to being accused of saying the bombings should delay reform that he got in a shouting match with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., early in the hearing.
?I never said that,? Grassley shouted, with no small measure of indignation, when Schumer referenced his colleagues, ?who are pointing to what happened, the terrible tragedy in Boston? as an ?excuse for not doing a bill or delaying it.?
Schumer then said he wasn?t referring to Grassley, who at the start of Friday?s hearing on the bill said a close look at the immigration system was very important,?"particularly in light of all that's happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week."
Democrats and members of the Gang of Eight have been going on the offensive against anyone suggesting that the bill?s passage should be slowed because of the bombings. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., opened the hearing by saying he was ?troubled a great deal? by opponents of the bill who ?began to exploit the Boston Marathon bombing.?
?Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous acts of these two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hardworking people,? he said. ?The bill before us would serve to strengthen our national security by allowing us to focus our border security and enforcement efforts against those who do us harm.?
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Gang of Eight, said, ?If Boston tells us anything, we need to be aware of who's living among us, whether they're native-born or come in on a visa and become a citizen.?
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Monday on Fox News: ?I?m in the camp of, if we fix our immigration system, it may actually help us understand who all?s here, why they?re here, and what legal status they have.?
That?s not to say there haven?t been Republicans who argued for a delay after the bombings. They just don?t sit on the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has outlined his own vision for comprehensive reform, penned a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Monday, asking that national security concerns be a part of the debate going forward.
?We should not proceed until we understand the specific failures of our immigration system,? he wrote. ?Why did the current system allow two individuals to immigrate to the United States from the Chechen Republic in Russia, an area known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, who then committed acts of terrorism? Were there any safeguards? Could this have been prevented? Does the immigration reform before us address this??
He called for hearings in the Senate Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee to study the national security aspect of the debate.
Two key House Republicans also backed up the Gang of Eight members on Monday by saying that immigration reform could improve national security.
We're on the hunt for a new editorial fellow based in New York City. Interested? Here's what you need to know.
A fellowship at Lifehacker means you'll help us with our daily pursuits and hunting down the best tips and tricks for getting things done. More specifically, the fellow will learn to be a Jack- or Jill-of-all-trades, assisting us with research, post-finding, basic copy editing, emailing, social media tasks and, with some guidance, writing. Basically, you'll get valuable experience in the skills needed at a site like Lifehacker that you can take with you to basically any writing/media job.
What You'll Need:
The ability to work out of our New York office full time, five days a week
Basic HTML skills
Modern computer skills such as Tweeting, Facebooking, RSSing, IMing and other ways of communicating on the internet
Talent, a good work ethic, ability to listen and learn fast
The ability to follow directions to the letter
Be at least college age
For Bonus Points:
The qualities of a good Lifehacker writer. Being able to write makes it much more likely that you'll get more writing time.
Graphics (mainly Photoshop/Photoshop alternative) and video skills.
The Focus
This fellowship is foremost a learning opportunity; a chance for you to quickly learn the skills that it takes to be a blogger/news writer/life hacker in a short amount of time. The pay is hourly; the position is full time, for about 3 to 6 months. If you come into the fellowship with a great attitude for learning and enthusiasm for the experience, you'll find that a Lifehacker fellowship is one of the best things you can do to get your writing career started. We're also looking for editorial assistants, and this fellowship is how we intend to find them.
How Do You Apply?
We get a lot of applications and rely on Gmail to help us keep things sorted, so it's very important to follow these instructions so we don't miss yours. Here's what to do:
Send an email to tips+fellowship@lifehacker.com with the subject Lifehacker Fellowship.
In the email, a few sentences about yourself. Good things to discuss are why you want to be an fellow, your interests and experience that fit with Lifehacker (programming/writing/hacking/DIY experience), and your availability (when you can start). Focus on the fact that being concise is much more effective, but write as much as you need to to tell us what experience you have and what special circumstances allow you to be a great Lifehacker fellow.
In the email, also include a couple of links to writing and/or projects you've done.
No attachments, please.
