Barrick Gold Corp., the biggest miner of the metal by sales, is considering shrinking in size as the company focuses on returns over production volumes, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Sokalsky said.
?Being more profitable is better than being bigger,? Sokalsky said yesterday at the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit in Toronto. ?If we divested of some of those smaller, higher-cost assets and came down to a suite of assets that are long- lived and lower-cost and more valuable, I think that ultimately that can be a better investment proposition.?
Gold producers are trading at their cheapest in more than a decade relative to the broader market, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as investors flee the industry amid rising mining costs, project delays and asset writedowns. Sokalsky, who took over as CEO of the Toronto-based company 11 months ago, is reviewing growth plans and pursuing asset sales as gold trades at a two-year low and is poised to end a rally that has extended for 12 straight years.
Barrick, the owner or part owner of 27 mines, rose 2% to $20.29 at 10:48 a.m. ET in Toronto on Wednesday. The company closed at a two-decade low on April 17, losing its position as the top gold miner by market value to Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc. last month.
It makes sense for Barrick to shrink, said George Topping, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Toronto. Selling the company?s Australian assets would be ?a good place to start,? he said. Barrick is working with Bank of America Corp. and UBS AG on a possible sale of Australian mines, two people with knowledge of the matter said last month.
?At the 8 million-ounce level, with 26 or so mines it?s very difficult to focus,? Topping said yesterday by phone. ?In order to have better managerial control you?re better off with fewer but much larger assets, preferably in the same north-south time zones.?
It?s easier to manage a company with fewer assets, said Sokalsky, 55. The location of mines also has taken on a greater importance because of an increase in so-called resource nationalism, in which governments seek a bigger slice of revenue. After a dispute with the Dominican Republic, Toronto- based Barrick on May 8 agreed to amend a lease governing the Pueblo Viejo mine in the country.
Investors including hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson have also pushed for some gold producers to consider separating assets that are located in riskier locations. Johannesburg-based Gold Fields Ltd. in February spun off most of its assets in South Africa, which has been beset by labor disputes and seen a political debate about nationalizing mines.
?Five to 10 years ago a mine in Papua New Guinea might get the same valuation as a mine in Canada in the market place, and I think that?s changed considerably,? Sokalsky said. ?Differentiating the portfolio from a geopolitical standpoint can also change the dynamic of how valuable your assets are.?
Barrick said in February it?s seeking buyers for its energy unit and a 50 percent stake in the Kabanga nickel project in Tanzania. It?s ?actively? looking at selling other assets, Sokalsky said yesterday, declining to name them. Barrick won?t resort to a ?fire sale,? he said.
Sokalsky said it?s harder to sell assets now than it would have been a couple of years ago because of lower metal prices and equity valuations. The general mood in the gold industry is ?anti-M&A,? he said.
Mining companies led by BHP Billiton Ltd., the world?s largest, are holding the biggest-ever sale of assets this year as producers seek to boost earnings and cut costs, with about $48 billion of mines and assets on the block.
Gold futures for June delivery rose 0.8 percent to $1,388.60 an ounce at 9:42 a.m. on the Comex in New York. The metal has tumbled 17 percent this year and slumped into a bear market last month.
Still, Sokalsky said he doesn?t believe the long-term bull market for gold has ended and expects the price will eventually rise to a record. Central bank purchases of gold, high government debt levels and a lack of new supply will support prices for the metal, he said. A rally back to $1,700 to $1,800 an ounce in the next 12 months is probably ?achievable,? he said.
Sokalsky, who was previously Barrick?s chief financial officer, was promoted to CEO on June 6 to replace Aaron Regent, who was fired after the board said it was ?disappointed? by the company?s share-price performance.
Despite Sokalsky?s efforts to cut operating costs, sell underperforming assets and resolve the problems dogging its $8.5 billion Pascua-Lama project in the Andes, Barrick?s shares have continued to slide, along with those of its peers. Barrick has fallen 42 percent this year while the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold and Silver Index has dropped 38 percent.
The 30 companies in the Philadelphia index trade at 1.04 times book value, compared with a 2.48 multiple for the Standard & Poor?s 500 Index. The average ratio for the Philadelphia index in the past 10 years is 2.45, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
There?s an opportunity for gold equities to outperform the metal, after two years of trailing gold, Sokalsky said.
?Given the valuations where they are now and the fact that the gold price has come down but the share prices have come down even more, I do think that there is a good opportunity for some of that money to come back into the gold equities,? he said.
Barrick hopes to have more clarity within a few months on the future of Pascua-Lama, which lies on the Chile-Argentina border, Sokalsky said. The company said April 24 it was considering options including suspending the project after construction on the Chilean side was halted because a court accepted an injunction filed by indigenous communities concerned about water supplies.
Barrick raised the cost estimate for the project twice last year and said output would be delayed by more than a year, until the second half of 2014. The company, which has invested almost $5 billion in Pascua-Lama, made mistakes at the project, including how it managed environmental controls, Sokalsky said.
?It?s an important project for us, but we need the further clarity before we actually spend significant amounts more money,? he said.
May 23, 2013 ? Even while being dragged to its destruction inside a cell, a cancer-promoting growth factor receptor fires away, sending signals that thwart the development of tumor-suppressing microRNAs (miRNAs) before it's dissolved, researchers reported in an early online publication at Nature.
Under conditions of oxygen starvation often encountered by tumors, the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gums up the cell's miRNA-processing machinery, an international team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered.
"So when hypoxia stresses a cell, signaling by EGFR prevents immature miRNAs from growing up to fight cancer," said senior author Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson's Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology and holder of the Ruth Legett Jones Distinguished Chair.
The group's findings point to a potential new prognostic marker for breast cancer, Hung noted, but also provide the first evidence of a growth factor signaling pathway regulating miRNA maturation.
