This Week's Top Web Comedy Video: How to Know What Words Mean [Video]

There are so many ways to make your day to day existence better, and we could all use a little lifehack now and again. But that doesn't mean all those instructional videos couldn't use a little skewering. Especially when it comes from The Onion. So come on folks, let's crack this whole "words" thing once and for all. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/4bPfgsK4ELU/this-weeks-top-web-comedy-video-how-to-know-what-words-mean

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Anonymous blows off WikiLeaks, calls Assange a sellout after Lady Gaga dinner

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-blows-off-wikileaks-calls-assange-sellout-lady-211704535.html

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Influential Israeli rabbi suspected of bribery

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/influential-israeli-rabbi-suspected-bribery-112449092.html

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Video: Gov. Beshear on election: Folks are going to ?go with their gut?

NYT: After meningitis death, family members ask why

??Diana Reed tried massage and acupuncture, but neither eased her neck pain. She may have injured herself while helping her husband, Wayne, who has Lou Gehrig's disease.? Finally, she decided to try a series of steroid injections. Less than a week after her last one, she died of fungal meningitis.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/49380128#49380128

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There Is No Nobel Prize in Economics ? Set You Free News

Pages: 1 2

By Yasha Levine | Alternet

It?s awarded by Sweden?s central bank, foisted among the five real prizewinners, often to economists for the 1% ? and the surviving Nobel family is strongly against it.

It?s Nobel Prize season again.

News reports are coming out each day sharing the name of the illustrious winner of the various categories ? Science, Literature, etc.

But there?s one of the prizes that?s a little different. Well, that?s putting it lightly? you see, the Nobel Prize in Economics is not a real Nobel. It wasn?t created by Alfred Nobel. It?s not even called a ?Nobel Prize,? no matter what the press reports say.

The five real Nobel Prizes?physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and medicine/physiology?were set up in the will left by the dynamite magnate when he died in 1895. The economics prize is a bit different. It was created by Sweden?s Central Bank in 1969, nearly 75 years later. The award?s real name is the ?Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.? It was not established by Nobel, but supposedly in memory of Nobel.?It?s a ruse and a PR trick, and I mean that literally. And it was done completely against the wishes of the Nobel family.

Sweden?s Central Bank quietly snuck it in with all the other Nobel Prizes to give free-market economics for the 1% credibility. One of the?Federal Reserve banks?explained it succinctly, ?Few realize, especially outside of economists, that the prize in economics is not an ?official? Nobel. . . . The award for economics came almost 70 years later?bootstrapped to the Nobel in 1968 as a bit of a marketing ploy to celebrate the Bank of Sweden?s 300th anniversary.??Yes, you read that right: ?a marketing ploy.?

?The Economics Prize has nestled itself in and is awarded as if it were a Nobel Prize. But it?s a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation,? Nobel?s great great nephew Peter Nobel?told AFP in 2005, adding that ?It?s most often awarded to stock market speculators ?. There is nothing to indicate that [Alfred Nobel] would have wanted such a prize.?

Members of the Nobel family are among the harshest, most persistent critics of the economics prize, and members of the family have repeatedly called for the prize to be abolished or renamed. In 2001, on the 100th anniversery of the Nobel Prizes, four family members published a letter in the Swedish paper?Svenska Dagbladet,?arguing that the?economics prize degrades and cheapens the real Nobel Prizes. They aren?t the only ones.

Scientists never had much respect for the new economic Nobel prize. In fact, a scientist who headed Nixon?s Science Advisory Committee in 1969, was shocked to learn that economists were even allowed on stage to accept their award with the real Nobel laureates. He was incredulous: ?You mean they sat on the platform with you??

That hatred continues to simmer below the surface, and periodically breaks through and makes itself known. ?Most recently, in 2004, three prominent Swedish scientists and members of the Nobel committee published?an open letter?in a Swedish newspaper savaging the fraudulent ?scientific??credentials?of the Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economics.

?The economics prize diminishes the value of the other Nobel prizes. If the prize is to be kept, it must be broadened in scope and be disassociated with Nobel,? they wrote in the letter, arguing that achievements of most of the economists who win the prize are so?abstract and disconnected from the real world as to utterly meaningless.

