Lew's loopy signature may end up on dollar bills

This Sept. 21, 2011, memo posted on the White House website shows then-Office of Management and Budget director Jack Lew's signature. Lew?s nomination for treasury secretary means a new signature could soon be coming to the dollar bill. Not that you?ll be able to read it. Lew?s signature starts off promising enough, with a soft ?J.? But what follows next are seven loopy scribbles, rendering his signature completely illegible. The treasury secretary?s signature is emblazoned in the lower right corner of U.S. dollar bills of all denominations. It remains to be seen whether President Barack Obama will make Lew change up his signature or if the Senate will make it a condition of his confirmation. (AP Photo/The White House)

This Sept. 21, 2011, memo posted on the White House website shows then-Office of Management and Budget director Jack Lew's signature. Lew?s nomination for treasury secretary means a new signature could soon be coming to the dollar bill. Not that you?ll be able to read it. Lew?s signature starts off promising enough, with a soft ?J.? But what follows next are seven loopy scribbles, rendering his signature completely illegible. The treasury secretary?s signature is emblazoned in the lower right corner of U.S. dollar bills of all denominations. It remains to be seen whether President Barack Obama will make Lew change up his signature or if the Senate will make it a condition of his confirmation. (AP Photo/The White House)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Jack Lew's nomination for treasury secretary means a new signature could soon be coming to the dollar bill.

Not that you'll be able to read it.

Lew's signature starts off promising enough, with a soft "J." But what follows are seven loopy scribbles, rendering his signature illegible.

The treasury secretary's signature is emblazoned in the lower right corner of U.S. dollar bills of all denominations.

No word from the White House on whether President Barack Obama asked Lew to clean up his signature before nominating him for the Treasury post ? or if the Senate will make that a condition of his confirmation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-01-09-Lew's%20Loopy%20Signature/id-48f9da155a7f47659fbaa2a57e4cba99

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Samsung announces 'world's first' curved OLED, we go eyes-on

Samsung announces 'world's first' curved OLED, we go eyeson

Samsung's massive booth here on the CES 2013 showfloor has barely opened and already we're getting a look at one of its latest TV innovations. Sitting pretty in a far roped-off corner and hailed as a "world's first," is the company's Curved OLED TV. Not much has been divulged about the uniquely shaped set at this time, but official details should be forthcoming quite soon. In the meanwhile, check out our gallery below.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/08/samsung-announces-worlds-first-curved-oled-we-go-eyes-on/

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Targeting hepatitis C treatment: The importance of interleukin (IL)-28

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

A metanalysis published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine has confirmed that polymorphisms (SNP) in the gene coding for interleukin-28 (IL28B) influence natural hepatitis C viral (HCV) clearance and response to pegylated interferon-? plus ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV). Information about IL28B genotype could be used to provide personalized medicine and target treatment options effectively.

Over 200 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and about a quarter of these will go on to develop cirrhosis of the liver. Treatment with (PEG-IFN/RBV) only works in 40-80% of patients, depending in part on HCV strain, and treatment often has severe side effects. It is consequently important to separate people who will not respond to treatment, from those who may, so that treatment is targeted effectively.

Researchers from the Health Institute Carlos III, Spain, incorporated 67 studies that investigated IL28B polymorphisms with the suppression of viral activity to undetectable levels (sustained virologic response - SVR), and ten that looked at IL28B polymorphisms and spontaneous clearance, into a metanalysis. Approximately 23,500 people were included overall.

The results of this analysis showed that IL28B polymorphisms influence how well IFN treatment works and natural clearance of HCV infection. Having a favourable genotype at any one of seven IL28B polymorphisms equated to more than double the probability of achieving SVR. The study also found that two SNP were associated with spontaneous clearance. Detailed analysis showed that the effect of ethnicity and viral type also influenced the strength of individual association. Consequently the association between favourable variants and SVR for HCV types 2 and 3 was three times lower than types 1 and 4.

Mar?a ?ngeles Jim?nez-Sousa, Amanda Fern?ndez-Rodr?guez and Salvador Resino who led this study explained, "Treatment with (PEG-IFN/RBV) is costly and can have side effects which prevent patient compliance. Consequently knowing a patient's IL-28B status will help target interferon treatment to those who will benefit most, and play a substantial role in the selection of candidates for standard treatment versus triple therapy with direct-acting antivirals (DAA). Also, because IL28B genotyping needs be performed only once in a patient's life, it is relatively cheap."