We get a lot of emails, so unfortunately we can't reply to everyone. If we do contact you, it may not be immediately so please be patient. If you don't hear from us, feel free to give it another shot the next time around.
Last week I was invited in as a 'food blogger' to do a tour and menu tasting of a new local healthy fast food restaurant, HealthFare. I arrived not knowing what to expect...would they be nice? ?What if they noticed that I didn't have a fancy food blogger camera, business cards for my blog, and an extensive knowledge of...well, food? ?What if I didn't like the food or the restaurant - would I have to fake it? ?Would they be able to tell right away that I've never done this type of thing before? I needn't have worried, because the mother-son owner team of Jenni and Shaun Saini were completely welcoming, the restaurant was beautiful,?my point and shoot camera did the trick,?and most importantly...the food was fan-freaking-tastic!
It's guilt-free eating at its best, and here's why...
HealthFare offers you four things that your regular fast food restaurant never tends to:
1) It's Healthy! ?
Yes, I know, that was kind of an obvious one since the word Health is actually in the name of the restaurant, and the slogan is 'making healthy delicious.' ?But it is?rare to find an entirely healthy menu at a fast food restaurant, so I found this feature to be incredibly impressive. ?Everything is pre-portioned out so that there is precisely (and I do mean precisely) the exact same amount of ingredients going into each and every menu item each and every time. ?The reason that they are so strict on this is because the menu is created by a team of Registered Dieticians, and they never want to stray from having all of the nutritional facts be completely and 100% accurate with every serving. ?The calories are listed right on the menu, and all of the additional nutritional information is readily available.
You know a place is healthy when they don't even offer any Pepsi or Coke products in-store. ?There is actually no pop available at all, and instead they stock beverages like BLK fulvic-enhanced mineral water, coconut water, and Steaz iced tea. ?There's no super-sizing at a place like this, unless you count this gigantic lemon water pitcher. ?
Ok, and guys? ?They have these green smoothies there that have spinach in them, and I drank one, and and I liked it. ?I'm a total first-timer in the green smoothie department, and like seriously, I don't understand how that can even be good, but it was better than good. ?It was delicious in fact, all blended up with tropical fruit other awesome healthy things. I seriously think I drank it in like 28 seconds and didn't pay attention to anything or anyone else while it was happening, because that green smoothie became my world for half a minute. ?Somehow I know that if I tried to make this at home it would be completely awful, but HealthFare made a green smoothie into something that I have been craving since my visit.
2) It's Fresh!
I was taken on a little tour of the restaurant and got to see the back of the house. ?While I was there, one of the cooks was slicing up fresh boneless, skinless chicken breast for later use in a rice bowl.
When was the last time that a fast food restaurant chain used fresh chicken breast in their menu? ?Probably never. ?But this place does. ?In fact, nothing is brought in pre-made. ?Everything, right down to their delicious sauces and salad dressings, is made in-house so that it's as fresh as can be and without any unnecessary preservatives, additional sodium, or other nasty chemicals. All of the baked goods are made fresh daily too. ?All meals are made to order while you are there, with the average wait time at under five minutes from the time you order to the time that you're chowing down. ?It gives the term 'eat fresh' a whole new fast food meaning.
3) It's Earth-Conscious!
HealthFare is?a bright, beautiful, inviting, 'eco-chic' restaurant. ?Even the furniture is designed with sustainability and environmental responsibility top of mind. ?The chairs are made from BMW-designed recycled materials, the flooring is made from natural and renewable supplies, and the ceiling is made from recycled Japanese kirei board.
They use biodegradable to-go containers rather than styrofoam so that your take-out packaging doesn't end up in a landfill. They even pour?Kicking Horse Coffee?(reason alone for a few people that I know to become regular patrons), who just like HealthFare are also focussed on environmental sustainability and community.
4) It's suitable for vegans, vegetarians,?glutards...and kids! ?