"Inside of a cell, you have signal induction, in this case through EGFR, and you also have a protein complex that processes precursors into mature miRNA to perform a function. They didn't appear to talk to each other, it's as if one speaks English and the other Chinese," Hung said. "This is the first paper to show how they communicate."
The scientists established the relationship in cell line experiments, confirmed it in a mouse model and human breast cancer samples, then found that it reduced breast cancer patient survival in a review of 125 cases.
A new cancer-promoting role identified for EGFR
EGFR penetrates the cell membrane to receive signals from growth factors outside of the cell. After a growth factor binds to it, EGFR conveys the signal into the cell by attaching phosphate groups to other proteins, often acting as a molecular "on switch."
In many cancers, EGFR is overexpressed or dysfunctional, constantly sending signals to cells to divide. Hung and colleagues found that EGFR also fuels cancer progression by stifling tumor-suppressing miRNAs.
As a tumor grows, large portions of its interior can become starved for oxygen (hypoxia) for lack of adequate blood vessels. This stress suffocates many tumor cells, but the few that endure become highly malignant, resist treatment and are most likely to spread, Hung said.
Anti-angiogenesis drugs designed to kill tumors by blocking their ability to spin webs of supportive blood vessels often succeed at first, Hung said, but then fail against the more malignant cells that survive hypoxia.
When hypoxia hits, EGFR gets active and gets eaten
Low-oxygen conditions cause EGFR overexpression. EGFR also is pulled into the cell interior, captured in cavities called vesicles and eventually fed into lysosomes, a membrane-enclosed organelle loaded with enzymes to dissolve proteins.
It was known that EGFR continues to signal even while caught in the vesicles, which actually prolongs its activation. Hung and colleagues found that EGFR signals to a key protein in miRNA processing called argonaute 2, or AGO2.
AGO2 connects with two other proteins called Dicer and TRBP to form a complex that processes microRNA precursors into mature miRNAs, which regulate gene expression after messenger RNA has been expressed but before it's translated into a protein.
Oncoprotein-regulating miRNAs don't grow up
The scientists found that EGFR attaches phosphate groups to AGO2, which in turn weakens AGO2's ability to connect with Dicer to produce mature microRNAs. EGFR's effect is stronger during oxygen starvation than under normal conditions.
The team identified a number of specific miRNAs affected by EGFR, most of which have been reported to have tumor suppressor characteristics. The miRNAs regulated by phosphorylated AGO2, including miR-31, miR-192 and miR-193a-5p, also shared a long-loop structure in their precursors that miRNAs unaffected by AGO2 phosphorylation lack.
Hypoxic environments around tumors promote metastasis by helping cells evade programmed cell death. Hung and colleagues showed that EGFR-mediated AGO2 phosphorylation blocks cell death and enhances invasiveness under hypoxia.
Experiments in a mouse model of breast cancer confirmed that expression of EGFR and the presence of phosphorylated AGO2 increase during tumor progression under oxygen-starved conditions.
EGFR-AGO2 connection found in human breast tumors; reduces survival
The hypoxia-EGFR-AGO2 connection was strong in tumor samples from 128 breast cancer patients, but it was low or absent in normal breast tissue. In 125 breast cancer cases analyzed by the team, half of 62 patients with high levels of phosphorylated AGO2 survived to 48 months and beyond. Median survival had not been reached for the 63 patients in the low-level group, but 78 percent had survived to 48 months.
"One can imagine other receptors for platelet-derived growth factor and insulin-like growth factor also regulating miRNAs, perhaps by regulating Dicer or TBRP," Hung said. "This is a turning-point paper; it will induce lots of new questions for scientists to pursue."
Foursquare for Windows Phone keeps getting better and better. And now Lumia owners will have something else to brag about (besides the stunning design, that is). Nokia devices are being granted access to a small set of exclusive features in the latest Foursquare update. The marquee addition is a new augmented reality view that puts venue information right in your live camera view. All you have to do is tap the camera icon at the top of the map screen. The AR will probably make it somewhat easier to find your mark, and you can always turn to the recently added NFC support for super simple check-ins. Not having an exclusive feature or two is hardly a deal breaker, but it's bound to make non-Lumia Windows Phone fans more than a little jealous.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Lawmakers are seeking to prohibit the U.S. from removing missile defense equipment from East Asia, even if the threat posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea is eliminated.
The legislative proposal is a response to remarks last month by Secretary of State John Kerry that the U.S. could reduce its heightened defense posture in the region if North Korea abandoned its nuclear weapons.
That drew criticism from Republicans who are also concerned about China's military power.
The wording is included in a defense spending bill being introduced by a Republican-led House panel that oversees U.S. nuclear and missile defense assets. Its chances of becoming law are uncertain.
The president could waive the requirement on national security grounds, and it wouldn't apply to Aegis missile defense systems on Navy destroyers and cruisers.
Virginia's Republican nominee for governor, Ken Cuccinelli, is tacking to the center, but Republicans picked a strong conservative, E.W. Jackson, to run for the No. 2 slot. Democrats dub him extreme.
By David Grant,?Staff Writer / May 20, 2013
Gubernatorial candidate and current Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (c.) speaks to supporters during a visit to Roanoke with fellow Republican candidates E. W. Jackson, who is running for lieutenant governor, and Mark Obenshain, the GOP candidate for attorney general.
Kyle Green/The Roanoke Times/AP
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Virginia?s marquee governor?s race got a jolt of the unexpected on Saturday, as Republicans added E.W. Jackson, a political novice and conservative firebrand, as the GOP?s lieutenant governor nominee alongside lightning rod gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli.
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But whether that jolt will be a burst of enthusiasm from Mr. Jackson, a minister and attorney, or a fatal shock to a ticket Democrats already derided as extreme and out-of-touch will be a fundamental part of the commonwealth?s 2013 gubernatorial race.