The question is: Why would a prize that draws so much hatred and negativity from the scientific community be added to the Nobel roster so late in the game? And why economics?

To answer that question we have to go back to Sweden in the 1960s.

Around the time the prize was created, Sweden?s banking and business interests were busy trying to ram through various so-called ?free-market? economic reforms. Their big objective at the time was to loosen political oversight and control over the country?s central bank.

According to Philip Mirowski, a professor at the University of Notre Dame?who specializes?in?the?history of economics, the ?Bank of Sweden was trying to become more independent of democratic accountability in the late 60s, and there was a big political dispute in Sweden as to whether the bank could have effective political independence. In order to support that position, the bank needed to claim that it had a kind of scientific credibility that was not grounded in political support.?

Promoters of central bank independence couched their arguments in the obscure language of neoclassical economic theory of market efficiency. The problem was that few people in Sweden took their neoclassical babble very seriously, and saw their plan for central bank independence for what it was: an attempt to transfer control over economic matters from democratically elected government and place into the hands of big business interests, giving them a?free hand in running Sweden?s economy without pesky interference from labor unions, voters and elected officials.

And that?s where the Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economic Sciences came in.

The details of how the deal went down are still very murky. What is known is that in 1969 Sweden?s central bank used the pretense of its 300th anniversary to push through an independent prize in ?economic science? in memory of Alfred Nobel, and closely link it with the original Nobel Prize awards. The name was a bit longer, the medals looked a little different and the award money did not come from Nobel, but in every other way it was hard to tell the two apart.

To ensure the prize would be awarded to the right economists, the bank managed to install a rightwing Swedish?economist?named Assar Lindbeck, who had ties to University of Chicago,?to oversee the awards committee and keep him there for more than three decades. (Lindbeck?s?famous free-market oneliner?is: ??In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city ? except for bombing.?)

For the first few years, the Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economics went to fairly mainstream and maybe even semi-respectable economists. But after establishing the award as credible and serious, the prizes took a hard turn to the right.

Over the next decade, the prize was awarded to the most fanatical supporters of theories that concentrated wealth among the top 1% of industrialized society of our time.

In 1974, five years after the prize was first created, it was awarded to Friedrich Hayek, one the leading ?laissez-faire? ? enrich the rich ? economists of the 20th century and the godfather of neoclassical economics. Milton Friedman, who was at the University of Chicago with Hayek, was not far behind. He won the prize just two years later, in 1976.

Both Hayek and Friedman were huge supporters of the political independence of central banks. In fact, they built their careers on bashing government intervention in economic matters. Hayek developed a whole business cycle theory that blamed government and government-controlled banking systems ?for all economic ills. He also equated all government intervention will inevitably lead to totalitarianism.

Friedman with a whole new subsection of neoclassical economics called ?Monetarism? that had a scientific formula worked out,?specifying exactly how much money central bankers needed to keep floating around in the economy?to keep inflation low and unemployment high enough to keep big business happy.?No democratic control over banking policies needed, just let the free-markets do its thing! ?The?Swedish central bankers couldn?t get better?spokesmen?for their cause.

But Hayek and Friedman?s usefulness went way beyond Sweden.

At the time of the prizes, neoclassical economics were not fully accepted by the media and political establishment. But the Nobel Prize changed all that.

What started as a project to help the Bank of Sweden achieve political independence, ended up boosting the credibility of the most regressive strains of free-market economics, and paving the way for widespread acceptance of libertarian ideology.

Pages: 1 2

Source: http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2012/10/13/there-is-no-nobel-prize-in-economics/

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News: Hal Leonard: Hal Leonard Publishes the 2nd Edition of ...

Giant step forward into the technical, musical, and business aspects of producing today

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Montclair, NJ (October 11, 2012) ? Hal Leonard Books, the musician?s best source of books on the music business, audio technology, instrument history, and more, has published Engineering & Producing, the second edition of the fifth book in the Hal Leonard Recording Method by Bill Gibson ($39.99).

