Britain does not rule out future arms to Syria rebels

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain cannot rule out providing arms to Syrian rebels in the future, although a new aid package it will announce this week will consist only of non-lethal assistance, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday.

Western countries have so far shied away from arming the rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad, despite their firm diplomatic backing for efforts to remove him.

Reuters and other news media have reported fighters getting increasingly large shipments of arms through Turkey and Jordan in recent months, with funding for those weapons believed to come from wealthy Arab states, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Washington said on Thursday it would provide non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels to bolster their popular support. The package is expected to include medical supplies, food and $60 million. New U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Friday he believed giving only "non-lethal support" was correct.

Britain has in the past also offered non-lethal aid to the rebels, such as radios, body armor and medical supplies. Hague is set to make an announcement to parliament this week about more aid, but told BBC television it would not include weapons.

"I will not be announcing this week arms to the Syrian opposition," he said in an interview. "I don't rule out anything for the future.

"If this is going to go on for months or years ... and countries like Iraq and Lebanon and Jordan are going to be destabilized, it's not something we can ignore," Hague added.

"You can reach the point eventually where humanitarian need is so great and the loss of life so great that you have to do something new in order to save lives."

OPTIONS OPEN

Hague has previously said Britain was keeping its options open in Syria, and the Foreign Office said his remarks on Sunday were not intended to signal a shift in policy.

Nevertheless, the question of whether the West will shift to explicit military support is being closely watched at a time when more non-lethal aid is being pledged and Syrian opposition leaders are trying to demonstrate to foreign backers that they can curb the influence of Islamist radicals in their ranks.

In a televised interview with the Sunday Times newspaper shown in London late on Saturday, Assad said Britain's involvement in the Syria crisis was naive and unrealistic.

"How can we expect them (Britain) to make the violence less when they want to send military supplies to the terrorists?" Assad said in the interview.

Hague dismissed Assad's remarks as "delusional".

"This is a man presiding over this slaughter. The message to him is: 'We, Britain, are the people sending food and shelter and blankets to help people driven from their homes and families in his name'," Hague said.

Iran, Assad's main ally, also criticized the West for pledging more aid to fighters.

"The announcement of more help for terrorists by political authorities is a big mistake and they will soon see the results," said Revolutionary Guards commander Brigadier-General Massoud Jazayeri, state news agency IRNA reported on Sunday.

"Some European countries and America who are causing the chaos in Syria will be targeted heavily by these same terrorists. Links between them show that this is a precursor to transferring the agitation from Syria to other places," he said.

Nearly two years of war in Syria has killed 70,000 people and driven millions from their homes. The opposition made major military gains in the second half of 2012 and now controls substantial territory, but is still outgunned by Assad's forces.

Western countries have been loath to arm the fighters, in part because many groups have links to Islamist militants and are seen by the West as potentially dangerous renegades.

In recent months the opposition has set up a unified military command, which rebels have told Reuters is distributing arms and cash sent by foreign backers to units that assure their loyalty, as a way of reining in Islamists.

Hague said he would seek a diplomatic breakthrough during talks with his Russian counterpart, but had little hope for now. Moscow has supported Assad and says his exit from power should not be a pre-condition for a negotiated settlement.

"The Russian foreign minister will be here in London in the next 10 days and of course we will have another major discussion about Syria to see whether we can make some diplomatic breakthrough, but there is no sign of that at the moment, hence we have to do more to try to protect civilian lives in Syria."

(Additional reporting by Marcus George in Dubai; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britain-does-not-rule-future-arms-syria-rebels-124812476.html

Aurora shooting James Eagan Holmes jeremy lin Sage Stallone Mermaid Body Found Celeste Holm Stephen Covey

Institute of Mental Health Research looking deeper into depression

Depression research centre to practice new way of diagnosing patients

Jesse Mellott | Fulcrum Staff

The University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR) has set up a depression research centre to help alleviate the challenges faced by health-care practitioners while maintaining an emphasis on total care.

The centre plans to assess many biological parameters including genetics, electrical activity in the brain, and biochemical analysis, as opposed to simply observing symptoms. Dr. Zul Merali is the president and CEO of the IMHR and the visionary behind the centre.

