Essay: In Lab Lit, Fiction Meets Science of the Real World

In Barbara Kingsolver?s new novel, ?Flight Behavior,? a central character is an entomologist tracking the effects of global climate change on monarch butterflies. The scientist, Ovid Byron, shows up at the Appalachian farm of Dellarobia Turnbow after she discovers a vast immigration of monarchs, displaced from their Mexican wintering spot by floods caused by global warming.

There?s a love story, of course, and a coming-of-age story (Dellarobia finally gets to go to college), and an intergenerational buddy story ? her precocious 6-year-old, Preston, bonds with Dr. Byron. But the take-away of this novel is that nature is off kilter, spinning out of control, changing before our very eyes.

As she did in ?Prodigal Summer? (2000), Ms. Kingsolver uses fiction to advocate for environmental awareness. But this advocacy is embedded in a compelling narrative of love and loss, opportunities taken or missed, characters who behave in complex and sometimes perplexing ways. Dellarobia Turnbow and her family are dirt-poor, and a summer of incessant rain has left them desperate. The timberland where she discovers the butterflies has already been promised to a lumber company. Save the butterflies or save the Turnbows?

Along with a suspenseful and sweetly told story, the science-nerd reader gets some basic ecology: ?The temperature at which a wet monarch will freeze to death,? Dr. Byron tells Dellarobia, ?is minus four degrees centigrade? (25 above zero Fahrenheit), meaning the monarchs are threatened by more than the proposed logging. That temperature range, Dr. Byron goes on, is ?an inevitable event, for this latitude.?

?Flight Behavior? fits neatly into a genre of serious fiction with a snappy new name: lab lit. I had never heard of it until I started browsing the Web for other novels about science; within minutes I came upon the webzine LabLit.com, which has ?Lab Lit Lists? for dozens of novels, films, plays and TV shows.

The Web site?s editor is Jennifer L. Rohn, a cell biologist at University College London and a novelist herself. The list is a work in progress, and anyone can contribute a title.

Lab lit is not science fiction, and in my opinion it?s not historical fiction about actual scientists (though some fictionalized biographies do appear on the list). Instead, in the Web site?s words, it ?depicts realistic scientists as central characters and portrays fairly realistic scientific practice or concepts, typically taking place in a realistic ? as opposed to speculative or future ? world.?

Popular writers like Carl Djerassi and Michael Crichton join Sinclair Lewis (?Arrowsmith?) as well as Richard Powers, whose brainy novels like ?The Gold Bug Variations? and ?Galatea. 2.2? have won many awards.

?Flight Behavior? is just one of several recent novels featuring scientists working on the big issues of our time. Ann Patchett?s ?State of Wonder? (2011) takes us into the jungles of the Amazon, where a researcher investigating a promising new fertility drug has gone missing.

The work of a field biologist ? one in the employ of a powerful pharmaceutical company ? is at the center of the story. The issues of exploitation of natural resources and people, of self-experimentation, of ignoring the incidental discovery of a potentially far more socially important but less lucrative drug, of the consequences of messing with nature combine to form the compelling crux of this book.

Ian McEwan?s ?Solar? (2010) gives us Michael Beard, a gluttonous, dishonest, womanizing Nobel-winning physicist, who is behind the development of a new form of photosynthesis that might reverse climate change ? and make him very rich. The problem is that the invention is not his ? though the inventor is no longer around to dispute the claim (and, in a neat twist, Beard was involved with, but not responsible for, his death).

One of my favorites on the Lab Lit List is Allegra Goodman?s ?Intuition? (2006), which deals with fraud in a biotech lab. Ms. Goodman did some of her research in a lab at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, and her portrayal of how questionable results can make it onto the record, despite the good intentions of the scientist involved, was eerily accurate.

?It completely nails this world,? Dr. Jerome Groopman, an oncologist and a professor of medicine at Harvard and the director of a laboratory there, said in a 2006 interview with The New York Times. ?It understands the psychology, the dynamics, the processes and pressures that exist in the current culture of science.?

?Mendel?s Dwarf? (1998), by Simon Mawer, an earlier example of lab lit, is about a geneticist, Benedict Lambert, who is not only a dwarf but distantly related to Gregor Mendel. The chapters alternate between Mendel?s little-recognized genius during his lifetime and Lambert?s search, using Mendelian principles, to find the gene for achondroplasia, or dwarfism. The book offers a palatable dose of elementary genetics interspersed with a compelling story, in which once again the scientist is something of an evil genius.