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The first four books of the Hal Leonard Recording Method cover microphones, mixers, recording vocals and instrument; working with samples and loops, and modern sequencers, along with how digital? recording software and plug-ins work in the studio. This edition takes a giant step forward, examining modern concerns of engineers and? producers. This detailed guide addresses some of the most important new considerations, such as social media, aggregators, making money in the current business climate, earning royalties from streaming and Internet radio stations, professional organizations and songwriter affiliations, and more.

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New in this edition:

  • Extensive use of QR Codes, which link directly to associated websites and resources via your smart device?s QR Code readers. This expands the content of the book far beyond the printed page.
  • New and updated media examples included wherever appropriate
  • Loads of new material about changes in the audio industry and what it takes to engineer and produce today.
  • What? engineers and producers need to know about new delivery systems, social networking, marketing, independent releases, the current state of the major label world, and more.
  • Multiple appendices that provide substantial industry resources, musicians? associations, and other tools for the modern engineer and producer
See what it takes to be a great producer, and learn how to inspire awesome performances; pick up some tricks for selecting the best tracks to keep in your session, and discover what it takes to develop a production plan.

The accompanying DVD-ROM provides several detailed screen shots, illustrations, and video and audio examples. If you study this method? and practice the included techniques, you?ll be well on your way to rounding out your recording education and producing great sounding recordings.

About the author:
Bill Gibson has spent the last thirty-plus years writing, performing, recording, producing, and teaching music. He has written more than thirty books and produced several videos covering important audio concepts. His style is acclaimed for straightforward and understandable explanations of audio concepts and applications. Gibson, an instructor at the Art Institute of Seattle, is also known for his work helping Quincy Jones author the book Q on Producing. He has developed curriculum and currently teaches online sound courses for Berklee College of Music in Boston. The courses have been very helpful to an amazingly diverse international student body. Gibson serves as a trustee for the National Academy of Recording Arts and? Sciences and also on the National Advisory Board for the Recording Academy?s Producers and Engineers Wing. He lives in Seattle,Washington.

Engineering & Producing, 2nd Edition
Hal Leonard Books
Inventory #HL 00333700
ISBN: 9781458436924
Width: 8.5" Length: 11.0"
$39.99 (US)
304 pages
www.halleonardbooks.com
www.onstageandbackstage.wordpress.com

Source: http://www.harmonycentral.com/blogs/News-HalLeonard/2012/10/11/hal-leonard-publishes-the-2nd-edition-of-engineering-producing-giant-step-forward-into-the-technical-musical-and-business-aspects-of-producing-today-montclair-nj-october-11-2012-hal-leonard-books-the-musician-s-best-source-of-books-on-the-mus

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Chris Roberts Returns To Game Design: Unveils 'Star Citizen' At GDC

Chris Roberts Unveils New Game At GDC

Dedicated PC gamers everywhere are rejoicing over the news that Chris?Roberts?has returned to game design after a 10 year absence. Chris gave the world a dramatic first look at his new game, Star Citizen, at yesterday?s Game Developers Conference in?Austin,?Texas.

Roberts is famous in the gaming community as the man behind such hits as Wing Commander and Privateer. Chris is also known as the director of the Wing Commander movie that starred an up and coming new face in?Hollywood, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard. Since his retirement from game design, Roberts produced several feature?films, including?The Punisher,?The Jacket?and?Lord of War.

While he was busy producing movies, Roberts waited?patiently?for computer technology to catch up to his vision for the perfect space combat game.?Sensing?the time was finally at hand,?Roberts began work on?Star Citizen last year, and yesterday he was ready to unveil his new game to the world.

At the GDC, Chris spoke at length about Star Citizen, and he explained why he wanted to design a game that pushed the PC to its limits:

?I?m a PC gamer in my heart, but I have consoles at home and I tend to buy the console version of a game that?s built for a console because I don?t want to play it on the PC. But if someone was building a game that really pushed the limits of the PC, and said this is what it can be if you dream it, then I think I?d definitely buy that. That?s one of the big reasons for me to come back.?

?In recent years, game designers have stopped innovating and pushing the boundaries of what you can do in this genre. I plan on bringing that kind of development mentality back into PC gaming and space sims in particular.?