?What we are trying to create is a very research-informed pathway to treatment,? Merali said. ?We want to start treating depression the way we would cancer or heart disease.?

The rationale for approaching depression treatment in this way is that it is currently diagnosed based upon symptoms.

?You?ll describe the symptoms, like having difficulty sleeping, or not eating well, or sleeping too much, or not having fun from things that use to be pleasurable,? explained Merali. ?So based upon the number of symptoms you describe, we may classify you as being clinically depressed.?

According to Merali, this treatment is not always effective, because patients are not always completely open about their symptoms.

?[We are] successfully treating only about 30 per cent of the patients?the other 30 show you a bit of a response, and the other third won?t respond no matter what you do,? Merali explained.

Merali hopes that with the creation of the centre, treatment will be more personalized.

This is not the only initiative that Merali is involved in when it comes to treating and diagnosing depression. In addition to creating further depression-focused research centres across the country, he is helping create a network to deal with the illness on a national level, The network, called the Canadian Depression Research and Intervention Network, is receiving funding from the federal government.

?We will have a network where we will be talking together, sharing information, sharing research-based interventions, having annual conferences, training students across different sites, doing clinical trials together, and sharing the information so that when we have new ways of doing things they will trickle up right away,? Merali said.

Source: http://thefulcrum.ca/2013/03/institute-of-mental-health-research-looking-deeper-into-depression/

Breezy Point Seaside Heights nj transit PSEG hocus pocus hocus pocus mta schedule

How do bacteria clog medical devices? Very quickly

Mar. 1, 2013 ? A new study has exam?ined how bac?te?ria clog med?ical devices, and the result isn't pretty. The microbes join to cre?ate slimy rib?bons that tan?gle and trap other pass?ing bac?te?ria, cre?at?ing a full block?age in a star?tlingly short period of time.

The find?ing could help shape strate?gies for pre?vent?ing clog?ging of devices such as stents -- which are implanted in the body to keep open blood ves?sels and pas?sages -- as well as water fil?ters and other items that are sus?cep?ti?ble to con?t?a?m?i?na?tion. The research was pub?lished in Pro?ceed?ings of the National Acad?emy of Sciences.

Click on the image to view movie. Over a period of about 40 hours, bac?te?r?ial cells (green) flowed through a chan?nel, form?ing a green biofilm on the walls. Over the next ten hours, researchers sent red bac?te?r?ial cells through the chan?nel. The red cells became stuck in the sticky biofilm and began to form thin red stream?ers. Once stuck, these stream?ers in turn trapped addi?tional cells, lead?ing to rapid clog?ging. (Image source: Knut Drescher)

Using time-lapse imag?ing, researchers at Prince?ton Uni?ver?sity mon?i?tored fluid flow in nar?row tubes or pores sim?i?lar to those used in water fil?ters and med?ical devices. Unlike pre?vi?ous stud?ies, the Prince?ton exper?i?ment more closely mim?ic?ked the nat?ural fea?tures of the devices, using rough rather than smooth sur?faces and pressure-driven fluid instead of non-moving fluid.

The team of biol?o?gists and engi?neers intro?duced a small num?ber of bac?te?ria known to be com?mon con?t?a?m?i?nants of med?ical devices. Over a period of about 40 hours, the researchers observed that some of the microbes -- dyed green for vis?i?bil?ity -- attached to the inner wall of the tube and began to mul?ti?ply, even?tu?ally form?ing a slimy coat?ing called a biofilm. These films con?sist of thou?sands of indi?vid?ual cells held together by a sort of bio?log?i?cal glue.

Over the next sev?eral hours, the researchers sent addi?tional microbes, dyed red, into the tube. These red cells became stuck to the biofilm-coated walls, where the force of the flow?ing liq?uid shaped the trapped cells into stream?ers that rip?pled in the liq?uid like flags rip?pling in a breeze. Dur?ing this time, the fluid flow slowed only slightly.

At about 55 hours into the exper?i?ment, the biofilm stream?ers tan?gled with each other, form?ing a net-like bar?rier that trapped addi?tional bac?te?r?ial cells, cre?at?ing a larger bar?rier which in turn ensnared more cells. Within an hour, the entire tube became blocked and the fluid flow stopped.