Katherine Bouton, a book reviewer for Science Times, is the author of ?Shouting Won?t Help: Why I ? and 50 Million Other Americans ? Can?t Hear You,? being published in February.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/in-lab-lit-fiction-meets-science-of-the-real-world.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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The Philosophy Behind Amazon Web Services? Cloud Strategy

Amazon-Web-ServicesOn stage at AWS re:Invent last week, CTO Werner Vogels discussed Amazon Web Services’ cloud philosophy, increasingly driven by a belief in building architecture that is cost-aware and designed to optimize economies of scale so it can do volume transactions at thin margins. The talk, a?first-day keynote with Senior Vice President Andy Jassy, predicated the group’s belief in a programmable infrastructure that has more instance types and object storage than any public cloud services provider. For example, Frederic Lardinois wrote about AWS introduction of a ?Cluster High Memory? instance type that will offer a massive 240 GB of RAM and two 120 GB SSDs. Jassy also unveiled a ?High Storage? instance focused on storage and will come with 117 GB of RAM and 24 hard drives for a total of 48 terabytes of HDD space. The two keynotes illustrated AWS’s view on cloud computing, which differs from enterprise vendors that have focused on selling hardware to customers for “private clouds.” It was the first time AWS has stated so clearly how it views cloud computing and its competitors, which they say have been “cloudwashing” customers into believing that their costly solutions are better than the rest. AWS, through its programmable architecture, has built a $1.5 billion business on volume and thin-as-possible margins. The group has dropped pricing 23 times since 2006, including an approximate 25 percent cut that Jassy announced during his keynote. He attributed the drop in price to what he called a virtuous lifecycle. On Thursday, Vogels showed how a business-driven infrastructure gives customers their own ability to develop businesses that are data driven and optimized to make their operations so tight that they can also operate on low margins. Vogels explained how an architecture can adapt to changing business needs based on automated practices that use data to analyze and then program instances that auto-scale with expected increases or decreases in demand. He described it as “cost aware architecture,” meaning that the infrastructure drives application development, as opposed to the other way around. Embodied in this is the increasing requirement for the applications to be controllable, resilient, adaptive and data driven. Amazon.com started AWS because they needed more infrastructure in order for the business to scale. They also needed a better way to handle the fluctuations that would come when they had ups and downs in web traffic. Customers will often have to estimate physical storage, for

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/aP2YvbdRum8/

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Digital innovation challenges media companies Business Blog

Posted on: 3 December 2012
By: mhercheui
No Comments ?
Filed under: Digital Innovation

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Traditional media organisations are struggling to survive in an environment in which digital platforms are more pervasive channels for distributing content. The financial losses of the Guardian and the Observer are examples of the hard times more traditional companies are facing.

The better answer for this challenge is more about business innovation. Digital technology is here to stay. The only ones which will survive and be about changing the game are the ones that are incorporating digital technology. However, technology alone is not the answer. It is the opposite: investing in technology without a clear business model means just losing more money. Organisations need to develop integrated strategies, in which business models are supported by technology and vice-versa.
A new report from Accenture confirms this perspective. In the report Accenture?s 2013 Communications, Media and High-Tech Predictions, the consultancy firm explores the main trends media companies are to face next year. The emphasis that the report puts on three pillars has especially?called my attention : business models, operating models, and user-generated content (the contributions consumers may give through generating content).

I have talked to Charlie Marshall, senior manager for Media and Entertainment at Accenture, to explore more details on these three aspects. It is clear that media companies need to have an innovative attitude which brings together new business models (how to monetise the value created by the company), new ways of operating (which should fit the business models, delivering agility and flexibility), and new ways of engaging the audience in the production of content.

This approach is interesting because it goes further than the more known model of alignment which considers only technology and business. In other words, Accenture puts customers in the process of innovation, taking into consideration the contributions the audience (as consumers) may give to innovate the business platforms. Interesting, this approach is helpful not only to understand how traditional media companies may reinvent themselves, but also to explore how new media platforms may increase their chances of succeeding. It is never enough to remember the success of Huffington Post.

You can read more on the interview with Charlie Marshall? on the digital industry hub New Media Knowledge. The NMK is a community-based service, sponsored by Westminster Business School. On this website, you will find relevant content on digital industries, a contribution of WBS to practitioners in digital industries. Have a look at NMK content, and if you wish to contribute to the debate, drop me a line to discuss the topic.

Magda Hercheui
Senior Lecturer in Project Management and Information Systems, and editor of New Media Knowledge. Researcher on social media.

Source: http://blog.business.westminster.ac.uk/blog/2012/12/03/digital-innovation-challenges-media-companies/

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SEO Tips For Small Business | You Love Random

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?I adore training SEO tips to tiny businesses,?

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) Dec 01, 2012

The JM Internet Group (web: jm-seo.org), a personality in providing SEO Tips for Small Business has announced a final 2012 winter session, commencement Dec 4th. The 7 course, in-depth trainings are designed with a tiny business chairman in mind; training a elemental stairs in formulating successful SEO and moving their businesses to a tip of Google?s organic searches. Beginning with keywords, students will be shown a tip SEO tips, regulating giveaway SEO tools. Small businesses will learn about page tags, news, links, metrics, analytics and some-more in this reknowned SEO training course. Registration is now open for a final event of classes for a 2012 year.