###

BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com

Thanks to BioMed Central for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126181/Targeting_hepatitis_C_treatment__The_importance_of_interleukin__IL____

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2nd Winehouse inquest confirms alcohol death

FILE - In this July 4, 2008 file photo, singer Amy Winehouse performs during the Rock in Rio music festival in Arganda del Rey, on the outskirts of Madrid. A second coroner's inquest confirmed Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013, that Amy Winehouse died of accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after a period of abstinence. The second inquest was held after the original coroner was found to lack the proper qualifications for the job. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano, File)

FILE - In this July 4, 2008 file photo, singer Amy Winehouse performs during the Rock in Rio music festival in Arganda del Rey, on the outskirts of Madrid. A second coroner's inquest confirmed Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013, that Amy Winehouse died of accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after a period of abstinence. The second inquest was held after the original coroner was found to lack the proper qualifications for the job. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2007 file photo, British singer Amy Winehouse poses for photographs after being interviewed by The Associated Press at a studio in north London. A second coroner's inquest confirmed Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013, that Amy Winehouse died of accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after a period of abstinence. The second inquest was held after the original coroner was found to lack the proper qualifications for the job. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

Police officers and a community support officer, center, leave after a second inquest into the death of singer Amy Winehouse at St. Pancras Coroner's Court in London, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. A second coroner's inquest confirmed Tuesday, that Amy Winehouse died of accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after a period of abstinence. The second inquest was held after the original coroner was found to lack the proper qualifications for the job. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

(AP) ? Amy Winehouse died from accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after a period of abstinence, a second coroner's inquest confirmed Tuesday.

Coroner Shirley Radcliffe ruled that the 27-year-old soul singer "died as a result of alcohol toxicity" and recorded a verdict of death by misadventure. She said there were no suspicious circumstances.

She said Winehouse "voluntarily consumed alcohol ? a deliberate act that took an unexpected turn and led to her death."

Tuesday's verdict was identical to that produced by a first inquest in 2011. But the result of that hearing was annulled after the original coroner was found to lack the proper qualifications for the job.

The Grammy-winning singer, who fought a very public battle with drug and alcohol abuse for years, was found dead at her London home on July 23, 2011, with empty vodka bottles scattered around her.

Radcliffe said a postmortem had found that Winehouse had a blood alcohol level five times the legal driving limit, and above a level that can prove fatal.

She said that much alcohol could affect the central nervous system so much that a patient could "fall asleep and not wake up."

Pathologist Michael Sheaff told the inquest that Winehouse had likely suffered respiratory arrest after consuming so much alcohol. The level in her blood was 416 milligrams per 100 milliliters, a blood alcohol level of 0.4 percent. The British legal driving limit is 0.08 percent.

Winehouse's family did not attend the 45-minute inquest at St. Pancras Coroner's Court, near the singer's north London home.

The original coroner resigned in November 2011 after her qualifications were questioned. She had been hired by her husband, the senior coroner for inner north London. But she had not been a registered lawyer in Britain for five years as required.

In Britain, inquests are held to determine the facts whenever someone dies unexpectedly, violently or in disputed circumstances.

The beehive-haired Winehouse shot to global fame with her 2006 album "Back to Black," which won five Grammys. But her erratic public behavior, turbulent private life and frequent health problems ? which included seizures, emphysema and bulimia ? often overshadowed her musical talent.

Tuesday's second inquest re-heard testimony from witnesses and experts including the bodyguard who found Winehouse dead, the police officer who investigated and a doctor who treated the singer as she tried to quit drugs and alcohol.

The doctor, Christina Romete, said Winehouse was "a highly intelligent individual, very determined and willful," who did not easily follow doctors' orders and resisted suggestions that she seek psychological help.

She said the singer had successfully given up drugs after a period of taking heroin, crack cocaine and marijuana, but had struggled to stop drinking, going through periods of abstinence followed by booze binges.

Winehouse started drinking a few days before her death after being dry for almost two weeks.

"She said she started drinking again because she felt bored," said Romete, who saw Winehouse the day before she died.

