Google I/O: What's New in Android, Chrome, and Beyond (Updating)

Well, it's here at last, Google's annual orgy for developers and fanboys alike. Rumors have been flying, but we're about to find out what's what for real.

We've got a wishlist for everything we're hoping will be coming to Android, and while there supposedly won't be much in the way of hardware, it's still possible we may meet an updated Nexus 7, and maybe a few other goodies. We've got some cushy seats, and we're getting started... nnnnnnn.... now.

REFRESH FOR UPDATES

According to Google's Sundar Pichai, in 2011, Android was at 100 million activations. In 2012, it was at 400 million. In 2013, we're looking at a mind-boggling 900 million activations. We're also looking at 48 billion app installs. That's more growth than the goiter on my grandma's neck.

Maps

We're diving right in to Android here. Google Play services, a series of APIs for app developers, is getting a hearty update today. Today Google is launching three new APIs for location. The first will provide faster, more accurate location spotting, but at a fraction of the battery life. It will also offer geofencing, and use sensors to determine when you're driving, walking, or biking. This should really boost the calibre of third party apps that use location services. (Check out our deeper dive on the new Maps features.)

Play services are also now going to support cross-platform single sign on. So if you sign on to, say, a Yelp app within Chrome, you'll also be signed in on your phone and tablet as soon as you install the app. Pretty slick. There's also a new API that will synchronize notifications between your devices. So if you dismiss a notification on your phone, it'll be dismissed on your tablet, too. This is a very, very good thing. All that redundancy has been really annoying.

Games

They're also introducing Google Play game services. The first bit of awesome in that is Cloud save. If you get to level three some game on your phone, when you open up the game on your tablet, you'll be all set to pay level four. Very cool. There will also be synced leader boards, if you're the competitive type. These will work across Android and iOS games, so you can play against your friends whatever they use.

Play game services, will also include the Play Game Server, which is also going to let friends on separate devices play head to head in real time. They attempted to demo this on Riptide II, but unfortunately it fall down go boom. Not the best networking environment here, to be fair. (For more on games, check here.)

I'm So Glad I'm a Beta

The Play Store just created a way for developers to take beta testers directly through the store. That means, if you're into beta-testing, you no longer have to side-load apps onto your device. And for the developers, they can get feedback without all the early (bad) reviews screwing up the app's rating once it finally comes out of beta. We're not exactly sure how one becomes a beta tester, but it seems like you'll have to be invited by the specific developer. Pretty neat.

Google Play Music All-Access

Google's rumored Spotify competitor is real, and it's called All-Access. As soon as you start using it, it starts learning your preferences. You have access to everything in the play store. You pick a song, and can instantly create a station based on it, a la Pandora, but with much more control. You'll see the whole playlist ahead of you. You can swipe away tracks you don't want to hear, and you can re-order them at will.

There's also Listen Now. Listen now is basically a collection of stations from your own personal library of music you've uploaded to Play Music, and also of stations that All-Access has created for you automatically. It's basically a fast way to get to music you'll like. It's basically Google's library blended with your own.

All-Access is launching today for $10 a month, but if you sign up before June 30th, it'll be a couple bucks cheaper. There's also a free 30-day trial for everyone, and it's live right now and rather lovely, so check it out. (For more info on All-Access, peep this.)

A Galaxy S4 Running Stock Android

Whoa nelly! For a million years we've been asking for a way to disable skins. Google is showing a Samsung Galaxy S4 running a stock version of Android 4.2. It will also be getting all Android OS updates "promptly"? one would assume as fast as a Nexus device. This. Is. Awesome. Google will be selling this phone directly, with an unlocked bootloader. It'll be on sale from Google Play on June 26th for only... $650!? Ouch. But still, for those of us who've always wanted that hardware, but without Samsung's super heavy, unwieldy skin, this is a pretty big deal. The updated Play Music app can be downloaded from the Play Store now, and it looks terrific. (For more info on the stock S4, click here.)