?There is a lot of noise out there regarding social and mobile games right now, and I think PC gamers are feeling a little left out of the mix. But the PC is still incredibly capable of presenting an experience that?doesn?t?take a back seat to any other platform out there, including consoles. With my game, I want PC gamers to stand up, be counted and get excited again about all the great experiences their computer can deliver?

Of course no presentation would be complete without a new video that showed off the?new game?all its glory and Star Citizen got the full treatment at the GDC. Watching the video, you could see the incredible amount of detail that went into the design of the game. Most striking is the manner in which real physics are applied as huge carriers?maneuver?in space. Roberts discussed the principals behind the stunning visuals:

?In terms of a physics model, everything?s rendered and?modeled?physically correctly, If we take a look, as I?m yawing, you?ll see that my thrusters on top are articulating to give the thrust in the correct place to rotate, the proper pitch when I bank. This ship?isn?t?set up to roll at thirty degrees a second, it?s actually?modeled?properly. It?s a full rigid body and it has these thrusters at different points.?

He has always been a hardcore gamer at heart and Roberts is fondly remembered?for his dedication to the gaming community. Perhaps that is why he also announced his decision to use Crowd Funding for Star Citizen. A website has been created at?www.robertsspaceindustries.com to raise funds for the project and the response has been overwhelming. Just hours after the announcement, so many people were trying to?contribute?that the site was actually knocked offline for a brief period.

Crowd Funding is?becoming?quite popular as an alternative to traditional fund raising, and Chris explained his reasons for choosing this innovative new method of financing:

?We are taking this approach to fund-raising for several reasons. For one, this route takes the traditional game publisher out of the mix and enables us to take the millions of dollars normally used by publishers for a triple-A title and plow them right back into developing the game. Secondly, using our own crowd funding mechanism allows us to reach out to our international fans, who have been devoted followers of my games in the past. Thirdly, going direct gets us much closer to our fans and allows us to focus more on the community side, create more updates for our fans and directly interact with them as we are making the game.?

Star Citizen is still about two years from launch, which means that the technology will continue to evolve alongside the game.?Participants?in crowd funding will be invited to play an early beta version of the game in about a year and The Inquisitr will be keeping you up to date on all the latest development?s as Chris and his team continue to work on Star Citizen.

We can only imagine what sort of computer we will use to play Star Citizen when it is?released?24 months from now. How much more can we add to a system that already has 16 gigs of ram, a hex core?CPU?and dual Nvidia 660 TI graphic cards. Oh well, one can always dream and like many of our readers, we cant wait to play Star Citizen.

Source: http://www.inquisitr.com/360098/chris-roberts-returns-to-game-design-unveils-star-citizen-at-gdc/

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Team Obama hopes veep debate halts GOP momentum

Students posing as Vice President Joe Biden, and Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., shake hands during set up for Thursday's vice presidential debate, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, at Centre College in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Students posing as Vice President Joe Biden, and Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., shake hands during set up for Thursday's vice presidential debate, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, at Centre College in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

A banner made by a local middle school depicting Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., at left, and Vice President Joe Biden, at right, hangs on the wall inside the media center ahead of Thursday's vice presidential debate, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, at Centre College in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., poses for pictures with supporters as he arrives at the Blue Grass airport, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012 in Lexington, Ky. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves during a campaign rally at the Shelby County Fairgrounds on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, in Sidney, Ohio. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

(AP) ? Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan pull up a couple of chairs for a vice presidential debate that has mushroomed in importance since Mitt Romney's strong showing in the first presidential faceoff. This time, it's the Obama team looking to put the brakes on the other guy's momentum.

The veep showdown matches up two skilled politicians with strong policy credentials and very different styles. It's 69-year-old Biden's folksy appeal and solid vice presidential portfolio vs. 42-year-old Ryan's intensity and extensive knowledge of the federal budget and economy from 14 years in Congress.

Like the second installment in a miniseries, it will help to shape the campaign narrative until Romney and Obama themselves meet up again Tuesday. Obama is eager to change the vibe after his lackluster performance in the first debate and Romney's recent gains in the polls. Romney, for his part, is hoping that a strong Ryan performance will help propel Republicans forward on an energetic drive through the campaign's final weeks.