"I asked Amy if she was going to stop drinking that evening and she said she did not know," the doctor said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-01-08-Britain-Amy%20Winehouse/id-c05b27bab0bb4d388c23433c599ee76e

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Hubble reveals rogue planetary orbit for Fomalhaut b

Jan. 8, 2013 ? Newly released NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of a vast debris disk encircling the nearby star Fomalhaut and a mysterious planet circling it may provide forensic evidence of a titanic planetary disruption in the system.

Astronomers are surprised to find the debris belt is wider than previously known, spanning a section of space from 14 to nearly 20 billion miles from the star. Even more surprisingly, the latest Hubble images have allowed a team of astronomers to calculate the planet follows an unusual elliptical orbit that carries it on a potentially destructive path through the vast dust ring.

The planet, called Fomalhaut b, swings as close to its star as 4.6 billion miles, and the outermost point of its orbit is 27 billion miles away from the star. The orbit was recalculated from the newest Hubble observation made last year.

"We are shocked. This is not what we expected," said Paul Kalas of the University of California at Berkeley and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The Fomalhaut team led by Kalas considers this circumstantial evidence there may be other planet-like bodies in the system that gravitationally disturbed Fomalhaut b to place it in such a highly eccentric orbit. The team presented its finding Tuesday at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif.

Among several scenarios to explain Fomalhaut b's 2,000-year-long orbit is the hypothesis that an as yet undiscovered planet gravitationally ejected Fomalhaut b from a position closer to the star, and sent it flying in an orbit that extends beyond the dust belt.

"Hot Jupiters get tossed through scattering events, where one planet goes in and one gets thrown out," said co-investigator Mark Clampin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This could be the planet that gets thrown out."

Hubble also found the dust and ice belt encircling the star Fomalhaut has an apparent gap slicing across the belt. This might have been carved by another undetected planet. Hubble's exquisite view of the dust belt shows irregularities that strongly motivate a search for other planets in the system.

If its orbit lies in the same plane with the dust belt, then Fomalhaut b will intersect the belt around 2032 on the outbound leg of its orbit. During the crossing, icy and rocky debris in the belt could crash into the planet's atmosphere and create the type of cosmic fireworks seen when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter. Most of the fireworks from collisions will be seen in infrared light. However, if Fomalhaut b is not co-planar with the belt, the only thing to be seen will be a gradual dimming of Fomalhaut b as it travels farther from the star.

Kalas hypothesized that Fomalhaut b's extreme orbit is a major clue in explaining why the planet is unusually bright in visible light, but very dim in infrared light. It is possible the planet's optical brightness originates from a ring or shroud of dust around the planet, which reflects starlight. The dust would be rapidly produced by satellites orbiting the planet, which would suffer extreme erosion by impacts and gravitational stirring when Fomalhaut b enters into the planetary system after a millennium of deep freeze beyond the main belt. An analogy can be found by looking at Saturn, which has a tenuous, but very large dust ring produced when meteoroids hit the outer moon Phoebe.

The team has also considered a different scenario where a hypothetical second dwarf planet suffered a catastrophic collision with Fomalhaut b. The collision scenario would explain why the star Fomalhaut has a narrow outer belt linked to an extreme planet. But in this case the belt is young, less than 10,000 years old, and it is difficult to produce energetic collisions far from the star in such young systems.

Fomalhaut is a special system because it looks like scientists may have a snapshot of what our solar system was doing 4 billion years ago. The planetary architecture is being redrawn, the comet belts are evolving, and planets may be gaining and losing their moons. Astronomers will continue monitoring Fomalhaut b for decades to come because they may have a chance to observe a planet entering an icy debris belt that is like the Kuiper Belt at the fringe of our own solar system.

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Protein production: Going viral

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

A research team of scientists from EMBL Grenoble and the IGBMC in Strasbourg, France, have, for the first time, described in molecular detail the architecture of the central scaffold of TFIID: the human protein complex essential for transcription from DNA to mRNA. The study, published today in Nature, opens new perspectives in the study of transcription and of the structure and mechanism of other large multi-protein assemblies involved in gene regulation.

By controlling the transcription of DNA into messenger RNA, TFIID forms the cornerstone of the machinery that controls gene expression in our cells. Despite its crucial role, very little was known about its architecture. TFIID is present at very low levels in cells, and it is a very large protein complex made of 20 subunits: this combination largely prevented previous attempts to purify it and decipher its structure and function in molecular detail. Even the most advanced methods for recombinant protein production met their limits when trying to produce its various subunits in the right proportions.