Chrome

"The same capabilities that you're used to using for Chrome on a desktop, are going to be coming to Chrome on Android," says Sundar Pichai. Thanks to WebGL and web audio API's you're going to start seeing some pretty impressive web experiences, including games and rich interactive environments that were typically limited to the desktop experience. That's going to be especially sweet on a tablet.

Better Web Imaging

Google took a moment to show off WebP images. The quality was indistinguishable from JPEG, but it was about two-thirds the size. That's the kind of thing that will save you if you're mobile browsing. Not only will it boost the load time on websites, but it will help you not go over your data if don't have an unlimited plan. And, joy of joys, WebP supports animated images. Take that, GIF!

VP9

On the video side, they touted the benefits of VP9, which they say has the same quality of h.264, but comes in at less than half the size. Neato.

Web Shopping

Google found that when it comes to shopping on your phone, the percent of people who get to a purchase screen and then jump ship was in the high nineties! Ouch. To combat that, they're releasing updated shopping APIs that websites will be able to simply integrate that will take Android/Chrome users to a streamlined checkout process, complete with autofilled information. Looks pretty smooth.

Android in Education

Google is about to go heavy on education, basically creating a whole subsection of the Play Store for educators. It will be sorted by subject and level. Say a teachers wants all 500 kindergarten students in a district to be working on the same app. The administrator can simple click the app they want, order 500 copies, and it will go to all 500 tablets (or Chromebooks) that those kids are using, instantly. It makes it really easy to buy in bulk, and there will be reviews from other educators.

I know, I know. Where will these thousands of tablets for kids come from? Well, there are already thousands of Chromebooks being used in schools. They've been rolling out both in the U.S. and in places like Malaysia. In fact they're in over 10,000 schools, and considering how cheap Chromebooks and tablets like the Nexus 7 are compared to full computers, we expect this trend to continue.

Google Play for Education will be rolling out in the fall. In the mean time you can learn more about it here.

Google+

Google is introducing 41 new Google+ features today. Holy crap.

First, there's going to be a major redesign. It kind of looks a little more like Google Now. It's a really good-looking multi-column design, and it's width will scale depending on what device you use. You can also choose to just do one column if you want. It's full of animations, where cards slide, flip, and fade. Normally we don't go for that kind of thing, but it actually looks fantastic.

Google is also adding a layer of depth to make hashtags smarter. Not only will clicking on a post about, say, the Eiffel Tower, take you to other posts about the Eiffel Tower, but you don't even have to hashtag it yourself. It can do image analysis, recognize the tower, and hashtag it automatically. Pretty nuts, though obviously that won't work for everything.

Hangouts

Googles long-rumored revamped chat app previously rumored to be called Babel is now real. It's a really sweet-looking standalone app that will work on web, Android, and iOS all starting today. It will provide an on-going conversation within the hangout that doesn't end when you sign off. So if you're sharing photos with your family, you can jump back in months later. Or with the tap of a button, you can engage group video chat instantly with all of them. Of course, you can remove things from the thread or delete them, but there's the option to keep them there for as long as you want.

Photo

Google+ announced earlier this week that in addition to unlimited backup of all your standard sized photos, it will now give you 15GB of storage for full sized images. This is rather cool. They're also introducing an analysis algorithm to create a highlight reel of your photos. It'll check all your photos in album for blurriness, smiles, and dozens of other criteria (taught to it by hundreds of actual human photographers), and create a highlight reel. It can even recognize your wife or kid and make sure some photos of them into the real. Which is cool, and also kinda scary.

It's also introducing an "auto-enhance" feature that will instantly adjust tonal distribution, red-eye, vignetting, skin softening, noise reduction, and a ton of other criteria to theoretically improve your photo with a single click. In the demo, it does indeed look to make dramatic improvements, but we're a wee bit skeptical about how well this will work in real life. But maybe if you're really, really crunched for time it'll help.