I have to tell you that since going gluten-free in July 2012, I haven't been eating much fast food. ?It's not that I was ever really one to frequent McDonalds or Taco Bell, but it was nice to have options if I ever was on the road and needed something quickly. ?But since the big diet change in July, I haven't been able to find a fast food restaurant that I can go to with confidence and know that what I am eating is gluten free. ?With HealthFare, a lot of the menu is gluten free, without the requirement for me to have to make modifications to my order. ?They have symbols beside each menu item to indicate if it is vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free, so that you're able to easily identify what items are appropriate for whatever special dietary requirements that you may have. ?I actually had options to choose from on the menu at HealthFare, which is unusual for someone on a gluten free diet. ?It was kind of like a gluten free Disneyland, especially because as I mentioned I got to do a menu tasting, and boy did I ever tuck it back. ?But everything was better than the thing I had just tried, and I just had to keep eating and eating. ?From the savoury rice bowls, to the wholesome salads, to the artisan sandwiches, to the healthy soups, and finally to the frozen yogurt, this place has something for everyone.
My personal favourite is something called The Bakker Bowl, named after HealthFare's creator, Mark Bakker. ?The Bakker is sort of a cross between a rice bowl and a salad, served cold and overflowing with roasted marinated chicken breast, whole-grain brown rice, cherry tomatoes, feta, and ranch dressing. They even offer a kids menu, with healthy choices under 500 calories like Multigrain Grilled Cheese or Polka Dot Pizza.
I was turned on to something new while I was there, which is the Vega line of vegan protein products. ?Healthfare offers this brand at the suggested market price, rather than marking it up in a crazy way like some retailers do.
HealthFare is totally responsive to the changing needs of their customers as well as new trends. ?For instance, they noticed that customers were coming in and requesting almond milk, but it wasn't something they carried. ?The next week they started stocking it in their fridge. ?They were also noticing that people who eat tofu prefer for it to be certified organic tofu, which the brand that they were carrying was not. ?Shortly thereafter, they made the switch to an organic tofu to please their customers. ?This is a restaurant that is not afraid to try new things and to break the mould to please the ever-changing needs of their more health-conscious customers.
The restaurant concept began in Alberta, where there are currently two locations. ?The new B.C. location that I visited is at 7366 Market Crossing, in Burnaby, which is in the new-ish Market Crossing shopping centre at Byrne Road and Marine Way. ?From the Healthfare Facebook page I've learned that ?there are currently franchise opportunities in Port Coquitlam, downtown Vancouver, and Surrey. ?There are also new stores popping up soon in the lower mainland, with locations being announced imminently.
Hopefully restaurants like Healthfare are the way of the future, as they bridge between food being convenient and quick, while still allowing you to make healthy lifestyle choices. ?I wish them all of the success in their quest to serve healthy, delicious food fast and in a sustainable way, and look forward to seeing more Healthfare locations sprout up in the lower mainland soon.
One word of warning...do not start yourself on eating the house-made seasoned almonds that they sell by the small container-ful, unless you never ever want to stop thinking about them again. ?They are highly addictive in the way that salty-sweet things always are to me. ?I now think about them often and with much fondness.
Thank you for the invitation HealthFare!
You can visit HealthFare online at www.healthfare.ca. Check out HealthFare's Facebook page by searching HealthFare - Making Healthy Delicious Follow HealthFare on Twitter at?@HealthFare
By Olivia Oran, Greg Roumeliotis and Martinne Geller
(Reuters) - Private equity mogul Stephen Feinberg is exploring a bid for Freedom Group, the Bushmaster rifle manufacturer that his firm, Cerberus Capital Management LP, put up for sale after one of its guns was used in a Connecticut school shooting late last year, three people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.
Feinberg, along with other senior Cerberus partners, is putting together a consortium to make a "stalking horse" offer, or the floor bid, for Freedom Group, the sources said.
Feinberg has approached other wealthy individuals to join his group, the people said, who declined to be named because the auction is private.
Cerberus declined to comment and declined to make Feinberg available for an interview, while representatives of Freedom Group could not be reached for comment.
Freedom Group's AR-15 type Bushmaster rifle was used in the Newtown, Connecticut shootings in December, which left 20 children and six adults dead. Cerberus came under mounting pressure from the public as well as investors in its funds after the shootings to sell Freedom Group.