The solution to this bottleneck came from studying the strategy certain viruses, such as Coronaviruses, use when they replicate: they produce very long protein chains that are then divided into individual proteins. Mimicking this technique led to highly abundant and correctly assembled complexes of the core scaffold of TFIID (comprising 10 subunits), which could be purified and analysed at high resolution by combining electron microscopy and data from X-ray crystallography.


The human TFIID core complex contains two copies each of TAF4 (green), TAF5 (red), TAF6 (blue), TAF9 (light blue) and TAF12 (light green). The density determined by cryo-electron microscopy is shown as a grey mesh. Credit: Gabor Papai ? IGBMC

This ground-breaking analysis reveals the inner workings of the core-complex of human TFIID in unprecedented detail. It shows that some of its subunits adopt a very defined structure, whereas other parts appear to adopt intricate, extended geometries winding like worms through the complex, holding it together. The overall architecture of the complex is symmetric; however, the authors describe how it becomes asymmetric when it binds to other subunits to finally form the complete TFIID complex.

"We know now in some detail what the core of TFIID looks like, and what happens when further subunits are bound. We believe that we have opened the door to determining the architecture of the entire human TFIID complex in the near future, and likewise of other large multiprotein assemblies involved in gene regulation, and to explain their roles in catalysing biological function," concludes Imre Berger, coordinator of the study at EMBL.

###

European Molecular Biology Laboratory: http://www.embl.org

Thanks to European Molecular Biology Laboratory for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 16 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126165/Protein_production__Going_viral

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Apple rumored to (again) be working on a cheaper iPhone, could arrive in late 2013

Apple rumored to again be working on a cheaper iPhone, could arrive in late 2013

Remember this song and dance? You should. Major news agencies far and wide have been asserting that Apple would be producing a "cheaper iPhone" for years now, and it looks as if a few fresh rumors have the smoke all roiled up again. The Wall Street Journal is today reporting that Apple is "working on a lower-end iPhone," citing only "people familiar with the matter" as proof. The article notes that the company has "explored such a device for years," but that exploration is getting closer to reality now that the smartphone universe is beginning to shift in a major way.

As the story goes, the cheaper phone "could resemble the standard iPhone, with a different, less-expensive body" -- perhaps an iPhone that relies on polycarbonate plastic instead of metal / glass. It's most certainly unlike Apple to cater to the lower-end; when the netbook craze was in full force, it resisted the obvious urge to cut corners on its MacBook Air in order to play ball in that space. And, most recently, its smaller iPad didn't come close to matching items like the Nexus 7 in price.

What remains unclear, however, is if this report is merely a masked rehash of a DigiTimes report that surfaced earlier in the day. For those unaware, DigiTimes doesn't have the purest reputation when it comes to nailing Apple rumors, and given that a low-end iPhone has been rumored for nearly as long as the iPhone has existed, it's even more unclear if there's a reason to put more stock in this one compared to those prior.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/08/apple-cheaper-iphone-rumor-2013/

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Gas prices staying down as 2013 starts

NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S. drivers are hoping 2013 doesn't start off like 2012 at the gas pump. So far, so good.

Gasoline now averages $3.30 a gallon, up about half a penny since Jan. 1. A year ago, gas rose about 10 cents in the first week or so because of a jump in oil prices, and it nearly hit $4 in early April.

Oil prices should dictate what happens next with pump prices. Economic factors affecting oil are mixed ? economies in the U.S. and China are showing modest improvement, while Europe remains in recession.

The wild card is the Middle East. In the past two years, threats to shipments of oil from the region drove crude prices higher during the winter. That led to a surge in pump prices by spring.

On Monday benchmark crude rose 10 cents to finish at $93.19 a barrel in New York. Brent crude rose 9 cents to end at $111.40 per barrel in London.

Americans paid an average $3.60 for a gallon gas in 2012, eclipsing the record of $3.51 a gallon set in 2011, according to AAA. Oil prices remained high and unplanned outages plagued refineries across the U.S., including some in the Gulf Coast and in the New York area that were hit by Hurricane Isaac and Superstorm Sandy.