?It?s like the Herman Cain phenomenon,? said Quentin Kidd, a Virginia political analyst and pollster at Christopher Newport University, ?only this time he got the nomination.?
The nomination of Jackson and the fate of a ticket lead by Mr. Cuccinelli, no stranger to incendiary rhetoric himself, emphasizes Virginia?s place in the middle of the Republican Party?s ongoing debate about whether electoral success will come through bolder conservative champions or less ideologically rigid candidates.
?Cuccinelli may be drawn into the Jackson orbit in a way that he doesn?t want to be,? says Professor Kidd.
That could prevent Cuccinelli from emphasizing the economic issues and the more personal side of his campaign, which he has highlighted in recent weeks.
On the other hand, ?Cuccinelli may be able to tack to the middle by contrasting with Jackson,? Kidd says, and in that way the lieutenant governor ?could provide a very helpful foil to Ken Cuccinelli as well.?
Jackson?s addition to the ticket underlined where the Virginia GOP stands in the Republican Party?s ongoing discussion about its future: In the commonwealth, conservatives showed they wanted a more forthright, defiant brand of conservatism.
?I think we learned that the conservative core is far more conservative than people thought it was? in Virginia, Kidd says.
Jackson?s meteoric rise, helped along by a fiery speech on Saturday afternoon, was met with a withering critique from Democrats.
The party?s first African-American nominee for statewide office since the 1980s was savaged by Democrats over his history of controversial statements on a number of topics ? he once likened Planned Parenthood to the Klu Klux Klan, said that President Obama harbors ?Muslim sensibilities,? and has made a host of statements deriding homosexuality.
?Frankly, I?m rather appalled with the results, with the ideologically narrow scope of the Republican ticket that emerged from Richmond this weekend,? said Vince Callahan, a long-time Republican state legislator who is backing this year?s Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe, on a conference call with reporters.
?You?re turning off not only the vast majority of all Virginians but a significant portion of the Republican base," he added.
Jackson is going to have to stand for his record, said Chris Jankowski, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which works to elect Republicans at the lieutenant governor level and lower.
?I saw some things yesterday that I hadn?t seen [about Jackson?s past statements]," said Mr. Jankowksi at a discussion with reporters on Monday.
?No matter how deeply held our views our, politics is about addition and not subtraction,? said Jankowski, a veteran of Virginia politics who attended the convention. ?You want to find the common ground and build on that ? and to the extent your tone does not build on finding a common ground, that is not helpful.?
However, Democratic insistence on fighting over social issues was more to distract from that party?s candidate, Terry McAuliffe, than it was a substantive critique of commonwealth conservatives, Jankowski said.
?This will be a negative race and [Democrats] will play the social issues as much as possible,? Jankowski said. ?We have to keep it on jobs and the role and size and scope of government and remind [voters] that, generally, people think Richmond?s on the right track.?
Mr. McAuliffe, a former mega fundraiser for the Democratic Party who has shown an entrepreneurial streak in recent years, has had his own words thrown back at him as well, including passages from his book where he describes stopping off at an event for party donors on the way home from the hospital with his wife and newborn child.
Helping Jackson?s rise considerably was the party?s decision to hold a convention rather than a statewide primary ? and to hold it the same weekend as major graduations at several of the commonwealth?s largest universities. These decisions gave more influence to the party?s most committed activists, many of whom spent 12 hours battling, ballot after ballot, to determine the nomination for lieutenant governor.
?I think everyone thought that he was sort of a heart-and-soul vote,? says Kidd of Jackson.
Other options were Pete Snyder, a wealthy Northern Virginia marketing entrepreneur, or Corey Stewart, the head of a Northern Virginia Board of County Supervisors. Either would have come with far less political baggage and represented in broad strokes, at least, the type of business-friendly Republican that has long prospered in the Old Dominion.
Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, who himself took some critiques for past social views during his 2009 campaign, ran and won convincingly on his ?Bob?s for Jobs? theme. He recently brokered a bipartisan transportation deal that had eluded at least a half-dozen of his predecessors.
But the commonwealth?s political history offers some strong indicators that Republicans could triumph in 2013. The state has a long-running streak of electing a governor of the opposite party of the president, for one.
Even if Jackson proves too strident for the overall electorate, Kidd points out that Virginia voters are willing to take only the parts of the ticket they like: Virginians put Republican George Allen in the governor?s mansion in 1993 and future GOP governor Jim Gilmore in the attorney general?s office ? but rejected the more right-wing Michael Ferris for lieutenant governor.
There?s also Cuccinelli?s particular history to consider. The man who has long been criticized as too unyielding to win has made political staying power a habit over his career, once holding on to his Northern Virginia seat in the state Senate by under 100 votes.
?They?ve been writing him off and writing him off,? said Janowski, ?and he always surprises you.?
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Think there's too much reality TV on the air these days? Cheer up, NBC has picked up a new scripted series - about a reality TV show.
The network has picked up the one-hour drama "Siberia," about reality-show contestants uncovering dark secrets, the network said Monday.
The series, which comes via Sierra/Engine Television and Michael Ohoven's Infinity Films, will premiere July 1 at 10 p.m.
The series will revolve around 16 reality TV contestants who descend on the remote Siberian territory of Tunguska, where a meteor hit 100 years ago, to film a series. When a contestant is badly injured and no help arrives, the contestants are met with the chilling realization that the strange occurrences are not part of the show. With their safety threatened, competing contestants must band together in an effort to survive.
The concept of survival, when mysterious elements are at play, makes for a compelling show," said Jeff Bader, President, Program Planning, Strategy and Research for NBC Entertainment. "We believe a scripted series that offers an insightful behind-the-scenes view of how a reality concept comes together -- especially when things don't go according to plan -- will connect with our audience in a very satisfying way."
Infinity Films is producing in association with Sierra/Engine Television and Welldone Productions. Ohoven is executive producing, along with Slava Jakovleff and Sierra/Engine's Chris Philip.