?I adore training SEO tips to tiny businesses,? pronounced Jason McDonald, SEO consultant and executive of a JM Internet Group. ?There are hundreds of SEO tips and collection that tiny businesses can use to boost their websites to a tip of Google searches, and it is always really sparkling to me to be means to not usually uncover my students a giveaway collection and SEO tips available, though how to use them as well.?

For some-more information, including a giveaway rudimentary event on a Top Ten SEO Tools, go to -

  • http://www.jm-seo.org/seo-tips

SEO Tips Course Syllabus ? Focused on SEO Tips for Small Business

????Top Ten: Top Ten Free Tools for SEO / Search Engine Optimization

????Keywords: How to Generate Great Keywords for Great Google Rank

????Page Tags ? Quick Boost ? Use Page Tags to Improve your Google Rank

????Link Strategies: The Who, What, Where, When and How of Getting Good Links for SEO

????News: News You Can Use ? Using News as an SEO Opportunity -

????Google Rank: Monitoring Your Google Rank, and Leveraging it for SEO and PPC

????Website Structure: Creating a Best Topology for Google Rank

????Metrics: Tools for Measuring Your Website SEO and Performance

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Training Classes Also Offered for AdWords and Social Media Marketing

The JM Internet Group also offers training classes for Google AdWords as good as Social Media Mareketing. Each event is taught in dual trainings, and covers all a vicious and vicious elements of promotion on Google as good as building a good Social Media Marketing plan for your business or association online. For some-more information, call or revisit a association website.

?Our SEO march is a foundation, nonetheless adding AdWords and Social Media Marketing is an glorious approach to build a well-rounded Internet selling strategy,? quipped Dr. McDonald.

About JM Internet Group

The JM Internet Group provides SEO, Social Media Marketing, and Google AdWords training and courses for bustling marketers and businesspeople. Online hunt engine optimization training helps explain keywords, page tags, couple building strategies and other techniques indispensable to stand to a tip of hunt engine rankings for Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The training methodology is hands on, with live examples and discussions, taught from a preference of any student?s computer.

Contact:

JM Internet Group, Media Relations

Web. http://www.jm-seo.org/

Email. jm (dot) internetgroup (at) gmail (dot) com

Tel. +1-510-713-2150

Email a friend


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Source: http://youloverandom.com/seo-tips-for-small-business-2/

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Cuba pushes swap: its spies for jailed American contractor

In what could be the setting for a gripping thriller, Cuba and the U.S. are reportedly locked in a standoff this weekend, with the fate of an American contractor hanging in the balance. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.

By Michael IsikoffNBC News

It seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie. A group of Cuban undercover agents sneak into the U.S. and set up a secret pro-Castro network in south Florida ? receiving instructions in code through late night radio transmissions from handlers in Havana. But the FBI gets wind, tails the agents, intercepts their messages and busts them, sending the agents off to federal prison, their ringleader for life.

Today, the story of those spies -- called La Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network ? rolled up by the feds 14 years ago is barely known in the United States. But its members, now? known as the Cuban Five, are national heroes in Cuba ? the subjects of mass demonstrations, their pictures on billboards and? posters ? and their petitions for freedom are championed around the world by Nobel Prize winners, celebrities like Danny Glover, even former President Jimmy Carter.

And they may now prove key to the tense impasse between Havana and Washington over the fate of jailed American contractor Alan Gross, arrested three years ago Monday for distributing sophisticated satellite equipment to Cuba?s tiny Jewish community and later sentenced to 15 years in prison for ?acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state.? (Gross says he was only bringing Internet access to Cuba.)


While the U.S. is demanding that Cuba release Gross, who visitors say is angry and frail, having lost 110 pounds in prison, Cuban officials say they are willing to do so only if President Barack Obama will? release the Cuban agents.

?I understand what Mr. Gross is going through,? Gerardo Hernandez, 47, the Cuban Five ringleader, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News in October at his current home --a federal prison outside Victorville, Calif. ?I understand his sufferings and that of his family. ? If an agreement can be reached, to stop the sufferings of six families, then I welcome it.?

The idea of a swap?the release of Gross for Hernandez and his confederates among the Cuban Five ? faces legal and political hurdles.

NBC News

A billboard in Cuba shows the Cuban Five -- Gerardo Hern?ndez, Antonio Guerrero, Ram?n Laba?ino, Fernando Gonz?lez, and Ren? Gonz?lez.

An Obama administration official told NBC News that the ?imprisonment of Alan Gross, an international development worker, is not comparable in any way to that of the five Cuban agents,? noting that the Cubans were afforded their ?due process rights? and convicted of serious crimes.

Cuban Five ringleader Gerardo Hernandez

Members of Congress have denounced Cuba for holding Gross ?hostage? to the release of the Cuban Five. ?The Castro regime has no regard for human rights or international law,? said Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and frequent critic of the Castro regime. ?The Cuba Five should serve their sentences for spying.?