The Energy Department expects gas to average $3.43 a gallon this year. That's based on an anticipated decline in Brent crude, which is a benchmark for oil imported on the U.S. East Coast, to an average of $104 a barrel.

Drivers in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming are paying below $3 a gallon on average. Hawaii remains the only state above $4. New York is the second-highest at an average $3.75 a gallon.

In other energy futures trading in New York:

? Wholesale gasoline added 1 cent to finish at $2.78 a gallon.

? Heating oil rose 1 cent to end at $3.03 a gallon.

? Natural gas dropped 2 cents to finish at $3.27 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gas-prices-staying-down-2013-starts-161954575--finance.html

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Obama sends military one of its own as DOD chief

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama said he was sending the U.S. military "one of its own" Monday as he selected decorated Vietnam combat veteran Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon as it scales back spending and winds down a decade of war.

A former Republican senator from Nebraska, Hagel would be the first enlisted military member to become secretary of defense, and Obama called him "the leader our troops deserve."

"In Chuck Hagel our troops see a decorated combat veteran of character and strength," Obama said as he introduced Hagel at a White House news conference. "They see one of their own," who will champion veterans and military families.

An Army infantry sergeant who risked his life to pull his younger brother to safety while both were serving in Vietnam, Hagel would bring to the job a gritty view of war and the independent temperament to express those views.

He is known as a contrarian Republican moderate who was a fierce critic of the Bush administration's war policies and he is likely to support a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Long the frontrunner for the Pentagon job, Hagel, 66, forged a strong personal relationship with Obama in the Senate, including overseas trips they took together. And he carved out a reputation as an independent thinker and blunt speaker.

"In the Senate, I came to admire his courage and his judgment, his willingness to speak his mind, even if it wasn't popular, even if it defied the conventional wisdom," said Obama. "And that's exactly the spirit I want on my national security team, a recognition that when it comes to the defense of our country, we are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans."

Hagel has also suggested he won't be shy in disagreeing with the commander-in-chief and his outspoken nature has already given some senators, who will confirm his nomination, pause.

"I do think Obama's done a good job overall. There are a lot of things I don't agree with him on; he knows it," Hagel told the foreign policy website Al-Monitor last March.

Wounded during the Vietnam War, Hagel initially backed the invasion of Iraq, but later became a credible critic of the wars, making routine trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. He opposed President George W. Bush's plan to send an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq ? a move that has been credited with stabilizing the chaotic country ? as "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out."

While Hagel supported the Afghanistan war resolution, over time he has become more critical of the decade-plus conflict, with its complex nation-building effort.

Often seeing the Afghan war through the lens of his service in Vietnam, Hagel has declared that militaries are "built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations." In a radio interview this year, he spoke broadly of the need for greater diplomacy as the appropriate path in Afghanistan, noting that "the American people want out" of the war.

In an October interview with the online Vietnam Magazine, Hagel said he remembers telling himself in 1968 in Vietnam, "If I ever get out of this and I'm ever in a position to influence policy, I will do everything I can to avoid needless, senseless war."

If confirmed by the Senate, Hagel would succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Panetta has long made it clear he intended to leave the job early this year, after serving in the post for about 18 months.

To political and defense insiders, Obama's preference for Hagel makes sense.

The former senator shares many of the same ideals of Obama's first Pentagon leader, Republican Robert Gates. When Obama became president in 2009, he asked Gates to remain as defense secretary. Both Hagel and Gates talk of the need for global answers to regional conflicts and an emphasis on so-called soft power, including economic and political aid, to bolster weak nations.

"A Hagel nomination signals an interest in, and a commitment to continuing a bipartisan approach to national security," said David Berteau, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said Hagel's two terms in the Senate, before he retired in 2009, spanned the latter years of the post-Cold War military drawdown and the post-Sept. 11 buildup. "From a budget point of view he has seen both ends of the spectrum and that gives him a good perspective to start from."

Hagel's possible selection has been met with mixed reviews. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Hagel would be "terrific."

But Republicans have said he faces tough questions, with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham declaring Hagel would be "the most antagonistic secretary of defense towards the state of Israel in our nation's history."

Hagel has criticized discussion of a military strike by either the U.S. or Israel against Iran and spoken of the influence of the "Jewish lobby" on Congress. He also has backed efforts to bring Iran to the table for talks on future peace in Afghanistan.