In an effort to make how robots move and interact with humans feel less awkward and uncomfortable, Disney Research, working with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, are developing a more natural approach to the problem by thoroughly studying how humans interact.
In fact, using motion capture suits, the study was taken one step further. The goal of this particular research was to improve how a robot gives, or takes something from a human. So the researchers recorded two humans going through the motions of passing an object between them, and this was then compiled into a database that a robot can use to recognize when it's being given something, and automatically reach out to receive it without delay.
There's still quite a bit of finessing needed to make the actual handoff seem far more lifelike, but in addition to making the animatronic inhabitants at the Disney parks a little less creepy, the research promises to improve how our future robot maids and butlers interact with us. [Disney Research via Gizmag]
HOUSTON (AP) ? A man accused of vandalizing a 1929 Pablo Picasso painting in a Houston museum ? an act that was caught on cellphone video ? agreed Tuesday to a two-year prison term as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
Uriel Landeros had faced felony graffiti and criminal mischief charges accusing him of spray-painting "Woman in a Red Armchair" at the Menil Collection.
Emily Detoto, Landeros' attorney, said that after negotiating with prosecutors during a court hearing, her client agreed to plead guilty to the graffiti charge in exchange for a minimal prison sentence. The other charge was dropped. Landeros had faced up to 10 years in prison.
Detoto said Landeros, 22, wanted the criminal mischief charge dismissed because he believed "what he did to the painting was not criminal mischief, it was an artistic statement, an expression, much like graffiti art is."
"He acknowledged what he did was wrong in terms of he caused damage to the painting. But he also understood that a lot of times to make a point you have to go to these extremes," she said.
The painting was damaged June 13 and a bystander captured the act in a 24-second video that was posted on YouTube. The vandal left behind an image of a bullfighter, a bull and the word "conquista," the Spanish word for conquest.
Landeros, a U.S. citizen, fled to Mexico after the incident. He surrendered to authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border in January.
"It's good the judicial process has done its work and come to a conclusion," said Menil spokesman Vance Muse.
Detoto said there is a good chance her client could be quickly paroled once he is placed into the Texas prison system. He will get credit for the five months in jail he's already served, and Detoto noted the crime wasn't violent.
After his release from prison, Landeros plans to return to the University of Houston and finish the one semester he has left to get his bachelor's degree, Detoto said.
"He plans to continue with his art career. We're hopeful that he'll be able to turn a positive out of this experience," she said.
Muse said the painting's restoration "is close to completion." He said no date has been set on when it would be put back on display.
The vandalism charges garnered Landeros national attention, and a Houston art gallery raised the ire of the local art community in October by staging a show of his works.
It was not the first time one of Picasso's works has been vandalized. In 1999, an escaped mental patient in Amsterdam cut a hole in the middle of his "Woman Nude Before Garden," a 1956 painting.
Other works of art have also been the target of vandals. In October, a vandal scrawled graffiti on a mural by modern American master Mark Rothko at London's Tate Modern. The "Mona Lisa" has been attacked several times, including with acid, a rock and even a teacup.
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LONDON (Reuters) - The cost of protecting Scottish savers would prove difficult to bear if the country broke away from the rest of the UK, a study by the Treasury said on Monday.
The findings come in the latest paper from the British government on how independence would impact the country. On Sunday the Treasury said an independent Scotland would have a huge financial sector relative to its economy, leaving it vulnerable to a Cyprus-style banking crisis.
Existing schemes to provide a deposit guarantee to British savers and protect pension payouts would not cover Scotland if its voters decide to break away from the UK in a referendum due to be held next September, the Treasury said on Monday.
"Arrangements that protect UK savers from financial shocks could be difficult and expensive to maintain in an independent Scotland," the report said.
The UK currently guarantees bank deposits up to 85,000 pounds ($129,100), paid for by a levy on its financial sector. However the likely structure of the Scottish banking industry would prove less suited to such a system.
"The retail deposit market in a separate Scotland would be dominated by only two large banks and, if one of these were to fail, the costs for compensating the depositors would fall almost entirely on the one remaining bank," a Treasury statement accompanying the report said.
The Scottish National Party which controls Scotland's devolved government and is behind the independence campaign has dismissed the Treasury report and is due to issue its own study on Tuesday, highlighting the benefits of a split from Britain. ($1 = 0.6582 British pounds)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told his Lebanese counterpart on Monday he was concerned about Lebanese Hezbollah militants fighting in Syria to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the White House said.
Obama and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman spoke by telephone the same day Syrian activists said about 30 Hezbollah fighters and 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to Assad had been killed in the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair.
Lebanon has maintained a policy of "dissociation" from Syria's 2-year-old conflict. But many Lebanese officials believe their country is at risk of being dragged into the civil war, which the United Nations says has killed 70,000 people.
"President Obama expressed his appreciation to President Suleiman and the Lebanese people for keeping Lebanon's borders open and hosting refugees from Syria, and pledged continued U.S. support to help Lebanon manage this challenge," the White House said in a statement summarizing their phone call.
It said the two leaders agreed that "all parties should respect Lebanon's policy of disassociation from the conflict in Syria and avoid actions that will involve the Lebanese people in the conflict."
Sunday's death toll in Qusair highlighted the increasing intervention in Syria by Assad's allies in Hezbollah, a Shi'ite guerrilla group originally set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation troops in south Lebanon.
"President Obama stressed his concern about Hezbollah's active and growing role in Syria, fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, which is counter to the Lebanese government's policies," the White House said.
Lebanon suffered its own civil war from 1975 to 1990 and endured a military presence by Syria, its historically dominant neighbor, for 29 years until 2005.
(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
All Critics (131) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (129) | Rotten (2)
There is an enchanted-fairy-tale aspect to Mud, but its bright, calm surface only barely disguises a strong, churning undercurrent.