There's also an "Auto Awesome" mode. If you take a burst of photos, it will make an animated gif out of them. If you take a series of shots, and someone is smiling in one but not in another, it can make a composite image (similar to what the Galaxy S4 can do, but you don't have to activate that setting first, which is nice). It can also do HDR, and auto-stitch panoramic photos. Fun stuff. For more on the new photo stuff, snap this. For more on the new photo stuff, snap this.

Search

Knowledge Graph?Google's service that answers your questions directly when you ask them, rather than sending you to the web?is about to get smarter. Not only does it answer the question you asked, but it'll predict the next question you might have. So if you ask for the population of India, it'll show you that and compare it to the population of the U.S.

Knowledge Graph will also work a bit like a manual Google Now now. So if you want your upcoming flight info, or dinner reservation, you can just ask for it (in case the card isn't already there).

The big news here is that conversational search is coming to Chrome and Chrome OS. You won't even have to click the mic to search. You can sit back, relax, and say, "Okay Google..." then ask your question. It worked flawlessly in the demo, perfectly understanding context, even words like "it" and "here". It knew your location, and was able to give incredibly detailed answers to very specific questions. It's the next level we've been hoping for.

Google Now will now support reminders, which is pretty awesome. You can set the reminder to go off at a certain time or when you get to a certain location. All via voice. It was extremely intuitive and had a very clean layout. Google Now will also capable of sending emails via voice ("Email Barry, Why are my pants on backwards?") and provide a lot of contextual info "Show pictures from my Costa Rica vacation last year.") It's also adding cards for TV shows, video games, and more.

These features will be available today for people in the Search Field Trial, and should be rolling out to everybody soon. It wasn't 100 percent clear which part is rolling out when. Very exciting stuff, though. The new Search app can be downloaded now from the Play store now. For more on the new Search updates, click here.

Maps for Mobile

Coming soon to Android and iOS, the mobile Maps app is getting a big refresh. It's more of a full-screen experience. It's really uncluttered, and gives the map the focus. If you're searching for something like a specific cuisine, the list of locations you'll get are paired down and easier to read. You can swipe between different results and get the skinny on each of them. There's a 5 star user rating system now that will be integrated across Google search, and Zagat scores/review are incorporated where available. Offers are going to be integrated right into the Maps results now. They've partnered with a bunch of companies already (including Starbucks) and will be announcing more soon.

Navigation is getting a major boost, including incidents and dynamic rerouting! This is one of the features we've been dying for. It'll let you know if there's an accident ahead in your route, and it'll automatically reroute you around it. Finally!

There's also more emphasis on location-aware discovery. Finding things around you (restaurants, tourist attractions, etc.) is a more visually rich and intuitive experience. We're looking forward to seeing how good the results are.

Finally, Google Maps on desktop is getting a major overhaul. You can see all of the relevant pinpoints at once. A simple click will open up a Google Now-like card for the restaurant with relevant info. Another click will zoom right in to the interior of it, with photos or StreetView if available. The maps are vector based and scale quickly and cleanly.

It's also more customized for the specific user. If you're logged in, places you've been (or rated) will have a permanent place there. If your friend is logged in, he'll have his special places and yours will be gone. If you're looking for directions to a place, the map will make sure the street names you need are clearly visible, which wasn't the case before (you'd have to zoom way in). It's basically a more personalized map, and it actually looks really nice.

The new directions interface looks absolutely fantastic, too, giving you very clear visual info on the duration of different routes. The 3D aerial view has been further refined, making it way more life like. Those changes were applied to the 3D Photo Tour, as well, which is powered by user submitted photos. Nexus users that can take PhotoSphere shots and add them to these maps as well, to create and enhance the interior 3D views of places.

Oh, and if you pull way out for a full view of Earth, the clouds you see are where they are in real time. That is frigging amazing. Pull back even further, and you see which part of the earth is lit up, where it is relation to the Sun, and even the Milky Way's stars are right where they should be. Madness.