"The appointment of Chuck Hagel would be a slap in the face for every American who is concerned about the safety of Israel," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

In comments to the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star, Hagel said critics have "completely distorted" his record, insisting he has backed sanctions against Iran and demonstrated total support for Israel.

The National Jewish Democratic Council issued a statement Monday saying it trusts that Hagel "will follow the president's lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel," including "leading the world against Iran's nuclear program."

Hagel often straddled party lines and had some high-profile dustups with his Republican colleagues.

In 2008, he criticized GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, saying she lacked foreign policy credentials and that it would be "a stretch" to consider her qualified to become president. His wife, Lilibet Hagel, endorsed Obama in his first run for president. Hagel also was mentioned as a possible candidate for Pentagon chief when Obama was first elected.

As defense secretary, Hagel would preside over the withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan and the waning days of the war, and would direct some of the steepest cuts in Pentagon spending in years. His task would be to restructure a pared down military that can step away from the grinding wars of the past 11 years and refocus on a swath of regional challenges from Syria, Iran and North Korea to terrorism in Africa and the defense buildup in the Pacific.

His experience and his allies on Capitol Hill will work to his benefit.

"Certainly his name coming forward is one I'm very open to," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who served with Hagel on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I had good relations with him while he was in the Senate. Certainly (he's) a veteran and someone who also spent a lot of time around the world understanding the relations other countries have with the U.S. and vice versa."

Defense analyst Loren Thompson, of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute think tank, said Hagel knows the political system and is known for thinking outside the box, which would help as budget cuts move forward.

"He's a veteran who understands how Congress works and has stayed plugged in to developments in defense policy," Thompson said. "He is not tied to the status quo and will think creatively about how to manage America's military forces."

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

___

Lolita C. Baldor can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lbaldor

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-sends-military-one-own-dod-chief-201953243--politics.html

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Mock Mars trek finds down-to-Earth sleep woes

FILE This Nov. 4, 2011 file photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russia, shows researcher Sukhrob Kamolov leaving a set of windowless modules after a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars. Astronauts have a down-to-Earth problem that could be even worse on a long trip to Mars: They can't get enough sleep. And over time, the lack of slumber can turn intrepid space travelers into drowsy couch potatoes, a new study shows. In a novel experiment, six volunteers were confined in a cramped mock spaceship in Moscow to simulate a 17-month voyage. It made most of the would-be spacemen act like birds and bears heading into winter, gearing for hibernation. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool, File)

FILE This Nov. 4, 2011 file photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russia, shows researcher Sukhrob Kamolov leaving a set of windowless modules after a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars. Astronauts have a down-to-Earth problem that could be even worse on a long trip to Mars: They can't get enough sleep. And over time, the lack of slumber can turn intrepid space travelers into drowsy couch potatoes, a new study shows. In a novel experiment, six volunteers were confined in a cramped mock spaceship in Moscow to simulate a 17-month voyage. It made most of the would-be spacemen act like birds and bears heading into winter, gearing for hibernation. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool, File)

FILE - This Dec. 19, 2006 video file image provided by NASA TV shows Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria working aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts have a down-to-Earth problem that could be even worse on a long trip to Mars: They can't get enough sleep. And over time, the lack of slumber can turn intrepid space travelers into drowsy couch potatoes, a new study shows. Lopez-Alegria, who holds the American record for longest space mission, said he could relate to the study findings. (AP Photo/NASA TV, File)

FILE - This Nov. 4, 2011 file photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russian shows researcher Sukhrob Kamolov greeting his relatives after completing a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars. Astronauts have a down-to-Earth problem that could be even worse on a long trip to Mars: They can't get enough sleep. And over time, the lack of slumber can turn intrepid space travelers into drowsy couch potatoes, a new study shows. In a novel experiment, six volunteers were confined in a cramped mock spaceship in Moscow to simulate a 17-month voyage. It made most of the would-be spacemen act like birds and bears heading into winter, gearing for hibernation. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool, File)

(AP) ? Astronauts have a down-to-Earth problem that could be even worse on a long trip to Mars: They can't get enough sleep. And over time, the lack of slumber can turn intrepid space travelers into drowsy couch potatoes, a new study shows.