The study was con?ducted by lead author Knut Drescher with assis?tance from tech?ni?cian Yi Shen. Drescher is a post?doc?toral research asso?ciate work?ing with Bon?nie Bassler, Princeton's Squibb Pro?fes?sor in Mol?e?c?u?lar Biol?ogy and a Howard Hughes Med?ical Insti?tute Inves?ti?ga?tor, and Howard Stone, Princeton's Don?ald R. Dixon '69 and Eliz?a?beth W. Dixon Pro?fes?sor of Mechan?i?cal and Aero?space Engineering.

"For me the sur?prise was how quickly the biofilm stream?ers caused com?plete clog?ging," said Stone. "There was no warn?ing that some?thing bad was about to happen."

By con?struct?ing their own con?trolled envi?ron?ment, the researchers demon?strated that rough sur?faces and pres?sure dri?ven flow are char?ac?ter?is?tics of nature and need to be taken into account exper?i?men?tally. The researchers used stents, soil-based fil?ters and water fil?ters to prove that the biofilm streams indeed form in real sce?nar?ios and likely explain why devices fail.

The work also allowed the researchers to explore which bac?te?r?ial genes con?tribute to biofilm streamer for?ma?tion. Pre?vi?ous stud?ies, con?ducted under non-realistic con?di?tions, iden?ti?fied sev?eral genes involved in for?ma?tion of the biofilm stream?ers. The Prince?ton researchers found that some of those pre?vi?ously iden?ti?fied genes were not needed for biofilm streamer for?ma?tion in the more real?is?tic habitat.

This work was sup?ported by the Howard Hughes Med?ical Insti?tute, National Insti?tutes of Health grant 5R01GM065859, National Sci?ence Foun?da?tion (NSF) grant MCB-0343821, NSF grant MCB-1119232, and the Human Fron?tier Sci?ence Program.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Princeton University.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. K. Drescher, Y. Shen, B. L. Bassler, H. A. Stone. Biofilm streamers cause catastrophic disruption of flow with consequences for environmental and medical systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1300321110

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/most_popular/~3/jF0IQFyD8eU/130301131127.htm

Girl Meets World Jason Babin Nolan Daniels angus t. jones monday night football monday night football SEC Championship Game 2012

Sperm swim against the current

Human and mouse male reproductive cells find the egg by migrating upstream

By Meghan Rosen

Web edition: March 1, 2013

Enlarge

Genetically engineered mouse sperm glow red and green in a fallopian tube. Fluid flow through the tubes helps guide sperm up the female reproductive tract.

Credit: David Clapham

Mammalian sperm just don?t go with the flow.

The little swimmers use head-on currents to guide themselves up fallopian tubes toward an egg, a new study suggests. Sex triggers fluids to spurt from the fallopian tubes, where tiny bristles called cilia sweep the fluid from the ovaries to the uterus. The moving fluid hands sperm a map to their target, researchers report online February 28 in Current Biology.

?I like this paper because it stirs up the field,? says Susan Suarez, a reproductive biologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., who specializes in sperm movement. Scientists had proposed two other ways sperm might find eggs: by sniffing out chemicals or by sensing changes in heat.

Theories about mammalian sperm?s chemical-sensing tactics first came from marine animals. Sea urchins squirt sperm into the ocean; the swimming cells chase down a trail of egg-secreted chemicals, like mice following breadcrumbs to lunch. But mammalian fertilization is more complicated, says Kiyoshi Miki of Boston Children's Hospital.

Female mammals have long, winding fallopian tubes, so a chemical trail there might fizzle out, Miki says. And no one has pinned down convincing sperm-luring biochemicals. Miki and his colleague David Clapham decided to look into the other proposed sperm strategy: using temperature clues to home in on the egg.

When the scientists placed mouse or human sperm in a chamber with warm liquid on the bottom and cooler liquid on top, they noticed that the temperature gradient spurred tiny fluid currents. And the sperm cells in the dish consistently swam upstream. ??It was very clever of them to notice the currents,? Suarez says.