If you want to see all of that stuff, you can go to maps.google.com/preview and invites will start rolling out tomorrow morning. Check out our deeper dive on Maps here.

And that's it! Be sure to check out our deeper dives on all of these tentpoles.

[Camera equipment provided by borrowlenses.com]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/google-i-o-whats-new-in-android-chrome-and-beyond-506734952

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FBI investigating recording of McConnell talks

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) ? Campaign aides to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell proposed using actress Ashley Judd's past bouts with depression against her if she had decided to challenge him in his re-election bid next year, according to a secret recording posted by a magazine.

Mother Jones released a recording Tuesday along with an article about a private meeting in which the aides discussed opposition research into potential Democratic challengers. Aides talked and laughed on the recording about Judd's political positions, religious beliefs and past bouts of depression.

The FBI is looking into how the recording was made after the McConnell campaign accused opponents of engaging in "Watergate-era tactics." The magazine reported that the recording was provided last week by a source who requested anonymity.

"She's clearly ? this sounds extreme ? but she is emotionally unbalanced," a McConnell aide said of Judd during a February meeting at the Louisville campaign headquarters. "I mean it's been documented ... she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s."

Judd has been open about her bouts with depression. She spoke to the American Counseling Association's national convention in Cincinnati in March, telling more than 3,000 counselors from across the country about her experiences. Her spokeswoman, Cara Tripicchio, criticized the McConnell campaign for considering making it a campaign issue.

"This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington DC," Tripicchio said in a statement. "We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter."

McConnell was asked several times at a news conference Tuesday about the propriety of attacking Judd over depression. He did not directly answer, but repeatedly brought up an incident last month, when Progress Kentucky tweeted an insensitive remark about his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

"As you know, my wife's ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky and apparently they also bugged my headquarters," he said. "So I think that pretty well sums up the way the political left is operating in Kentucky."

The FBI confirmed that it was contacted by McConnell's office and was looking into the matter. The magazine didn't return a call seeking comment.

McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton alleged in an email to supporters that "liberals and their media allies" were "wire-tapping our field office to spy on us," even though it wasn't clear how the recording was obtained. Benton used the issue as a fundraising appeal, asking supporters to send donations "to help us spread the truth."

On the recording posted on Mother Jones' website, McConnell began the meeting by telling aides the campaign had entered "the Whac-A-Mole period" and explained that means "when anybody sticks their head up, do them out."

The magazine reported the aides huddled on Feb. 2 in a private meeting to discuss potential Democratic opponents, including Judd and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Grimes, a rising star within the Kentucky Democratic Party, hasn't ruled herself out as a challenger.

An unidentified aide said Judd had made a public statement as a Tennessee delegate to the Democratic national convention about her support of President Barack Obama, an unpopular figure in Kentucky. The aide said that statement could be used against her and raised another issue: Judd lives in Tennessee, not Kentucky.

In another instance, the aide played a recording of Judd talking about her evolving religious beliefs, which included native faith practices. The aides laugh loudly. An unidentified man then says "the people at Southeast Christian would take to the streets with pitchforks," referring to an evangelical megachurch in Louisville.

The magazine was the first to report about Republican Mitt Romney's comments to donors paying $50,000 apiece to attend a private reception that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government, see themselves as victims and believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.

Romney's critics used the video to argue that he was out of touch with average Americans during the last presidential campaign.

Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon said the recording is telling about McConnell.

"I certainly do not know anything about how this may have happened," Logsdon said. "However, it's clear that this is the McConnell we all know: leading a negative, nasty campaign determined to lash out at his opponents since he doesn't have any accomplishments to point to."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Abrams and Donna Cassata in Washington and Brett Barrouquere in Louisville contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-investigating-recording-mcconnell-talks-190453229--election.html

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Official: US to bring Arab states into peace push

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) ? The U.S. is seeking to bring Arab countries into efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that broke down more than four years ago, a senior Palestinian official said Monday.