The 90-minute debate at Centre College, a liberal arts school with just 1,340 students in tiny Danville, is sure to draw a television audience of tens of millions. But it's unlikely to eclipse the 70 million who tuned in to watch Biden face off with Republican firebrand Sarah Palin four years ago.

That debate was more of a curiosity: It allowed Palin to outdo Biden in folksiness and recover from a series of painfully awkward media interviews but did little to alter the trajectory of the race.

"Normally vice presidential debates are good political theater and sort of interesting from a talent scout standpoint, as you evaluate the up-and-comers on the political stage," says Alan Schroeder, author of a book on presidential debates. "But this year could be different because of the negative reviews of Obama's performance. That heightens expectations for this second debate."

"Joe just needs to be Joe," Obama said, when asked his advice for the vice president in an interview Wednesday with ABC News.

Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod, appearing Thursday morning on "CBS This Morning," said he believes "the big challenge for him is to pin Congressman Ryan down."

"Right now the Romney campaign is running away from some of their positions like unwanted stepchildren," Axelrod said.

Thursday was a rare day when the political activities of the running mates were taking center stage and those of Obama and Romney were seen as secondary. But with just 26 days left until the election and the race still tight, neither Obama nor Romney was completely ceding the spotlight. The president was hunting for votes in Florida while his GOP opponent devoted time to North Carolina, another battleground.

Thursday's debate, moderated by Martha Raddatz of ABC News, will cover both foreign and domestic topics. The debate is to be divided into nine 10-minute segments. At the outset, Raddatz will ask an opening question, and each candidate will have two minutes to respond.

Romney and Obama both predicted strong performances by their No. 2s.

"I think Paul Ryan will do great," Romney told supporters at a town hall meeting Wednesday in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

He said the debates offer people a rare chance to see the candidates directly, unfiltered by misleading and negative ads.

The GOP nominee said he'd seen some of the anti-Romney TV ads running in Ohio that morning, and added, "It's a good thing I don't do that very often because my blood pressure would be very high."

Obama, in a radio interview Wednesday with Tom Joyner, said he'd been "too polite" in his debate with Romney ? a sure sign that Biden won't be going easy on Ryan. And that Obama won't make the same mistake in the next two presidential debates, on Tuesday in Hempstead, N.Y., and Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla.

"We've got four weeks left in the election, and we're going to take it to him," Obama said.

Later, in an interview with "ABC World News," Obama minimized the importance of his poor first debate performance, saying: "Gov. Romney had a good night. I had a bad night. It's not the first time I've had a bad night."

He added, "What's important is the fundamentals of what this race is about haven't changed."

The president, who had tried to lower expectations for his own performance ahead of last week's debate, predicted in his radio interview that Biden would be "terrific."

Ryan signaled he's ready for whatever Biden sends his way.

"I'm not intimidated, I'm actually excited about it," he said on CNN.

Both Biden and Ryan head into the debate with vulnerabilities: Biden must rein in a freewheeling manner that can be endearing but also produces plenty of gaffes. Ryan hasn't been in a campaign debate for more than a decade and is light on foreign policy experience, a sharp contrast to the vice president, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Ryan also will need to find a way to reinforce Romney's policy positions without selling out his own, more conservative credentials.

Romney adviser Kevin Madden signaled in advance that Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, would distance himself from his past proposals for sharp budget cuts.

"You have to remember that there is a Romney-Ryan ticket and there's one presidential candidate ? there's one person at the top of the ticket ? so the focus again will be on what Gov. Romney's plan is for reforming Washington," Madden said.

___

Benac reported from Washington.

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-10-11-Presidential%20Campaign/id-bc2f2ce197674ad4b5e2300b3554de04

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Generation of functional thyroid tissue from stem cells

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2012) ? The generation of functional thyroid tissue from stem cells could allow the treatment of patients, which suffer from thyroid hormone deficiency due to defective function, or abnormal development of the thyroid gland. The team of Sabine Costagliola at the IRIBHM (Universit? Libre de Bruxelles) recently developed a protocol that allowed for the first time the efficient generation of functional thyroid tissue from stem cells in mice and published the results of their studies in the scientific journal Nature.