A modern fairy tale, steeped in the sleepy Mississippi lore of Twain and similar American writers, and with a heart as big as the river is wide.
Nichols has a strong feeling for the tactility of natural elements-water, wood, terrain, weather.
Nichols takes his time with the story, dwelling on how the boy is shaped by the killer's tragic sense of romance, yet the suspense holds.
"Mud" isn't just a movie. It's the firm confirmation of a career.
"Mud" unfolds at its own pace, revealing its story in slivers. The performances are outstanding, especially from Sheridan, who plays tough, sweet, vulnerable and confused with equal conviction.
As Mud might say, it's a hell of a thing.
The boys are so skillfully played that Mud also plays like cinema verite. Nichols' fluid camerawork suggests a documentary-style approach. That helps these young lads transform into flesh-and-blood characters who get our attention and support.
Sheridan, who played the Terrence Malick surrogate in The Tree Of Life, is terrific at conveying adolescent confusion with tiny squints and frowns, and McConaughey plays off him masterfully.
Carefully crafting films that fly just below the political radar, director-writer Jeff Nichols is slowly, but surely, reweaving the fabric of the American dream.
It's totally worth it to pay good money to see a good, little film nestled between theaters showing 'Iron Man 3' and 'The Great Gatsby.' (Complete Content Details for Parents also available)
This is a junior adventure story echoing Huckleberry Finn and Stand By Me, a tale which is in no hurry to unfold, but beautifully done, exquisitely performed, and filled with terror and wonder.
Beautifully acted, intellectually engaging, and dramatically satisfying, Mud deserves to rocket to the top of your must-see list.
Nichols is a gifted writer-director who knows how to get into the heads of his characters. And this film has superior actors who create people who are intriguing and hugely involving.
'Mud' is a standout film in this 'coming of age' genre mainly because of its central character, one tough, warm-hearted, stubborn little kid who believes in the power of love, above all else.
Other than pacing problems that needlessly stretch the film past the two-hour mark, 'Mud' slings the dirt and sweat with the best of them, as it both mourns and celebrates a way of life that's all but disappeared.
A sublime coming-of-age film, 'Mud' would be the offspring if 'Stand By Me' and 'Cape Fear' reproduced.
Mud is a movie of striking performances and memorable images and of people who seem to belong in rather than being imposed upon their environment.
A brilliant metaphor for how a child deals with divorce.
This might be Mud. But it deserves to stick.
This is a film that gives McConaughey the chance to be an actor rather than a star, and, not for the first time, he grabs the opportunity.
Gone is the rom-com character and emphasis on a toothy smile and six-pack abs. Matthew McConaughey is showing off some acting chops.
Mud is, perhaps, a little longer than it needed to be, but few sensitive viewers will begrudge Nichols his indulgence. This director is the real thing.
Writer-director Nichols continues to get inside the heads of his characters with this involving but overlong dramatic thriller.
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At some point in the last five years, you realised that all the old rules had changed in terms of your pregnancies, terminations or children. This also applies strongly to your godchildren, if you have them, and your young relatives. Finally, since 2008, when Pluto changed signs, there have been deep questions about the balance of power in relationships which might end in pregnancy, adoption, step-parenting ? or the acquisition of younger family members, via your partner?s own relatives. Some Virgo people have been pursuing their karma with the next generation by making professional or charity commitments to those born 20 years or more after them ? but in all cases, the message has been the same. You will never be empowered, unless you ?do? the issues surrounding the next generation, or relationships which could bring it closer to you. What happens at the Uranus-Pluto clash near Tuesday 21st May is a case in point. Something or someone has dominated, for far too long. There will be a moment of truth when everything alters, and at that moment, you must negotiate your fair share of the controls. This process is arduous, but completely worthwhile. The person, organisation or situation which unfairly loomed large, will shrink. This reshapes everything, in terms of the amount of available power, and you must plunge in and make the necessary compromise, to take your share. The eclipse on Saturday may be part of the story, because it falls in your house of family, property and domestic life. It also impacts your professional, charity or academic existence. Whether these issues are all connected, or separate and parallel, to say that late May is a time of decisions is the understatement of the month! The final comment on your horoscope this week? You cannot put a price tag on freedom. No amount of dollars, pounds or euros will pay for independence. Despite the fact that you must be awfully tired with your world turning upside-down every so often, you should also embrace the fact that every single time it has happened, the revolution has set you free.
For a precise prediction, blend your Sun Sign horoscope (above) with your Rising Sign too. If you don?t know it, enter your time, place and date of birth at?Astrodienst?and look for the sign in the 9pm position on the ?clock? of the horoscope wheel. By combining both signs in one reading you will end up with a personalised prediction that only 1 in 144 other people could have. A fingerprint forecast. If you would like a lifetime horoscope, there is a waiting list, but I still have a few places available. Register your interest at [email?protected] Thank you.
The stars continued to sparkle despite the rain falling on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
Actress Jennifer Lawrence was among the big names to step out on Saturday for the premiere of the film "Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian)" at the 66th annual festival.
AFP - Getty Images
Actress Jennifer Lawrence on May 18 in Cannes, France.
This week from Gwist! Lesbians and Straights square off in "The Spousal Equivalent Game," Alec Mapa and gay comics share stories in "Gwissues with Howard Bragman," Miss Richfield 1981 talks body hair with the steam room guys on SRS Live, and Emily and Liz share some lesbian long-distance wisdom on "Dykeotomy."
(Warning: Some topics may be unsuitable for all audiences.)
1. Gwissues -- "Why Gay Comedians have S*** To Talk About" Erin Foley, Alec Mapa, and Dave Rubin discuss why gays have the best material right now, and why audiences are starved for LGBT humor.
2. The Spousal Equivalent Game -- "Older Gay Men vs. Young Lesbians" Gay couple Don and Robert battle young lesbian couple Emily and Liz to see who knows more about their partner!