However, gaps are wide on the terms of renewing talks. The Palestinians say Israel must freeze settlement building on lands it captured in 1967 before any negotiations can resume. Israel says the issue of settlements can be addressed in negotiations.

During a visit to the region last week, President Barack Obama sided with the Israeli view.

It is not clear how the U.S. can bring the Palestinians back to the table without a settlement freeze.

Arab countries are now being asked to help, said Yasser Abed-Rabbo, a top official in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

"U.S. efforts will increase in coming weeks and will include other Arab parties, such as Jordan and Egypt," Abbed-Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio, adding that an Arab League delegation is to visit Washington as part of these efforts.

However, he said there would be no flexibility on Palestinian demands for a settlement freeze.

"For us, the important thing is the substance, such as the full settlement freeze and the recognition of the 1967 borders," he said.

The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem ? territories Israel captured in 1967 ? but are ready to negotiate border changes, provided the 1967 frontier is the baseline.

Palestinian officials say they cannot return to talks without such a clear framework, arguing that open-ended negotiations will simply provide diplomatic cover to Israel to keep expanding settlements.

"We fear they (the Israelis) would waste time by getting us into a bargaining process over details and steps here and there, and in this way would waste two to three years and then get us to wait for a new U.S. administration," Abed-Rabbo said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is willing to resume talks immediately. However, he has said he will not relinquish control over east Jerusalem and has refused to recognize the 1967 lines as a starting point for talks.

For 10 months during his previous term, Netanyahu curbed settlement building as part of a U.S. push to bring the Palestinians back to the table, but negotiations never got off the ground.

Successive Israeli governments have built dozens of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, now home to more than half a million Israelis. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, dismantling almost two dozen settlements there, but sharply restricts access to the territory.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday that the Palestinians would wait two to three months to see if a new U.S. push to restart talks will yield results.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/official-us-bring-arab-states-peace-push-074420439.html

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Oscar-Winning 'Amour' Provides Unflinching Look at Aging, Dying

Mar 25, 2013 5:27pm

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Sarah Putnam reports:

Now that ?Amour? has won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, let us pause for a moment to consider the significance of the Academy?s nominating such a film for one of the most prestigious awards in Hollywood.

In ?Amour,? the French, who seem to have an innate cultural clarity and ability to talk about subjects that tie Americans in knots ? think sex, food and political shenanigans ? show us how to take an unflinching look at dying.

If the Academy of Motion Pictures has taken the unusual step of bestowing an Oscar to a French-language about aging and dying, could that mean that we are finally ready as a country to begin talking about such difficult issues?

It?s refreshing to see the Academy?s? giving a vote of confidence to the cultural change that we at ABC News and The Conversation Project believe in.

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke frames this end-of-life story in a context of deep intimacy and emotional richness, even as he never sidesteps the grimness of decline. The extraordinary performances of veteran actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as Georges and Anne take us step by step, detail by poignant detail, through the unraveling of the lives of this elegant elderly couple.

?Amour? is unquestionably, as its title declares, a love story. But it is also a portrayal of isolation amplified by pride, by reticence, by family dysfunction. Throughout the movie, this isolation becomes increasingly and unbearably, and quite literally, suffocating.

The story of Georges and Anne can be seen as a cautionary tale, provoking essential questions that all must face.

How do we cope with end of life? How do we best manage the challenges ? physical, emotional, logistical ? of this universal life passage? How can we alleviate the burdens dying imposes on our loved ones, on our survivors, on ourselves?

Sarah Putnam is a visual storyteller whose work as a photojournalist, both nationally and internationally, has been commissioned by magazines, corporations, and non-profits. Putnam has been involved with The Conversation Project since its inception.