And Hernandez, who sports a trim goatee and displays a hearty laugh despite 14 years in prison,? might not make the ideal candidate for a pardon or commutation from Obama ? a precondition for a swap to take place. Asked if he regretted any of his actions, he smiled and said, ??I regret that I got caught.? In a follow up phone interview, Hernandez readily acknowledged that ?we violated some U.S. laws? ? mainly failing to register as foreign agents with the U.S. Justice Department. ?We came here with fake passports. Fake identities.? ?But, he added, ?We act out of necessity.,?

As Hernandez and Cuban officials tell it, the Cuban Five was not sent to spy on the U.S. government. In fact, the members weren?t accused of stealing any U.S. secrets (although they were convicted of conducting surveillance of U.S. military bases.) Instead, the mission of the Wasp Network, they say, was to infiltrate? anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida who Havana suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside Cuba. Among those attacks: the notorious bombing of Cubana Flight 455 over the Caribbean in 1976, killing 73 passengers (including teenage members of a Cuban? national fencing team)? as? well as a string of hotel bombings in Havana in? 1997 that killed an Italian businessman and were believed to have been aimed at disrupting Cuba?s nascent tourist industry.???

?Cuba doesn?t have drones to neutralize the terrorists abroad,? said Hernandez. ?They need to send people to gather information and protect the Cuban people from these terrorist actions. ? I think it?s the same feeling that Americans have that defend their country and love their country when they go to infiltrate al-Qaida and send information here to avoid the terrorist acts. And the U.S. has to understand that Cuba has been involved in the war against terrorism for 50 years.?

Alan Gross in an undated family photo, left, and in 2012, after losing 110 pounds while imprisoned in Cuba.

While admitting his role in spying on anti-Castro exiles ??I would do it again,? he said -- Hernandez adamantly denies the most serious charge against him: conspiracy to commit murder. His conviction on that count, which has earned him a life sentence, was based on his alleged complicity in the February 1996 shoot-down by a Cuban fighter jet of two Cessna planes flown by members of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four men.

The anti-Castro group had provoked Cuba by dropping anti-government leaflets over Havana. At the trial of the Cuban Five, prosecutors introduced messages between Hernandez and his controllers in Havana suggesting he had prior knowledge of the shoot-down. But Hernandez insists that prosecutors misinterpreted the messages and he knew nothing that wasn?t already public.

?No, sir, absolutely not,? Hernandez replied when asked if he knew in advance about the incident. ?All I knew was what everybody knew: that Brothers to the Rescue through the years has violated many times Cuban air space, that there have been 16 diplomatic notes from Cuba complaining over that situation.?

/

Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly

Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba?s National Assembly (the Parliament) and a longtime Castro confidante, said this week in Havana that ?the Cuban government publicly, front page in our papers, months before that incident had warned that we are not going to allow any more intrusions into our air space. ? The order, the decision (to shoot down the planes) came from the highest level. Fidel Castro himself had said that publicly, that he was responsible for that decision.?

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Phyllis Kravitch of Atlanta concluded in 2008 that prosecutors never proved their case tying Hernandez to a plot to shoot down the planes, but she was outvoted two to one and his conviction on the murder conspiracy charge was upheld. Now Hernandez and his lawyers are appealing on another ground: that hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret ?U.S. government payments to anti-Castro journalists in Miami -- newly discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests ?inflamed the Miami community against the Cuban Five and made it impossible for them for them to get a fair trial. The payments were mostly made for appearances on Radio Marti, a TV and radio operation funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency that oversees international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S. government.

Slideshow: Castro through the years

In court papers, lawyers for the Cuban Five have cited articles by some of the journalists, including one that denounced the ?genocidal character? of Castro?s regime and another that speculated that the real purpose of the Wasp Network was to introduce ?chemical or bacteriological weapons? into south Florida. ?This information was spread throughout the Miami area and helped inflame the community against these guys,? said Martin Garbus, Hernandez? lawyer. ?It was total madness. ? When the case was brought, the anti-Castro feeling in the Miami area was at a fevered pitch.?

Keystone / Getty Images

Ever since U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista was forced from power by rebels led by Fidel Castro in 1958, the relationship between the two nations has been fraught with difficulties.

U.S. prosecutors dismiss as ?implausible? and ?unfounded? the idea that the Radio Marti payments were part of a U.S. government effort to influence the jury in the Cuban Five case.

??The jury (in the case) was carefully selected, following a searching voir dire (jury selection process) that the appellate court deemed a high model for a high-profile case, and that the trial comported with the highest standards for fairness and professionalism,? wrote Caroline Heck Miller, an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, in a court filing in July asking a judge to reject Hernandez? motion for a hearing into the payments to the journalists. She also noted, as federal prosecutors have repeatedly done when the issue has come up, that ?no Cuban-Americans ? the audience (Hernandez) hypothesizes as the target of the government campaign he imagines?served on the jury.?