Miki and Clapham measured fluid secretion in dissected, living mouse fallopian tubes, to see what currents sperm usually contend with. After animals mated, they found, fallopian tube juices got flowing.

The scientists mimicked the fluid flow in a culture dish by hooking up a tiny glass tube to a device called a micromanipulator and using it to slowly suck sperm into the tube. Then the researchers watched which way the cells moved. Nearly all the sperm swam away from the suction source.

?When we first saw this, it was very exciting,? Miki says. ?It was a beautiful, coordinated thing.?

But the idea that sperm use currents to navigate was not exactly mainstream. Researchers had reported this against-the-flow phenomenon in mammalian sperm back in 1876. Several scientists had since revisited the peculiar finding, but dismissed it as a laboratory quirk. In the last few decades, however, scientists have built better tools for watching sperm move; Miki is convinced his results are real.

Miki and Clapham believe sperm?s rotating tails drive their tendency to turn upstream: In culture dishes, even headless sperm ? a tiny fraction of normal sperm populations ? oriented against the fluid flow. But sperm that couldn't spin their tails didn?t swim upstream.

?This mechanism of sperm guidance is important, no doubt about it,? says biochemist Michael Eisenbach of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. ?Still, he says, it may coexist with temperature- and chemical-guided strategies.

Miki speculates that the findings could provide clues to infertility or contraception. Blocking tail rotation in human sperm or fluid flow in fallopian tubes could prevent fertilization, he says.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348673/title/Sperm_swim_against_the_current

neil armstrong little league world series us open tennis us open tennis Empire State Building shooting Republican National Convention Karlie Redd

In China-Japan island clash, a peaceful diversion

A dangerous confrontation between China and Japan over the Senkaku islands can be deflected if China returns to the idea of laying aside sovereignty claims in favor of seeking joint development of any seabed wealth.

By the Monitor's Editorial Board / March 1, 2013

The islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China are seen in this photograph taken on a surveillance plane on Dec. 13, 2012, and provided by the State Oceanic Administration of the People's Republic of China.

Reuters/file

Enlarge

With China and Japan appearing close to a conflict over a few small islands, it?s time to pull out a practical tool of peacemaking: Divert the contending parties toward a shared interest. That tactic often calms the waters, creates trust, and buys time.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

Since 2010, either by mishap or design, Tokyo and Beijing have escalated a confrontation over ownership of the uninhabited Senkaku islands (known in China as the Diaoyu islands). What has largely been forgotten is that the two Asian giants were talking only a few years ago about joint exploration of potential oil wealth in the South China Sea. They played down the issue of sovereignty in favor of common economic goals.

To deflect the current tensions, China must return to the idea of seeking a joint effort in tapping the oil and gas around the islands rather than assert its dominance in the region. The idea isn?t new. The late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping set down the wise policy regarding the islands of ?shelve rivalry, jointly develop.? And last September, Taiwan ? which also claims the islands ? officially proposed joint petroleum exploration.

Other Asian nations have considered joint ventures in offshore drilling, often to avoid a flare-up of territorial claims. In 2009, Brunei and Malaysia settled a boundary dispute and then tied it to joint development of oil. Vietnam and Malaysia agreed in 1992 to seek joint development without settling rival claims of seabed sovereignty. Last year, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III suggested that all the nations that lay claim to various islands in the South China Sea ?? such as the Paracels, the Spratlys, the Scarborough Shoals ? should benefit from the seabed wealth.

Achieving such agreements isn?t always easy. After decades of work, for example, the United States and Mexico finally agreed last month to manage one of their maritime boundaries through joint regulation of oil drilling in the area. Britain and Argentina have been hot and cold about joint development off the Falkland Islands.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this type of peacemaking was the secret talks in 1992 between Israelis and Palestinians over issues of sharing water resources. Mediated by a Norwegian group, those talks created enough trust that they helped pave the way for the 1995 Oslo peace accords.

Indeed, countries often avoid official talks over a contentious bilateral issue by quietly or indirectly allowing private parties, such as an eminent group of scholars, to first come up with an agreement on the matter. If those initial talks fail, officials suffer no public shame. Conflict can be avoided.