SHOWS: World News

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/03/25/oscar-winning-amour-provides-unflinching-look-at-aging-dying/

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Senior bondholders face haircut in Cyprus

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Senior bondholders in the Cyprus's Laiki Bank will be wiped out because the bank will be wound down, while senior bondholders in the Bank of Cyprus will also contribute to the recapitalization of the banks, euro zone officials said.

"Laiki bank will have to be resolved... so yes, senior bond holders, along with the others, will be wiped out there," the chairman of euro zone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, told a news conference.

"(Bank of Cyprus) needs to be recapitalized and the contribution to this recapitalization must come, inevitably, from senior bondholders, junior bondholders, shareholders and, to some extent, we don't know to what extent yet, also from uninsured depositors," he said.

(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senior-bondholders-face-haircut-cyprus-025325780--business.html

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Mutated gene causes nerve cell death

Mar. 10, 2013 ? The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is likely to be the world's most famous person living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a progressive disease affecting motor neurons, nerve cells that control muscle function, and nearly always leads to death. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) in Vienna have now identified a completely new mechanism in the onset of motor neuron diseases. Their findings could be the basis for future treatments for these presently incurable diseases.

A new principle on motor neuron death

The IMBA scientists, working with an international team of researchers under the leadership of Josef Penninger and Javier Martinez, discovered a completely new fundamental mechanism that triggers the death of motor neurons. Motor neurons are nerve cells responsible for stimulating muscles. The loss of these motor neurons in mice with a genetic mutation in a gene named CLP1¹ leads to severe and progressive muscular paralysis and, in some cases, to death.

"We've been working on resolving the function of the CLP1 gene in a living organism for a long time. To do that, we developed model mice in which the function of CLP1 was genetically inactivated. To our utter surprise we discovered that deactivating CLP1 increases the sensitivity of cell die when exposed to oxidative stress². That leads to enhanced activity of the p53 protein³ and then to the permanent destruction of motor neurons," says Toshikatsu Hanada, a postdoctoral researcher working in the lab of Josef Penninger and first author of the study along with Stefan Weitzer.

Stephen Hawking -- a most renowned patient

Motor neuron diseases (MNDs), such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), are chronic disorders of the neuromuscular system. These diseases are caused by damage in the motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, and the nerves can no longer stimulate motion in the muscles. The primary symptoms are muscular weakness, muscular dystrophy, and problems swallowing or speaking. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS 50 years ago. But not all ALS patients live so long with the disease: so far there are no treatments for ALS. Nearly all ALS patients die of paralysis of respiratory muscles within a few years.

Completely new disease mechanism

Javier Martinez, an IMBA team leader and co-author of the study, is a specialist in the field of ribonucleic acid (RNA) research. His research group had discovered the CLP1 gene in an earlier study, published in Nature in 2007. Until now, the exact essential function of CLP1 in RNA biology was unclear. "By deactivating CLP1, we have discovered a previously unknown new species of RNA," says Javier Martinez about the scientific relevance of the work. "The accumulation of this RNA is a consequence of increased oxidative stress in the cell. We see this as one of the triggers for the loss of motor neurons that occurs in ALS and other neuromuscular diseases. Thus our findings describe a completely new mechanism of motor neuron diseases."

Seminal findings

Josef Penninger, scientific director at the IMBA and last-author of the study, is excited about the researchers' findings: "This surprising discovery of a role of CLP1 in the onset of motor neuron diseases is an entirely new principle in how RNA talks to oxidative stress. Nearly all genetic mutations found in ALS patients affect either RNA metabolism or oxidative stress, suggesting a possibly unifying principle for these diseases. Our work may have revealed the 'missing link' in how these two biological systems communicate and trigger incurable diseases like ALS."

Stefan Weitzer sees tremendous potential for these findings: "We've discovered a new mechanism that leads to the death of motor neurons. If this holds true for other neuronal disease, our results could be one day used to drive the development of treatments for previously incurable diseases. In our work we also describe how the p53 protein regulates the loss of motor neurons. Removing p53 saves mice with CLP1 mutations from certain death." If scientists are successful in applying these findings to people, the researchers may have discovered a treatment approach to cure ALS and similar diseases. The authors, however, caution that more studies will be needed to translate their findings to human medicine.