Unless Hernandez can somehow persuade a court to reopen his case ?? or barring a prisoner swap with Gross -- he would seem to have few options. ?

Rene Gonzalez, another member of the Cuban Five who was not convicted of the conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge, was released from federal prison on probation late last year, but has not yet been allowed to return home to Cuba to live.

/

Adriana Perez, wife of imprisoned Cuban agent, Gerardo Hernandez

The Cubans are doing their best to ratchet up the pressure. Just as Judy Gross has launched a public relations campaign in the United States to free her husband, appearing at a National Press Club press conference on Friday, this week the Cubans made Hernandez wife, Adriana, available for an interview with NBC News. A chemist in the food industry in Havana, she wept as she described the pain of separation from her husband ? and how it has left her unable to bear children. ?Every detail, every single moment reminds me of him,? she said. ?I believe there are many people in the U.S. and the American people as a whole, who could convey to President Obama that there is a woman here suffering.?

Hernandez, too, says missing his wife is the hardest part of his life in prison. And he has few illusions about his prospects of being freed. ?The only thing I know for sure with me is that I have two life sentences and live with that every day,? he said. ?And to keep your sanity and your mind, you have to be realistic. But I would be dishonest to say that I don?t have hope. ?

Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; NBC News Producer Mary Murray also contributed to this report.

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    Source: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/01/15602211-cuba-pushes-swap-its-spies-jailed-in-us-for-american-contractor-held-in-havana?lite

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    Man killed father in Wyoming bow-and-arrow attack

    Casper police leave the Wold Physical Science Building while investigating a murder and suicide at Casper College, Friday Nov. 30, 2012, in Casper, Wyo. Two people were killed by a sharp object, according to Casper police. The attacker then killed himself. A man wielding a sharp-edged weapon killed one person in a Casper neighborhood Friday before killing a male teacher and himself in front of students in a community college classroom, causing a campus-wide lockdown as authorities tried to piece together what happened. (AP Photo/Dan Cepeda, Casper Star-Tribune) MANDATORY CREDIT; TRIB.COM

    Casper police leave the Wold Physical Science Building while investigating a murder and suicide at Casper College, Friday Nov. 30, 2012, in Casper, Wyo. Two people were killed by a sharp object, according to Casper police. The attacker then killed himself. A man wielding a sharp-edged weapon killed one person in a Casper neighborhood Friday before killing a male teacher and himself in front of students in a community college classroom, causing a campus-wide lockdown as authorities tried to piece together what happened. (AP Photo/Dan Cepeda, Casper Star-Tribune) MANDATORY CREDIT; TRIB.COM

    Law enforcement officers talk at the scene of a reported homicide at Casper College on Friday morning, Nov. 30, 2012, in Casper, Wyo. At least one person was killed and another was wounded Friday in an attack at Casper College, a community college in central Wyoming. It happened around 9 a.m., said school spokesman Rich Fujita. (AP Photo/Casper Star-Tribune, Alan Rogers) MANDATORY CREDIT TRIB.COM

    A Natrona County Sheriff's deputy in tactical gear leaves the scene of a reported homicide at Casper College on Friday morning, Nov. 30, 2012, in Casper, Wyo. At least one person was killed and another was wounded Friday in an attack at Casper College, a community college in central Wyoming. It happened around 9 a.m., said school spokesman Rich Fujita. (AP Photo/Casper Star-Tribune, Alan Rogers) MANDATORY CREDIT TRIB.COM

    A Natrona County Sheriff's canine handler arrives at the scene of a reported homicide at Casper College on Friday morning, Nov. 30, 2012, in Casper, Wyo. At least one person was killed and another was wounded Friday in an attack at Casper College, a community college in central Wyoming. It happened around 9 a.m., said school spokesman Rich Fujita. (AP Photo/Casper Star-Tribune, Alan Rogers) MANDATORY CREDIT TRIB.COM

    A Natrona County Sheriff's deputy stands watch at the scene of a reported homicide at Casper College on Friday morning, Nov. 30, 2012, in Casper, Wyo. At least one person was killed and another was wounded Friday in an attack at Casper College, a community college in central Wyoming. It happened around 9 a.m., said school spokesman Rich Fujita. (AP Photo/Casper Star-Tribune, Alan Rogers) MANDATORY CREDIT TRIB.COM

    (AP) ? Police released more details Saturday of a grisly murder-suicide at a Wyoming community college, saying a man shot his father in the head with a bow and arrow in front of a computer science class not long after fatally stabbing his father's live-in girlfriend at their home a couple miles away.

    Computer science instructor James Krumm, 56, may have saved some of his students' lives Friday by giving them time to flee while trying to fend off his son, Christopher Krumm, 25, of Vernon, Conn., Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh said.