3. SRS Live With Miss Richfield 1981 -- "Hair Today! Gone Tomorrow! Wolverine Syndrome" Body hair: Is it sexy or no? The Steam Room boys dish about their own hair preferences just in time for summer!
4. Dykeotomy -- "Does Long Distance EVER Work?" Liz and Emily give you the low-down on how to keep a long-distance relationship from going down the toilet.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc's board will meet on Sunday to vote on whether to offer $1.1 billion in cash for New York-based blogging service Tumblr, tech blog AllThingsD cited sources close to the situation as saying on Friday.
Such an acquisition would be CEO Marissa Mayer's largest deal since taking the helm of the once-iconic Internet company in July 2012. Yahoo is keen on Tumblr because its younger user base would enhance the older website's "cool factor," the technology blog cited the sources as saying.
The news could be announced as soon as Monday, it said. Yahoo has invited press to an event in Manhattan at which it promised to "share something special," without elaborating.
Mayer, who spent 13 years at Google Inc, is trying to revitalize a former Internet powerhouse that in recent years has struggled with declining business. On its home page, Tumblr says it hosts 108 million blogs, with 50.7 billion posts between them.
Yahoo declined to comment, while Tumblr did not respond to requests for comment.
Though Mozilla has long been a proponent of WebRTC for plugin-free video and voice chat, it hasn't been ready to enable the full protocol in Firefox as a matter of course. It's more confident as of this week: the newly available Firefox 22 beta turns on complete WebRTC use by default, allowing for both live web conversations and peer-to-peer file swaps. There's more to the release as well, depending on the platform. Windows users receive support for HiDPI displays, like that of the Kirabook; every desktop user also gets gaming-friendly OdinMonkey JavaScript tuning, a web notification API and a font inspector. Android users won't have WebRTC and other upgrades for now, but everyone can experiment with the latest Firefox beta at the source links.
It was swift and brutal. An inmate at a Wisconsin jail knocked out a guard with one punch, newly released video shows.
Caught by surveillance cameras, the March 27 fight apparently erupts as three corrections officers gather lunch trays and another enters the room. The alleged puncher, identified by the Marathon County Sheriff's Department as Fredrick Morris, can be seen in the footage adopting a fighting stance and coldcocking Officer Julie Christensen with a right hand to the face. She falls hard to the floor while Morris tangles with another guard.
Christensen (also spelled Christiansen in court documents) was knocked unconscious by the hit from Morris and was taken to intensive care and remained hospitalized as of Thursday, Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) reported.
According to WPR, a deputy claimed that during the incident prisoners had shouted, "Hope she dies," as Christensen lay on the ground.
Morris was charged with several counts of battery, according to a criminal complaint. He was transferred to a facility in Lincoln County, Wisc., the Marathon County Courthouse told The Huffington Post on Friday.
After the attack, safety conditions at the Marathon County jail were evaluated by a civilian panel this week, CBS local affiliate WSAW reported.
"What I saw was a battlefield," panel chair Paul Jones said of the video footage, per WPR. Another panelist, Mike Beck, said the incident made him distrust the jail's administration.
May 16, 2013 ? New experiments reveal previously unseen effects, could lead to new kinds of electronics and optical devices. Graphene has dazzled scientists, ever since its discovery more than a decade ago, with its unequalled electronic properties, its strength and its light weight. But one long-sought goal has proved elusive: how to engineer into graphene a property called a band gap, which would be necessary to use the material to make transistors and other electronic devices.
Now, new findings by researchers at MIT are a major step toward making graphene with this coveted property. The work could also lead to revisions in some theoretical predictions in graphene physics.
The new technique involves placing a sheet of graphene -- a carbon-based material whose structure is just one atom thick -- on top of hexagonal boron nitride, another one-atom-thick material with similar properties. The resulting material shares graphene's amazing ability to conduct electrons, while adding the band gap necessary to form transistors and other semiconductor devices.
The work is described in a paper in the journal Science co-authored by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Mitsui Career Development Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT, Professor of Physics Ray Ashoori, and 10 others.
"By combining two materials," Jarillo-Herrero says, "we created a hybrid material that has different properties than either of the two."
Graphene is an extremely good conductor of electrons, while boron nitride is a good insulator, blocking the passage of electrons. "We made a high-quality semiconductor by putting them together," Jarillo-Herrero explains. Semiconductors, which can switch between conducting and insulating states, are the basis for all modern electronics.
To make the hybrid material work, the researchers had to align, with near perfection, the atomic lattices of the two materials, which both consist of a series of hexagons. The size of the hexagons (known as the lattice constant) in the two materials is almost the same, but not quite: Those in boron nitride are 1.8 percent larger. So while it is possible to line the hexagons up almost perfectly in one place, over a larger area the pattern goes in and out of register.
At this point, the researchers say they must rely on chance to get the angular alignment for the desired electronic properties in the resulting stack. However, the alignment turns out to be correct about one time out of 15, they say.
"The qualities of the boron nitride bleed over into the graphene," Ashoori says. But what's most "spectacular," he adds, is that the properties of the resulting semiconductor can be "tuned" by just slightly rotating one sheet relative to the other, allowing for a spectrum of materials with varied electronic characteristics.
Others have made graphene into a semiconductor by etching the sheets into narrow ribbons, Ashoori says, but such an approach substantially degrades graphene's electrical properties. By contrast, the new method appears to produce no such degradation.
The band gap created so far in the material is smaller than that needed for practical electronic devices; finding ways of increasing it will require further work, the researchers say.
"If ? a large band gap could be engineered, it could have applications in all of digital electronics," Jarillo-Herrero says. But even at its present level, he adds, this approach could be applied to some optoelectronic applications, such as photodetectors.