Soon after the shootings, Cerberus said it would look for a buyer and hired investment bank Lazard Ltd to help sell the business.
Lazard declined to comment.
(Editing by Soyoung Kim, Paritosh Bansal and Chris Gallagher)
Contact: Bryan Alary bryan.alary@ualberta.ca 780-492-0436 University of Alberta
(Edmonton) A University of Alberta researcher is thinking small to find innovative ways to improve the delivery of drugs that can be more easily administered with fewer side-effects.
Afsaneh Lavasanifar, a professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, has developed and patented a polymer platform technology that can carry drugs to specific areas of the body at a nanoscopic scale. The polymeric nanostructures contain an outer shell and inner core that are capable of encapsulating drugs that the body normally has a hard time absorbing and processing.
"Making drugs water soluble is a major problem in drug development," Lavasanifar says. "When drugs are not water soluble, they cannot be absorbed efficiently by the body or administered efficiently, making them ineffective."
Lavasanifar developed the polymer over three years and published her initial findings in 2006. With support from TEC Edmonton, in 2010 she launched her own company, Meros Polymers, and currently serves as vice-president and chief science officer.
The company secured a U.S. patent for the polymer late last year, with patents pending in Europe and Japan, and was recently named a semifinalist in the fast-growth category of the TEC VenturePrize.
Targeted drug delivery
In addition to solving water insolubility, the polymer could be used to target delivery of drugs in specific areas of the body. Much of Lavasanifar's research has focused on the targeted delivery of chemotherapy drugs, some of which can be harmful to organs such as the heart or kidneys.
"We can change the normal distribution of the anti-cancer drug in the body and get the drug into the tumour and away from the site where it causes toxicity," she says.
A polymer within this platform that shows unique thermo-reactive propertiesit's liquid at room temperature but turns into a gel when warmed to body temperaturehas potential applications for eye-drop drugs, antibiotics or antipsychoticsreducing the need for repeat doses or costly administration by a health professional.
A third structure within this family also has potential as a delivery system for small interfering RNA technology, or siRNA, which allows scientists to heat and silence specific genes in a cell. The siRNA technology has not yet been used as a therapeutic agent because it breaks down in the body and has a hard time entering cells.
Lavasanifar is working with other researchers on using the polymer to deliver siRNA in lab models. "Our long-term plan is to see if we can get it into clinical trials and use it for siRNA delivery in humans," she says.
Meros is working with Alberta Innovates Technology Futures to evaluate the toxicity of the polymer, a step needed for regulatory approval. Lavasanifar is confident about the results, noting the "backbone" of the polymer has been used in absorbable sutures for many years.
Moving from lab bench to boardroom was a new experience for Lavasanifar, but she credits TEC Edmonton and her colleagues at Meros for providing invaluable expertise, especially early on. The university and pharmacy faculty have been tremendously supportive of her work, she adds.
"Without the U of A's support and funding from granting agencies, I would not be able to put my ideas into action."
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Lavasanifar's research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Alberta Cancer Foundation.
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Contact: Bryan Alary bryan.alary@ualberta.ca 780-492-0436 University of Alberta
(Edmonton) A University of Alberta researcher is thinking small to find innovative ways to improve the delivery of drugs that can be more easily administered with fewer side-effects.
Afsaneh Lavasanifar, a professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, has developed and patented a polymer platform technology that can carry drugs to specific areas of the body at a nanoscopic scale. The polymeric nanostructures contain an outer shell and inner core that are capable of encapsulating drugs that the body normally has a hard time absorbing and processing.
"Making drugs water soluble is a major problem in drug development," Lavasanifar says. "When drugs are not water soluble, they cannot be absorbed efficiently by the body or administered efficiently, making them ineffective."
Lavasanifar developed the polymer over three years and published her initial findings in 2006. With support from TEC Edmonton, in 2010 she launched her own company, Meros Polymers, and currently serves as vice-president and chief science officer.
The company secured a U.S. patent for the polymer late last year, with patents pending in Europe and Japan, and was recently named a semifinalist in the fast-growth category of the TEC VenturePrize.