    "I can tell you the courage that was demonstrated by Mr. Krumm was absolutely without equal," he said, adding that his actions could offer some measure of comfort to those affected by the killings.

    He said police still were trying to figure out what motivated Christopher Krumm to attack his father and girlfriend, 42-year-old Heidi Arnold, a math instructor at the college. Arnold was found stabbed to death in front of the home she shared with James Krumm.

    After shooting his father with the arrow, Christopher Krumm stabbed himself, then fatally stabbed his father in the chest in a struggle in the classroom, Walsh said.

    Police arrived to find James Krumm dead and Christopher Krumm barely living; the younger Krumm died soon after students fled in a panic. Authorities locked down the campus for two hours.

    Reports began coming in about the attack on Arnold soon after the campus attack.

    Christopher Krumm had smuggled the compound bow ? a type much more powerful and effective for hunting than a simple, wooden bow ? onto campus beneath a blanket, Walsh said.

    He said Krumm also had two knives with him.

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-01-US-Wyoming-College-Killing/id-ac233d6c038c4cd78d8eb9ad971f4307

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    North Korea gears up to launch long-range rocket

    FILE - In this April 8, 2012 file photo, a North Korean soldier stands in front of the country's Unha-3 rocket, slated for liftoff between April 12-16, at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. Rocket sections are apparently being trucked into North Korea's northwest launch site, but some analysts are asking whether it's just a calculated bluff meant to jangle the Obama administration and influence South Korean voters ahead of Dec. 19 presidential elections in three weeks. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

    FILE - In this April 8, 2012 file photo, a North Korean soldier stands in front of the country's Unha-3 rocket, slated for liftoff between April 12-16, at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. Rocket sections are apparently being trucked into North Korea's northwest launch site, but some analysts are asking whether it's just a calculated bluff meant to jangle the Obama administration and influence South Korean voters ahead of Dec. 19 presidential elections in three weeks. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

    FILE - In this April 8, 2012 file photo, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket stands at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. North Korea said Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22. The launch will heighten already strained tensions with South Korean ahead of its presidential election on Dec. 19. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

    FILE - In this Wednesday, April 8, 2012 file photo, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket, slated for liftoff between April 12-16, stands at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. North Korea said Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22. The launch will heighten already strained tensions with South Korean ahead of its presidential election on Dec. 19. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

    FILE - This Monday Nov. 26, 2012 file satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe and annotated by 38 North, the website of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, shows the Sohae Satellite Launch Station in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, North Korea. North Korea said Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22, a move likely to heighten already strained tensions with Washington and Seoul ahead of South Korean presidential elections Dec. 19. (AP Photo/DigitalGlobe via 38 North, File)

    FILE - In this April 8, 2012 file photo, a group of journalists walk down a road in front of North Korea's Unha-3 rocket at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. April 8, 2012. North Korea said Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22. The launch will heighten already strained tensions with South Korean ahead of its presidential election on Dec. 19. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

    (AP) ? North Korea is gearing up to fire a long-range rocket this month in a defiant move expected to raise the stakes of a global standoff over its missile and nuclear programs.

    The North's announcement Saturday that it would launch the rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22 came as President Barack Obama prepares for his second term and as South Korea holds presidential elections Dec. 19.

    It would be North Korea's second launch attempt under leader Kim Jong Un, who took power following his father Kim Jong Il's death nearly a year ago. Some analysts have expressed skepticism that North Korea has corrected whatever caused the embarrassing misfire of its last rocket eight months ago. That launch earned the country widespread international condemnation.

    A spokesman for North Korea's Korean Committee for Space Technology, however, said scientists have "analyzed the mistakes" made in the failed April launch and improved the precision of its Unha rocket and Kwangmyongsong satellite, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

    The statement said the launch was a request of late leader Kim Jong Il. He died on Dec. 17, 2011, and North Koreans are expected to mark that date this year with some fanfare. The space agency said the rocket would be mounted with a polar-orbiting Earth observation satellite, and maintained its right to develop a peaceful space program.

    Washington considers North Korea's rocket launches to be veiled covers for tests of technology for long-range missiles designed to strike the United States, and such tests are banned by the United Nations.

    "A North Korean 'satellite' launch would be a highly provocative act," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington, D.C. "Any North Korean launch using ballistic missile technology is in direct violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions."

    In 2009, North Korea conducted rocket and nuclear tests within months of Obama taking office.

    North Korea has capable short- and medium-range missiles, but long-range launches in 1998, 2006, 2009 and in April of this year ended in failure. North Korea is not known to have succeeded in mounting an atomic bomb on a missile but is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen bombs, according to U.S. experts. In 2010 it revealed a uranium enrichment program that could provide a second source of material for nuclear weapons.

    Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.

    There has been some skepticism about whether North Korea will succeed.

    "Preparing for a launch less than a year after a failure calls into question whether the North could have analyzed and fixed whatever went wrong," David Wright, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote on the organization's website this week.