The results "surprised us pleasantly," Ashoori says, and will require some explanation by theorists. Because of the difference in lattice constants of the two materials, the researchers had predicted that the hybrid's properties would vary from place to place. Instead, they found a constant, and unexpectedly large, band gap across the whole surface.
In addition, Jarillo-Herrero says, the magnitude of the change in electrical properties produced by putting the two materials together "is much larger than theory predicts."
The MIT team also observed an interesting new physical phenomenon. When exposed to a magnetic field, the material exhibits fractal properties -- known as a Hofstadter butterfly energy spectrum -- that were described decades ago by theorists, but thought impossible in the real world. There is intense research in this area; two other research groups also report on these Hofstadter butterfly effects this week in the journal Nature.
The research included postdocs Ben Hunt and Andrea Young and graduate student Javier Sanchez-Yamagishi, as well as six other researchers from the University of Arizona, the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and Tohoku University in Japan. The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
Amsterdam, May 17, 2013 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a recent study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online on 5-day old human blastocysts showing that those with an abnormal chromosomal composition can be identified by the rate at which they have developed to blastocysts, thereby classifying the risk of genetic abnormality without a biopsy. In a new study the same group has undertaken a retrospective study, using their predictive model to assess the likelihood of any embryo transferred resulting in a successful pregnancy, with very encouraging outcomes.
One of the greatest challenges in assisted reproduction is to find the one embryo, which can develop successfully. Now, combining time lapse imaging of IVF embryos cultured for 5 days to the blastocyst stage with trophoblast biopsy, it has proved possible to correlate the rate of blastocyst formation with chromosomal abnormalities. Such an approach should allow early and widely accessible non-invasive identification of the best embryo to place in the uterus.
"Recently the world of IVF has become very excited by the use of time-lapse imaging (TLI) of early human embryo development to follow the change of embryo morphology over time", explains Martin Johnson, Editor of Reproductive BioMedicine Online. "The data can then be compared with the outcome after the embryos are transferred. The hope is that this morphokinetic analysis will enable reproductive specialists to predict more successfully those embryos most likely to generate pregnancies. The advantage of using morphokinetic analysis to predict outcome is its minimal invasiveness."
The majority of embryos that fail to initiate a pregnancy do so because they have abnormal chromosomes. Unfortunately these embryos cannot be recognized by embryologists using conventional microscopy. Only biopsy of one or a few cells of the early embryo followed by preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) can establish whether the number of chromosomes is normal or not.
In their research Alison Campbell and colleagues of CARE Fertility, Nottingham, went one step further, describing the use of morphokinetic analysis to identify those embryos that have an abnormal chromosomal constitution. In that study, they cultured embryos under time lapse imaging to day 5, by which time they formed blastocysts. These were then biopsied by removing a few of the cells from the outer layer of the embryo, which will normally contribute only to the placenta. The biopsy was then analyzed for its chromosomal constitution. The authors then related the chromosomal make up of each embryo to its morphokinetic history. They found that a proportion of embryos with chromosomal abnormalities were delayed in initiating blastocyst formation and also reached the full blastocyst stage later than did normal embryos. The authors conclude that using this approach they could avoid exposing at least a subset of the embryos to invasive biopsy procedures.
"This non-invasive model for the classification of chromosomal abnormality may be used to avoid selecting embryos with high risk of aneuploidy while selecting those with reduced risk," said lead author Alison Campbell.
The same group has now applied this risk classification model retrospectively to examine the pregnancy outcomes in a series of unselected IVF patients without the use of PGS. A significant improvement in both implantation and live birth rates was observed when low risk embryos were transferred.
Scientist Markus Montag of the Department of Gynecological Endocrinology and Fertility Disorders, University Clinics of Heidelberg, said: "The idea of using time-lapse imaging and morphokinetic analysis is intriguing, because having available a completely non-invasive procedure to predict which embryo is euploid or aneuploid would allow the application of this technique for virtually every assisted reproduction cycle. The potential benefit of such an approach is obvious in view of published data on the incidence of aneuploidy even in oocytes from younger women."
###
These research papers are:
Modelling a risk classification of aneuploidy in human embryos using non-invasive morphokinetics, by Campbell, A., Fishel, S., Bowman, N., Duffy, S., Sedler, M., Hickman, C.F.L.; Reproductive BioMedicine Online; 26, 477- 485;DOI: 10.1016/j.rbmo.2013.02.006. The article appears in Reproductive BioMedicine Online, Volume 26, Issue 5 (May 2013), published by Elsevier. Available online on ScienceDirect.
Retrospective analysis of clinical pregnancy and live birth rate for IVF embryos classified for aneuploidy risk, without PGS, demonstrates the benefit of a time-lapse imaging derived model, by Campbell, A., Fishel, S., Bowman, N., Duffy, S., Sedler, M., Thornton, S.; This article is available as an Article in Press in Reproductive Biomedicine Online (May 17, 2013), published by Elsevier. Available online on ScienceDirect on May 17.
Notes for Editors
Full text of the articles are available to journalists upon request: contact Greyling Peoples at +31 20 485 3323 or g.peoples@elsevier.com. Journalists wishing to set up interviews with the authors should contact Dr. Alison Campbell or Dr Simon Fishel.
About the authors
Alison Campbell and Simon Fishel
CARE Fertility, John Webster House, 6 Lawrence Drive, Nottingham
Business Park, Nottingham, NG8 6PZ
Reproductive BioMedicine Online covers the formation, growth and differentiation of the human embryo. It is intended to bring to public attention new research on biological and clinical research on human reproduction and the human embryo including relevant studies on animals. It is published by a group of scientists and clinicians working in these fields of study. Its audience comprises researchers, clinicians, practitioners, academics and patients.