Targeted drug delivery
In addition to solving water insolubility, the polymer could be used to target delivery of drugs in specific areas of the body. Much of Lavasanifar's research has focused on the targeted delivery of chemotherapy drugs, some of which can be harmful to organs such as the heart or kidneys.
"We can change the normal distribution of the anti-cancer drug in the body and get the drug into the tumour and away from the site where it causes toxicity," she says.
A polymer within this platform that shows unique thermo-reactive propertiesit's liquid at room temperature but turns into a gel when warmed to body temperaturehas potential applications for eye-drop drugs, antibiotics or antipsychoticsreducing the need for repeat doses or costly administration by a health professional.
A third structure within this family also has potential as a delivery system for small interfering RNA technology, or siRNA, which allows scientists to heat and silence specific genes in a cell. The siRNA technology has not yet been used as a therapeutic agent because it breaks down in the body and has a hard time entering cells.
Lavasanifar is working with other researchers on using the polymer to deliver siRNA in lab models. "Our long-term plan is to see if we can get it into clinical trials and use it for siRNA delivery in humans," she says.
Meros is working with Alberta Innovates Technology Futures to evaluate the toxicity of the polymer, a step needed for regulatory approval. Lavasanifar is confident about the results, noting the "backbone" of the polymer has been used in absorbable sutures for many years.
Moving from lab bench to boardroom was a new experience for Lavasanifar, but she credits TEC Edmonton and her colleagues at Meros for providing invaluable expertise, especially early on. The university and pharmacy faculty have been tremendously supportive of her work, she adds.
"Without the U of A's support and funding from granting agencies, I would not be able to put my ideas into action."
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Lavasanifar's research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Alberta Cancer Foundation.
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Contact: Mari N. Jensen mnjensen@email.arizona.edu 520-626-9635 University of Arizona
A new chemical process can transform waste sulfur into a lightweight plastic that may improve batteries for electric cars, reports a University of Arizona-led team. The new plastic has other potential uses, including optical uses.
The team has successfully used the new plastic to make lithium-sulfur batteries.
"We've developed a new, simple and useful chemical process to convert sulfur into a useful plastic," lead researcher Jeffrey Pyun said.
Next-generation lithium-sulfur, or Li-S, batteries will be better for electric and hybrid cars and for military uses because they are more efficient, lighter and cheaper than those currently used, said Pyun, a UA associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry.
The new plastic has great promise as something that can be produced easily and inexpensively on an industrial scale, he said.
The team's discovery could provide a new use for the sulfur left over when oil and natural gas are refined into cleaner-burning fuels.
Although there are some industrial uses for sulfur, the amount generated from refining fossil fuels far outstrips the current need for the element. Some oil refineries, such as those in Ft. McMurray in Alberta, are accumulating yellow mountains of waste sulfur.
"There's so much of it we don't know what to do with it," said Pyun. He calls the left-over sulfur "the garbage of transportation."
About one-half pound of sulfur is left over for every 19 gallons of gasoline produced from fossil fuels, calculated co-author Jared Griebel, a UA chemistry and biochemistry doctoral candidate.
The researchers have filed an international patent for their new chemical process and for the new polymeric electrode materials for Li-S batteries.
The international team's research article, "The Use of Elemental Sulfur as an Alternative Feedstock for Polymeric Materials," is scheduled for online publication in Nature Chemistry April 14. The National Research Foundation of Korea, the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the American Chemical Society and the University of Arizona funded the research.
Pyun and Griebel's co-authors are Woo Jin Chung, Adam G. Simmonds, Hyun Jun Ji, Philip T. Dirlam, Richard S. Glass and rpd Somogyi of the UA; Eui Tae Kim, Hyunsik Yoon, Jungjin Park, Yung-Eun Sung, and Kookheon Char of Seoul National University in Korea; Jeong Jae Wie, Ngoc A. Nguyen, Brett W. Guralnick and Michael E. Mackay of the University of Delaware in Newark; and Patrick Theato of the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Pyun wanted to apply his expertise as a chemist to energy-related research. He knew about the world's glut of elemental sulfur at fossil fuel refineries -- so he focused on how chemistry could use the cheap sulfur to satisfy the need for good Li-S batteries.