    In Seoul, South Korean officials have accused North Korea of trying to influence its presidential election with what they consider provocations meant to put pressure on voters and on the United States as the North seeks concessions. Conservative Park Geun-hye, the daughter of late President Park Chung-hee, is facing liberal Moon Jae-in in the South Korean presidential vote. Polls show the candidates in a close race.

    North Korea is "working hard to influence the upcoming election. They may have a preferred candidate," South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said in an interview with a small group of foreign reporters in the presidential Blue House. "Even if they test fire a missile, it will not have a big impact on the election," Lee said, speaking through an interpreter.

    Lee gave the interview Thursday but his office embargoed the publication of his comments until Sunday.

    North Korea under its young leader has pledged to bolster its nuclear arsenal unless Washington scraps what the North calls a "hostile" policy. North Korea maintains that it is building bombs to defend itself against what it sees as a U.S. nuclear threat in the region.

    This year is the centennial of the birth of national founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un. According to North Korean propaganda, 2012 is meant to put the North on a path toward a "strong, prosperous and great nation."

    "North Korea appears to be under pressure to redeem its April launch failure before the year of the 'strong, prosperous and great nation' ends," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul.

    He added that a successful rocket launch would raise North Korea's bargaining power with South Korea and the United States "because it means the country is closer to developing missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads."

    Before its last two rocket launches, North Korea notified the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization about its intentions to launch. IMO spokeswoman Natasha Brown said that as of Friday the organization had not been notified by North Korea.

    The North's announcement on Saturday comes two days after South Korea canceled what would have been the launch of its first satellite from its own territory. Scientists in Seoul cited technical difficulties. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the North's planned launch is "a grave provocation and a head-on challenge to the international community."

    North Korea's missile and nuclear programs will be a challenge for Obama in his second term and for the incoming South Korean leader. Washington's most recent attempt to negotiate a freeze of the North's nuclear program and a test moratorium in exchange for food aid collapsed with the April launch.

    In Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he would coordinate with the U.S., South Korea, China and Russia in strongly urging the North to refrain from the rocket launch.

    Japan's defense minister has also ordered missile units to intercept the North Korean rocket if it or its fragments threaten to hit Japan.

    Kyodo News agency said Japan also postponed high-level talks with North Korea scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

    British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned North Korea's launch plan, saying a failure by North Korea to cancel the firing will lead to a further response by the international community.

    The Korean Peninsula remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Washington stations nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea as a buttress against any North Korean aggression. Tens of thousands more are in nearby Japan.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Jean H. Lee, Hyung-jin Kim and Sam Kim in Seoul, Jill Lawless in London, Thomas Strong in Washington, D.C., and Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-01-NKorea-Rocket%20Launch/id-3251b4c3876a4e66b085c24259c1492f

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    Rocket sirens pierce the Tel Aviv 'bubble'

    Tel Aviv is a city that symbolizes efforts by Israelis to maintain a sense of normalcy despite the Arab-Israeli conflict. But now the new normal here includes the opening of municipal bomb shelters.

    By Joshua Mitnick,?Correspondent / November 18, 2012

    Israelis take cover as an air raid siren warns of incoming rockets from Gaza, next to an Iron Dome defense system in Tel Aviv, Saturday. Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

    Oded Balilty/AP

    Enlarge

    Israel?s cosmopolitan capital has developed a reputation over the past decade for residents leading lives removed from the rest of Israel and the Middle East, but this weekend's rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have burst the infamous Tel Aviv bubble.

    Skip to next paragraph Joshua Mitnick

    Correspondent

    Joshua Mitnick has reported on Israel and the Palestinian territories for the Monitor since 2004. He lives in Tel Aviv.?

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    Video footage showing bathers sprinting from a hotel beach on Saturday?with rocket intercepts overhead served as a jarring contrast to the city?s image as a destination for carefree pleasure seekers. On Sunday, Tel Aviv was targeted by two separate rocket salvos, though all of them were shot down.

    Not only does Tel Aviv symbolize Israel?s capital city for business and culture, it?s also a city that symbolizes efforts by Israelis to maintain a sense of normalcy despite the daily feuding of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But now the new normal in Tel Aviv includes the opening of municipal bomb shelters to the public.

    "People here hold up the banner of freedom," says Motti Haimovich, the owner of a French bakery in central Tel Aviv. "When there are rockets, then there isn't any freedom."

    On the morning after the first siren last Thursday evening, weekend caf? goers at the Le Moulin bakery showed for their usual coffee and croissant to check in with one another, says owner Motti Haimovich. But when a siren sounded at the height of the midday rush on Friday, the caf? emptied quickly.

    That type of blow to the daily routine is being held up by Palestinian militants as an achievement. For Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip the very success of placing Tel Aviv under attack ? even if there are no casualties ? is a symbolic milestone matched by no one else in the region since Saddam Hussein fired Scuds at the Jewish state in the first Gulf War in 1991. Because of that, many Israeli commentators say that the prime minister may want to prolong the fighting.