Few experts on China expect Beijing to back off anytime soon in its campaign to assert sovereignty over islands in its surrounding seas ? some even hundreds of miles from its shores. But with its need for oil growing ? demand is expected to double by 2030 ? China does have common ground with its neighbors, such as Japan. Sharing the wealth in their own watery backyards is far preferable to risking war over some deserted islands. What binds neighbors is greater than what divides them.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/BOtyvmHG9ao/In-China-Japan-island-clash-a-peaceful-diversion

college board nyc.gov SAT Notre Dame Football Schedule detroit tigers Tsunami Lil Reese

Transgender Mississippi Student 'Leah' Supported By High School While Students Protest

Students at a Batesville, Miss. high school are protesting because they believe that a transgender classmate is receiving ?special treatment.?

As WLOX 13 reports, over 30 students at South Panola High School have vocalized their opposition to a transgender girl identified only as Leah, who has been allowed to wear female clothing.

The group of students arrived to school dressed in gym shorts and sweatpants, but they were not allowed into the building. They reportedly opted to disobey the dress code in an effort to protest what they describe as ?special treatment? of Leah.

But interim Superintendent Mike Foster felt differently, saying that the a student's rights could be violated under the school's gender-specific dress code, which remains on the books but will reportedly be changed eventually.

"When this student challenged that, we found out this was unconstitutional,? Foster told the Clarion Ledger. "People are people. Some are on one side and some on another.?

After coming out and sharing her transition with fellow students and staff, Leah began dressing in girl?s clothing. But the demonstrating students say they were being discriminated against because they believe Leah is breaking the school?s dress code, yet they are being reprimanded for doing the same, according to Action 5 News.

On the other hand, other officials have echoed Foster's sentiments, arguing that Leah does not violate South Panola's dress code because she is now a female. Area resident Betsy Chapman has created the Facebook group "Mississippians Support Leah," which backs the student's cause.

"As a mother and a Mississippian, I felt compelled to stand up in some small way for this child who is simply and bravely trying to live her life," Chapman told the Ledger. "And I wanted to provide a forum for others to do the same, at the same time demonstrating to the rest of the country that there are intelligent, compassionate, progressive Mississippians who insist on dignity and respect for all people."

At present, Chapman's group has over 2,500 members.

The news follows another transgender student controversy in Colorado. Earlier this week, the parents of a six-year-old transgender girl named Coy Mathis took legal action after their school district barred their daughter from using the girls' bathroom.

Also on HuffPost:

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/transgender-mississippi-student-leah_n_2784183.html

stephen strasburg shabazz legion baby found alive in morgue rockies second degree murders bobby petrino

Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 found to have OpenCL drivers

The researchers and ubergeeks over at Anandtech have discovered undocumented OpenCL drivers on both the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10. I know a few folks out there just got a little bit excited, but for the rest of us OpenCL needs a little explanation.

The chip in your modern Android smartphone has both a CPU and a GPU (there's other stuff, but we're going to ignore it for now) on board. The CPU handles all the heavy lifting and number crunching, while the GPU sits mostly idle, with all it's high-speed cores doing a whole lot of nothing unless you're running a graphically intensive app. 

OpenCL is a standard that puts all that untapped GPU power to use, allowing it to also crunch numbers and help the CPU along. Of course this is a simplified explanation, but it gets the general point across -- you can use the GPU to help do things faster, and use less battery to do it. It's a form of parallel computing that you find on new processors in modern desktop and laptop chips.

There's a few caveats here (isn't there always?) to keep in mind though. To start with, Renderscript is the parallel computing API officially supported in Android. OpenCL is likely there only because Qualcomm and ARM now officially support the API, not because anyone at Google requested it. Because of this, the drivers aren't likely to stay up to date or improved in any way. In fact, they could disappear in a future firmware update. 

Of course, that's not likely to stop tinkerers and hackers from trying to use them. If that sounds like you, you'll want to head to the source link where you can read a little more about exactly what was found, and some source code to check it out yourself.

Source: Anandrech

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/aeGabcYVH2I/story01.htm

amy schumer Prince Harry Vegas pictures Avril Lavigne Microsoft Tropical Storm Isaac amber portwood Phyllis Diller