He and his colleagues tried something new: transforming liquid sulfur into a useful plastic that eventually could be produced easily on an industrial scale.
Sulfur poses technical challenges. It doesn't easily form the stable long chains of molecules, known as polymers, needed make a moldable plastic, and most materials don't dissolve in sulfur.
Pyun and his colleagues identified the chemicals most likely to polymerize sulfur and girded themselves for the long process of testing those chemicals one by one by one. More than 20 chemicals were on the list.
They got lucky.
"The first one worked and nothing else thereafter," Pyun said.
Even though the first experiment worked, the scientists needed to try the other chemicals on their list to see if others worked better and to understand more about working with liquid sulfur.
They've dubbed their process "inverse vulcanization" because it requires mostly sulfur with a small amount of an additive. Vulcanization is the chemical process that makes rubber more durable by adding a small amount of sulfur to rubber.
The new plastic performs better in batteries than elemental sulfur, Pyun said, because batteries with cathodes made of elemental sulfur can be used and recharged only a limited number of times before they fail.
The new plastic has electrochemical properties superior to those of the elemental sulfur now used in Li-S batteries, the researchers report. The team's batteries exhibited high specific capacity (823 mAh/g at 100 cycles) and enhanced capacity retention.
Several companies have expressed interest in the new plastic and the new battery, Pyun said.
The team's next step is comparing properties of the new plastic to existing plastics and exploring other practical applications such as photonics for the new plastic.
Related Web sites:
Jeffrey Pyun
http://www.cbc.arizona.edu/facultyprofile?fid_call=Pyun
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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.
Contact: Mari N. Jensen mnjensen@email.arizona.edu 520-626-9635 University of Arizona
A new chemical process can transform waste sulfur into a lightweight plastic that may improve batteries for electric cars, reports a University of Arizona-led team. The new plastic has other potential uses, including optical uses.
The team has successfully used the new plastic to make lithium-sulfur batteries.
"We've developed a new, simple and useful chemical process to convert sulfur into a useful plastic," lead researcher Jeffrey Pyun said.
Next-generation lithium-sulfur, or Li-S, batteries will be better for electric and hybrid cars and for military uses because they are more efficient, lighter and cheaper than those currently used, said Pyun, a UA associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry.
The new plastic has great promise as something that can be produced easily and inexpensively on an industrial scale, he said.
The team's discovery could provide a new use for the sulfur left over when oil and natural gas are refined into cleaner-burning fuels.
Although there are some industrial uses for sulfur, the amount generated from refining fossil fuels far outstrips the current need for the element. Some oil refineries, such as those in Ft. McMurray in Alberta, are accumulating yellow mountains of waste sulfur.
"There's so much of it we don't know what to do with it," said Pyun. He calls the left-over sulfur "the garbage of transportation."
About one-half pound of sulfur is left over for every 19 gallons of gasoline produced from fossil fuels, calculated co-author Jared Griebel, a UA chemistry and biochemistry doctoral candidate.
The researchers have filed an international patent for their new chemical process and for the new polymeric electrode materials for Li-S batteries.
The international team's research article, "The Use of Elemental Sulfur as an Alternative Feedstock for Polymeric Materials," is scheduled for online publication in Nature Chemistry April 14. The National Research Foundation of Korea, the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the American Chemical Society and the University of Arizona funded the research.
Pyun and Griebel's co-authors are Woo Jin Chung, Adam G. Simmonds, Hyun Jun Ji, Philip T. Dirlam, Richard S. Glass and rpd Somogyi of the UA; Eui Tae Kim, Hyunsik Yoon, Jungjin Park, Yung-Eun Sung, and Kookheon Char of Seoul National University in Korea; Jeong Jae Wie, Ngoc A. Nguyen, Brett W. Guralnick and Michael E. Mackay of the University of Delaware in Newark; and Patrick Theato of the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Pyun wanted to apply his expertise as a chemist to energy-related research. He knew about the world's glut of elemental sulfur at fossil fuel refineries -- so he focused on how chemistry could use the cheap sulfur to satisfy the need for good Li-S batteries.