Thyroid hormones are a class of iodide-containing molecules that play a critical role in the regulation of various body function including growth, metabolism and heart function and that are crucial for normal brain development. The thyroid gland, an endocrine organ that has been specialized in trapping iodide, is the only organ where these hormones are produced. It is, however, of note that one out of 3000 human newborns is born with congenital hypothyroidism, a condition characterized by insufficient production of thyroid hormones. In the absence of a medical treatment with thyroid hormones -- initiated during the first days after birth -- the child will be affected by an irreversible mental retardation. Moreover, a life-long hormonal treatment is necessary in order to maintain proper regulation of growth and general metabolism.

By employing a protocol in which two important genes can be transiently induced in undifferentiated stem cells, the researchers at IRIBHM were able to efficiently push the differentiation of stem cells into thyrocytes, the primary cell type responsible for thyroid hormone production in the thyroid gland.

A first exciting finding of these studies was the development of functional thyroid tissue already within the culture dishes. As a next step, the team of Sabine Costagliola transplanted the stem-cell-derived thyrocytes into mice lacking a functional thyroid gland. Four weeks after transplantation, the researchers observed that transplanted mice had re-established normal levels of thyroid hormones in their blood and were rescued from the symptoms associated with thyroid hormone deficiency. These findings have several important implications. First, the cell system employed by the IRIBHM group provides a vital tool to better characterize the molecular processes associated with embryonic thyroid development. Second, the results of the transplantation studies open new avenues for the treatment of thyroid hormone deficiency but also for the replacement of thyroid tissue in patients suffering from thyroid cancer.

The researchers are currently developing a similar protocol based on human stem cells and explore ways to generate functional human thyroid tissue by reprogramming pluripotent stem cells (iPS) derived from skin cells.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universit? Libre de Bruxelles, via AlphaGalileo.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Francesco Antonica, Dominika Figini Kasprzyk, Robert Opitz, Michelina Iacovino, Xiao-Hui Liao, Alexandra Mihaela Dumitrescu, Samuel Refetoff, Kathelijne Peremans, Mario Manto, Michael Kyba, Sabine Costagliola. Generation of functional thyroid from embryonic stem cells. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11525

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/Krr0OOyQPr8/121011085217.htm

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Romney extends lead over Obama in presidential race: Reuters/Ipsos poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican challenger Mitt Romney has extended his lead over President Barack Obama to 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll released on Thursday, ahead of a high-stakes debate between the two candidates' running mates.

Romney now leads the Democrat by 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters in the online poll, with less than a month before the November 6 election. The Republican had a one-point lead over Obama in survey results on Wednesday, his first in more than a month.

Romney has been enjoying one of his best runs of the campaign after handily winning the first presidential debate last week, partially due to Obama's passive performance in that contest.

"The momentum is in Romney's direction right now," Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said.

Vice President Joe Biden will look to recover some momentum for Obama's re-election bid when he faces off Thursday evening with Republican challenger Paul Ryan in the only vice presidential debate of the campaign.

The veteran Biden, an accomplished debater known for delivering withering attacks with a smile, will try to improve the outlook for the Democrats before Romney and Obama meet for a second debate Tuesday.

Ryan, chairman of the House of Representatives budget committee, will look to ward off aggressive moves from Biden while avoiding his own tendency to get mired in numbers.

Clark said Romney's rise in the poll comes from convincing undecided voters, not winning over Obama supporters. And there were signs that a large number of votes are still up for grabs.

Sixteen percent of registered voters said they could still change their minds about whom to vote for, including 28 percent of independents surveyed.

Seven percent of registered voters said they had already taken advantage of programs that allowed them to cast their ballots early, and an additional 27 percent said they planned to vote before Election Day.

The online survey of 1,092 likely voters and 1,312 registered voters was conducted between October 7 and 11. The precision of the Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for registered voters and 3.4 for likely voters.

The Reuters/Ispsos database is now public and searchable here: http://tinyurl.com/reuterspoll

(Editing by Karey Wutkowski and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romney-takes-slight-lead-over-obama-presidential-race-035330340.html

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