This study was performed in collaboration with research groups from the Medical Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck, the University Medical Center at Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, the Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the Boston Children's and Massachusetts General Hospitals, the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Oita University in Japan, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot in Israel.

Notes:

¹⁾ CLP1: = Cleavage and Polyadenylation Factor 1: a kinase (enzyme responsible for transmitting signals in cells) responsible for attaching phosphate residue to RNA.

²⁾ Oxidative stress: causes damage to cells and the genome, and is involved in the ageing process. The normal repair and detoxification function of the cells is overburdened.

³⁾ p53: a protein that is mutated in many types of cancer cells. It plays a role in inhibiting the cell cycle and can trigger cell death.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Institute of Molecular Biotechnology.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Toshikatsu Hanada, Stefan Weitzer, Barbara Mair, Christian Bernreuther, Brian J. Wainger, Justin Ichida, Reiko Hanada, Michael Orthofer, Shane J. Cronin, Vukoslav Komnenovic, Adi Minis, Fuminori Sato, Hiromitsu Mimata, Akihiko Yoshimura, Ido Tamir, Johannes Rainer, Reinhard Kofler, Avraham Yaron, Kevin C. Eggan, Clifford J. Woolf, Markus Glatzel, Ruth Herbst, Javier Martinez, Josef M. Penninger. CLP1 links tRNA metabolism to progressive motor-neuron loss. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature11923

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/oPMO9DA-PFA/130310163827.htm

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China's heavy-handed censors will now have to endure Ai Weiwei's heavy metal

By Sui-Lee Wee

BEIJING (Reuters) - Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei announced plans on Monday to release a heavy-metal album that he said would "express his opinion" just as he does with his art.

The burly and bearded Ai said 81 days in secretive detention in 2011, which sparked an international outcry, triggered his foray into music.

"When I was arrested, they (his guards) would often ask me to sing songs, but because I wasn't familiar with music, I was embarrassed," Ai, 55, said in a telephone interview. "It helped me pass the time very easily.

"All I could sing was Chinese People's Liberation Army songs," Ai said. "After that I thought: when I'm out, I'd like to do something related to music."

A court in September upheld a $2.4 million (1.6 million pounds) fine against Ai for tax evasion, paving the way for jail if he does not pay. Ai maintains the charges were trumped up in retaliation for his criticism of the government.

The world-renowned artist has repeatedly criticised the government for flouting the rule of law and the rights of citizens.

Ai's debut album - "Divina Commedia", after the poem by Italian poet Dante - is a reference to the "Ai God" nickname in Chinese that his supporters call him by. "God" in Chinese is "Shen", while "Divina Commedia" in Chinese is "Shen qu".

Two songs are about blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest last April and subsequent refuge in the U.S. Embassy embarrassed China and led to a diplomatic tussle.

One song on the album is called "Hotel Americana", a dig at the U.S. Embassy for sheltering Chen. Another is "Climbing over the Wall" - a reference to Chen's scaling of the walls in his village to escape, and Chinese Internet users circumventing the "Great Firewall of China", a colloquial term for China's blocking of websites.

Ai said he was not worried about government persecution for his album, which will be out in about three weeks. But he is gloomy about the prospects of it being sold in China, saying he will distribute the album online "because music is also subject to review" in China.

Ai said his time in the recording studio did not mean that he was moving away from art.

"I think it's all the same," he said. "My art is about expressing opinion and communication."

Ai said he was working on a second album, with pop and rock influences, that he hoped people would sing along with.

"You know, I'm a person that's furthest away from music, I never sing," Ai said. "But you'll be surprised. You'll like it."

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-heavy-handed-censors-now-endure-ai-weiweis-110223414.html

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