He and his colleagues tried something new: transforming liquid sulfur into a useful plastic that eventually could be produced easily on an industrial scale.
Sulfur poses technical challenges. It doesn't easily form the stable long chains of molecules, known as polymers, needed make a moldable plastic, and most materials don't dissolve in sulfur.
Pyun and his colleagues identified the chemicals most likely to polymerize sulfur and girded themselves for the long process of testing those chemicals one by one by one. More than 20 chemicals were on the list.
They got lucky.
"The first one worked and nothing else thereafter," Pyun said.
Even though the first experiment worked, the scientists needed to try the other chemicals on their list to see if others worked better and to understand more about working with liquid sulfur.
They've dubbed their process "inverse vulcanization" because it requires mostly sulfur with a small amount of an additive. Vulcanization is the chemical process that makes rubber more durable by adding a small amount of sulfur to rubber.
The new plastic performs better in batteries than elemental sulfur, Pyun said, because batteries with cathodes made of elemental sulfur can be used and recharged only a limited number of times before they fail.
The new plastic has electrochemical properties superior to those of the elemental sulfur now used in Li-S batteries, the researchers report. The team's batteries exhibited high specific capacity (823 mAh/g at 100 cycles) and enhanced capacity retention.
Several companies have expressed interest in the new plastic and the new battery, Pyun said.
The team's next step is comparing properties of the new plastic to existing plastics and exploring other practical applications such as photonics for the new plastic.
Related Web sites:
Jeffrey Pyun
http://www.cbc.arizona.edu/facultyprofile?fid_call=Pyun
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
In this photo released by Indonesian Police, the wreckage of a crashed Lion Air plane sits on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. (AP Photo/Indonesian Police)
In this photo released by Indonesian Police, the wreckage of a crashed Lion Air plane sits on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. (AP Photo/Indonesian Police)
The wreckage a crashed Lion Air plane sits on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. (AP Photo)
In this photo released by Indonesian Police, a rescue worker stands at the doorway of a crashed Lion Air plane on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. (AP Photo/Indonesian Police)
Indonesian fishermen hold a part of the wreckage of a Lion Air plane in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. (AP Photo)
The wreckage a crashed Lion Air plane sits on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. (AP Photo)
BALI, Indonesia (AP) ? All 108 passengers and crew survived after a new Lion Air jet crashed into the ocean and snapped into two while attempting to land Saturday on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, injuring up to 45 people.
The injured were taken to several different hospitals for treatment, but there appeared to be no serious injuries, said airport spokesman Alfasyah, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. There were three foreigners on board ? two Singaporeans and a French national ? all of whom suffered slight injuries.
TV footage showed police and rescuers using rubber boats to evacuate the 101 passengers and seven crew members. The Boeing 737 could be seen sitting in the shallow water with a large crack in its fuselage.
Officials initially said the plane overshot the runway before hitting the water, but a spokesman for Lion Air, a low-cost carrier, said at a news conference that the plane crashed about 50 meters (164 feet) ahead of the runway. The weather was cloudy with rain at the time of the incident.
"It apparently failed to reach the runway and fell into the sea," said the spokesman, Edward Sirait.
He said the Boeing 737-800 Next Generation plane was received by the airline last month and was declared airworthy. The plane originated in Bandung, the capital of West Java province, and had landed in two other cities on Saturday prior to the crash.
"We are not in a capacity to announce the cause of the crash," Sirait said, adding that the National Safety Transportation Committee was investigating.
Those on board recalled being terrified as the plane slammed into the water Saturday afternoon.
"The aircraft was in landing position when suddenly I saw it getting closer to the sea, and finally it hit the water," Dewi, a passenger who sustained head wounds in the crash and uses one name, told The Associated Press.