    Israelis derisively refer to the city as "the State of Tel Aviv" to impugn it as a mecca for out of touch armchair liberals who still insist on pushing the peace process with the Palestinians. The plight of rocket attacks could remake the attitudes of Israelis who dismiss the city and its residents as na?ve peaceniks.

    "Now maybe we are even," said Israeli author Etgar Keret, referring to the dividing lines between armchair liberals and mainstream Israelis.?"Now we can start talking." (The original version of this story misstated the source of the quote.)

    Residents of Tel Aviv often are nostalgic about that period around the first Gulf War, which left the city virtually unscathed. They have more serious and pained memories of the second Palestinian intifada, which unleashed a wave of bombings around the city.

    So far, rockets haven?t turned Tel Aviv into a ghost town like Israeli cities in southern Israel. Part of the reason is that none of the rockets have hit buildings so far, giving people more confidence to keep their daily routine.

    "Has the world stopped?" asked Madaleine Koger, a retired shopowner, who was forced by a siren to interrupt a bike ride on the sea promenade to take cover in a hotel basement. "For this I should stop all of our life?"

    Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/xeGQJ1X63F4/Rocket-sirens-pierce-the-Tel-Aviv-bubble

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    Bay Area Men Spreading Cancer Awareness Ready To Shave As ...

    Chris Michaels (credit: chrisamichaels/Bay City News)

    Chris Michaels (credit: chrisamichaels/Bay City News)

    SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) ? With the month of November at an end, many mustachioed Bay Area residents are shaving off their facial hair ? all grown in the name of promoting men?s health issues.

    The rapidly growing charity movement, known as Movember, encourages men to grow mustaches to increase awareness about men?s cancers and other health issues.

    Money raised by the hirsute participants, who pledge to not shave during the month of November, goes toward initiatives to fight testicular and prostate cancer through the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG Foundation.

    PHOTOS: Best Celebrity Moustaches

    Berkeley resident Mniska Lamb, 32, has been sporting upper lip hair for the past month in honor of his father who died of cancer two years ago.

    The capoeira dance teacher and part-time construction worker put together a team of 13 men that has raised about $1,200 for his first official Movember fundraiser.

    Thirty days later, he said, ?It?s been a rough month ? I?m done getting dirty looks.?

    Despite the glances from strangers, Lamb said he feels his mustache has helped spread awareness about cancer.

    ?I try to explain it any chance that I can get,? he said. The campaign pushed him to research the prevalence of prostate and testicular cancer and showed him the generosity of his community.

    ?I?m really amazed by my community?s support,? Lamb said.

    Chris Michaels (pictured above), of Redwood City, encouraged five men from his San Carlos church to participate in the month of facial hair growth after a fellow parishioner died of cancer four months ago.

    Michaels, a PR consultant who turned 31 today, said the team raised $100 in memory of their friend.

    ?It was timely to bring this to the forefront and make men?s health more of an issue,? he said.

    Michaels said he usually sports a goatee, but the addition of a handlebar mustache has been somewhat startling to friends and family this past month.

    ?It looks kind of ridiculous on me and I know it,? he said. ?But I?m happy to tell people this is what I?m doing.?

    Today on his birthday and the last day of the month-long fundraiser, Michaels is treating himself to a barbershop visit for an overdue straight-razor shave.

    More than $63,000 has been raised by Pat Patterson?s Movember team at the San Francisco-based company Salesforce.com, where he works.

    Patterson, 44, who lives in San Jose with his wife and 8- and 10-year-old sons, contributed $435 to his 208-member team.

    He likened his mustache to the pink ribbons ubiquitous in breast cancer awareness efforts.

    ?It certainly starts a conversation ? when I show up somewhere with this mustache,? he said.

    Originally from the United Kingdom, Patterson has noticed the Movember movement gain popularity in Europe over the years and then make its way to America.

    ?I got swept up in the momentum,? he said. This is his first year participating in the fundraiser. However, he said he is eagerly awaiting a shave Saturday morning. ?It?s been fun but I won?t miss it terribly,? he said.

    Plus, he said his wife and sons aren?t too keen on his furry face that is usually clean-shaven.

    As Patterson noted, the Movember movement has gone global, with more than 854,000 people participating worldwide who raised $126.3 million in 2011, according to the charity?s website. The month-long awareness campaign got its start in Australia in the early 2000s.

    In San Francisco, a group of Bay Area men participating in Movember will shave their mustaches Saturday morning at Peoples Barber and Shop at 1259 Polk St. after an 11 a.m. bike ride and parade showing off the ?staches in the Polk Gulch neighborhood.

    (Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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    Source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/11/30/bay-area-men-spreading-cancer-awareness-ready-to-shave-as-movember-ends/

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