It is an official publication of:
The American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB) http://www.aab.org
Alpha Scientists in Reproductive Medicine, http://alphascientists.org
The American College of Embryology (ACE) http://www.embcol.org
The Global Chinese Association for Reproductive Medicine (GCARM) http://www.gcarm.com
The International Society for In Vitro Fertilization (ISIVF) http://www.isivf.com
The Mediterranean Society for Reproductive Medicine (MSRM) http://www.medreproduction.org
The Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis International Society (PGDIS) http://www.pgdis.org
The Turkish Society of Reproductive Medicine (TSRM) http://www.tsrm.org.tr
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close
to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of
science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Amsterdam, May 17, 2013 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a recent study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online on 5-day old human blastocysts showing that those with an abnormal chromosomal composition can be identified by the rate at which they have developed to blastocysts, thereby classifying the risk of genetic abnormality without a biopsy. In a new study the same group has undertaken a retrospective study, using their predictive model to assess the likelihood of any embryo transferred resulting in a successful pregnancy, with very encouraging outcomes.
One of the greatest challenges in assisted reproduction is to find the one embryo, which can develop successfully. Now, combining time lapse imaging of IVF embryos cultured for 5 days to the blastocyst stage with trophoblast biopsy, it has proved possible to correlate the rate of blastocyst formation with chromosomal abnormalities. Such an approach should allow early and widely accessible non-invasive identification of the best embryo to place in the uterus.
"Recently the world of IVF has become very excited by the use of time-lapse imaging (TLI) of early human embryo development to follow the change of embryo morphology over time", explains Martin Johnson, Editor of Reproductive BioMedicine Online. "The data can then be compared with the outcome after the embryos are transferred. The hope is that this morphokinetic analysis will enable reproductive specialists to predict more successfully those embryos most likely to generate pregnancies. The advantage of using morphokinetic analysis to predict outcome is its minimal invasiveness."
The majority of embryos that fail to initiate a pregnancy do so because they have abnormal chromosomes. Unfortunately these embryos cannot be recognized by embryologists using conventional microscopy. Only biopsy of one or a few cells of the early embryo followed by preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) can establish whether the number of chromosomes is normal or not.
In their research Alison Campbell and colleagues of CARE Fertility, Nottingham, went one step further, describing the use of morphokinetic analysis to identify those embryos that have an abnormal chromosomal constitution. In that study, they cultured embryos under time lapse imaging to day 5, by which time they formed blastocysts. These were then biopsied by removing a few of the cells from the outer layer of the embryo, which will normally contribute only to the placenta. The biopsy was then analyzed for its chromosomal constitution. The authors then related the chromosomal make up of each embryo to its morphokinetic history. They found that a proportion of embryos with chromosomal abnormalities were delayed in initiating blastocyst formation and also reached the full blastocyst stage later than did normal embryos. The authors conclude that using this approach they could avoid exposing at least a subset of the embryos to invasive biopsy procedures.
"This non-invasive model for the classification of chromosomal abnormality may be used to avoid selecting embryos with high risk of aneuploidy while selecting those with reduced risk," said lead author Alison Campbell.
The same group has now applied this risk classification model retrospectively to examine the pregnancy outcomes in a series of unselected IVF patients without the use of PGS. A significant improvement in both implantation and live birth rates was observed when low risk embryos were transferred.
Scientist Markus Montag of the Department of Gynecological Endocrinology and Fertility Disorders, University Clinics of Heidelberg, said: "The idea of using time-lapse imaging and morphokinetic analysis is intriguing, because having available a completely non-invasive procedure to predict which embryo is euploid or aneuploid would allow the application of this technique for virtually every assisted reproduction cycle. The potential benefit of such an approach is obvious in view of published data on the incidence of aneuploidy even in oocytes from younger women."
###
These research papers are:
Modelling a risk classification of aneuploidy in human embryos using non-invasive morphokinetics, by Campbell, A., Fishel, S., Bowman, N., Duffy, S., Sedler, M., Hickman, C.F.L.; Reproductive BioMedicine Online; 26, 477- 485;DOI: 10.1016/j.rbmo.2013.02.006. The article appears in Reproductive BioMedicine Online, Volume 26, Issue 5 (May 2013), published by Elsevier. Available online on ScienceDirect.
Retrospective analysis of clinical pregnancy and live birth rate for IVF embryos classified for aneuploidy risk, without PGS, demonstrates the benefit of a time-lapse imaging derived model, by Campbell, A., Fishel, S., Bowman, N., Duffy, S., Sedler, M., Thornton, S.; This article is available as an Article in Press in Reproductive Biomedicine Online (May 17, 2013), published by Elsevier. Available online on ScienceDirect on May 17.
Notes for Editors
Full text of the articles are available to journalists upon request: contact Greyling Peoples at +31 20 485 3323 or g.peoples@elsevier.com. Journalists wishing to set up interviews with the authors should contact Dr. Alison Campbell or Dr Simon Fishel.
About the authors
Alison Campbell and Simon Fishel
CARE Fertility, John Webster House, 6 Lawrence Drive, Nottingham
Business Park, Nottingham, NG8 6PZ
Reproductive BioMedicine Online covers the formation, growth and differentiation of the human embryo. It is intended to bring to public attention new research on biological and clinical research on human reproduction and the human embryo including relevant studies on animals. It is published by a group of scientists and clinicians working in these fields of study. Its audience comprises researchers, clinicians, practitioners, academics and patients.
It is an official publication of:
The American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB) http://www.aab.org
Alpha Scientists in Reproductive Medicine, http://alphascientists.org
The American College of Embryology (ACE) http://www.embcol.org
The Global Chinese Association for Reproductive Medicine (GCARM) http://www.gcarm.com
The International Society for In Vitro Fertilization (ISIVF) http://www.isivf.com
The Mediterranean Society for Reproductive Medicine (MSRM) http://www.medreproduction.org
The Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis International Society (PGDIS) http://www.pgdis.org
The Turkish Society of Reproductive Medicine (TSRM) http://www.tsrm.org.tr
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close
to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of
science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 16-May-2013
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