"All of the passengers were screaming in panic in fear they would drown. I left behind my belongings and went to an emergency door," she said. "I got out of the plane and swam before rescuers jumped in to help me."
Rapidly expanding Lion Air is Indonesia's top discount carrier, holding about a 50 percent market share in the country, a sprawling archipelago of 240 million people that's seeing a boom in both economic growth and air travel. The airline has been involved in six accidents since 2002, four of them involving Boeing 737s and one resulting in 25 deaths, according to the Aviation Safety Network's website.
Lion Air is currently banned from flying to Europe due to broader safety lapses in the Indonesian airline industry that have long plagued the country. Last year, a Sukhoi Superjet-100 slammed into a volcano during a demonstration flight, killing all 45 people on board.
Indonesia is one of Asia's most rapidly expanding airline markets, but is struggling to provide qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.
Lion Air, which started flying in 2000, signed a $24 billion deal last month to buy 234 Airbus planes, the biggest order ever for the French aircraft maker. It also gave Boeing its largest-ever order when it finalized a deal for 230 planes last year. The planes will be delivered from 2014 to 2026.
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Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
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BRUSSELS, April 8 (Reuters) - A French teenager who had hidden inside a garbage container was crushed to death inside a trash truck in Luxembourg on Saturday, police said. Garbage men only discovered the 17-year-old when he shouted out as they emptied the container into the back of the truck early on Saturday morning, but by then he was already in the grasp of the crushing mechanism. "He cried out, but it was already too late," a spokeswoman for Luxembourg police said on Monday. The young man, whose name was not released, died on the scene, in the city of Luxembourg. ...
(Reuters) - A fungus tied to a disease devastating hibernating bats in the United States has been found in an Alabama cave system critical to the survival of endangered gray bats, government scientists said on Monday.
Detection of the fungus that causes the bat disease, white-nose syndrome, in the Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama "could be pretty catastrophic" for the up to 1.6 million protected gray bats that hibernate there, said Paul McKenzie, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species coordinator.
White-nose syndrome, named for the fungal residue on the muzzles of infected bats, has decimated bat populations since it was discovered in New York in 2006. It has spread to 22 states and five Canadian provinces east of the Rocky Mountains, killing more than 6 million bats.
U.S. wildlife officials have said that experts suspect the fungus may have been brought to the United States from Europe by a person inadvertently carrying its spores on shoes, clothing or other gear. Evidence of a similar fungus has been discovered in Europe.
The endangered gray bats are among seven species affected by a syndrome that targets those that hibernate in caves and abandoned mines.
Federal scientists said the disease has not yet been found to cause mass die-offs in gray bats. Yet the finding of infected gray bats at Fern Cave, the single most significant hibernating area in the world for the species, is "extremely alarming," McKenzie said.
Bats with white-nose syndrome fly outside during winter months when they should be hibernating and when there are no insects for food. They eventually starve to death.
The disease has caused populations of bats, estimated to save agricultural industries billions of dollars a year in pest-control costs, to decline by more than 80 percent in the U.S. northeast, a U.S. Geological Survey study shows.
The disease is mostly transmitted from bat to bat. Fungal spores behind the disease can also be transported long distances on the clothing and equipment of people who visit caves.
Efforts by federal land managers to prevent the westward spread of the disease by closing caves and unoccupied mines in Rocky Mountain states like Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have been opposed by many caving enthusiasts.
Cavers say it is senseless to close caves that have no hibernating bats.
"We are absolutely opposed to the blanket closure of caves. It's ridiculous," Montana caver Mike McEachern told Reuters last year.
The U.S. Forest Service last month reversed a largely blanket closure of caves and vacant mines in Colorado, Wyoming and elsewhere. Under a plan to go into effect in summer, caves and mines will be open with some restrictions to protect bats from infection. Sites with hibernation colonies will be seasonally closed and annually decontaminated.
Conservationists said the government has caved to recreationists at bats' expense.
"White-nose syndrome has arrived in the very core of gray bat habitat and it's like a bomb waiting to go off. Despite this bad news, federal agencies in the West are backtracking on precautionary cave measures," said Mollie Matteson, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.