In a novel experiment, six volunteers were confined in a cramped mock spaceship in Moscow to simulate a 17-month voyage. It made most of the would-be spacemen lethargic, much like birds and bears heading into winter, gearing up for hibernation.

The men went into a prolonged funk. Four had considerable trouble sleeping, with one having minor problems and the sixth mostly unaffected. Some had depression issues. Sometimes, a few of the men squirreled themselves away into the most private nooks they could find. They didn't move much. They avoided crucial exercise.

"This looks like something you see in birds in the winter," said lead author David Dinges, a sleep expert at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The experiment was run and funded by Russian and European space agencies. A report on the simulation's effect on the men was published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dinges said scientists can't tell if the men's lethargy was just lack of sleep or was also caused by other factors: the close quarters, lack of privacy with so many cameras or being away from their families for so long.

It's a problem that has to be fixed ? and can be ? before astronauts are sent to Mars, as President Barack Obama proposes for the mid-2030s, Dinges said. The trip to Mars, Earth's closest neighbor, would take about six months each way.

The world record for continuous time in space ? 14 months ? is held by Dr. Valery Polyakov, who was on the Russian space station Mir in 1994 and 1995. American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are scheduled to spend an entire year in space on the International Space Station, starting in 2015.

When leaving confinement in November 2011, the six volunteers ? three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese ? called their experience successful: "We can go forward and now plan to go to Mars and move confidently," said volunteer Romain Charles of France.

The data scientists collected wasn't as rosy. Devices on the volunteers' wrists measured their movements and showed that when they were asleep and awake they were moving much less than they should have been, an unexpected and disturbing finding, Dinges said.

One of the six volunteers ? who were paid $100,000 to live in the mock spaceship with limited and time-delayed contact with the outside world ? slept nearly half an hour less each night than he did when he started the mission, affecting how he went about his day, Dinges said.

The loss of sleep matters because astronauts will have to perform intricate tasks on the way to Mars and while on the red planet. And they have to do vigorous exercises daily to fight the toll that near-zero gravity takes on the bones and other parts of the body. And most of the volunteers weren't doing that.

The Moscow study, based on the ground, couldn't take into account the added difficulty of near-zero gravity.

Former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who holds the American record for longest space mission, said he could relate to the study findings. During his 215 days in orbit on the space station, he sometimes had trouble getting back to sleep because he didn't have a sense of lying down or having his head on a pillow.

The lack of sleep and lots of work caused him to sometimes nod off during the day, and the lack of gravity meant that when he fell asleep accidentally he would float away and awaken elsewhere in the station, he said.

""It happened more than once, but I never thought it was a big deal. I thought it was amusing in a way," Lopez-Alegria said in an interview.

Excerpts from astronaut diaries in a NASA report show prevalent sleep problems, with space station residents talking about nodding off while typing and obsessing over getting too much or too little sleep.

"I just need sleep," one unidentified astronaut wrote.

"The morning started disastrously. I slept through two (wake-up) alarms... My body apparently went on strike for better working conditions," wrote another.

Jerry Linenger, a medical doctor and NASA astronaut who spent more than four months on the Russian space station Mir in 1997, said he watched cosmonauts fall asleep in mid-conversation. And after a couple months, Linenger started having sleep problems despite his best efforts, which included using eye shades and bungee cords to put pressure on his body.

"It's kind of like you're wiped out after New Year's Eve, kind of like a hangover or something," Linenger said. "You are aware you're not performing. So I'd be extra careful if I had to switch some buttons."

Later in 1997, a cosmonaut on Mir who had a sleepless night accidentally disconnected a system that gathered solar power for the aging station, said Charles Czeisler, a sleep professor and space researcher at Harvard Medical School.

Czeisler, who wasn't part of the Dinges study, said the new work was important in demonstrating the challenges of a Mars mission.

Astronauts do use sleeping pills to help them sleep.

And one solution experts like Dinges and Czeisler agree on is lighting. Blue evening light is essential for resetting a body's natural rhythms, Czeisler said, and changing the color and timing of lighting has been shown to help people sleep on Earth.

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Online:

Journal: http://www.pnas.org

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Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-01-07-US-SCI-Sleepless-in-Space/id-9fe5ae636e3242618ae6014fedfeb8ea

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