I started my first day at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival mostly thankful to actually be in Park City in time for my first screening of the day.
Then I saw that first movie - That's What She Said - and thought, well, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad to be late.
As it was, I felt lucky to be in Park City at all. I flew out of New York on Saturday morning, in a snowstorm, concerned about a day of travel that had me changing planes in Atlanta (thunderstorms) and flying to Salt Lake City (rain, wind and snow in the forecast).
But, while weather caused delays in Atlanta, it wouldn't have mattered if my plane to Salt Lake had been on time - because when I got to the desk for the shuttle van to Park City, I was told that the roads to Park City were closed because blizzards were in the process of dropping two feet of snow on the roads through the canyons, making them impassable.
So, after hanging around the airport until after 10 - and being assured that no vans would be leaving for Park City that night (not true, as it turned out), I found myself a hotel room near the airport, then got up at 6 to try again. And, in the sunlight of Sunday morning, the roads were not only open but the van made the trip to Park City in about 45 minutes. I was able to dump my luggage at the condo I'm sharing, head to festival headquarters to collect my press credential and be in line for a 9:30 a.m. press screening of That's What She Said.
Apparently, the smell of death on this film had long since permeated the festival (which started on Thursday) because, for this Sunday morning press screening, the theater was two-thirds empty - an anomaly at any press screening, to put it mildly. It got emptier in a hurry once the movie started; I clocked walk-outs starting at the 10-minute mark, which was the point at which I mentally decided, "Uh-oh."
I hung in, however, for all but the closing credits, based on the conviction that you can learn as much from a terrible movie as from a good one. And this was a terrible movie from top to bottom, from the writing by actress Kellie Overbey and the direction by actress Carrie Preston to the over-acting by a cast that mostly consisted of Anne Heche, Alia Shawkat and Marcia DeBonis. I tend to blame the actresses less than the director, who could have toned it all down. But then, she thought this was a movie worth making.
It's essentially a play disguised as a movie, in which two female friends - Heche and DeBonis - meet so Heche can help DeBonis get ready for a hot date. Shawkat is a distraught young woman to whom DeBonis' overly empathetic character develops an attachment. It's a movie full of women; the only male character whose face we actually see is a geriatric man who becomes embroiled in a blunt-force slapstick scene in a bathroom, involving a large, runaway vibrator.
Mostly, I kept wondering: Is this really what women think is funny? Jokes about dildos, yeast infections and female masturbation? Personally, I love vulgar humor, when it's funny (a la Bridesmaids or even Bad Teacher). But vulgarity alone doesn't provoke laughter, just sighs of frustration.
So - what did we learn? Mostly that, if you can get a cast of recognizable faces, someone will give you a half-million dollars to make a movie - no matter how horrible.
Or even if you can't find familiar faces. Case in point: The Comedy, one of the films in the dramatic competition. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to grab the selection committee by its collective shoulders, shake it hard and say, "Are you intentionally programming pointless, aimless films that seem like parodies of stereotypical 'Sundance' movies?"
The program notes actually say, "Audience members are forced to question ...whether they should be laughing with it, at it, or not at all." I chose to stop trying to get on director Rick Alverson's tedious wavelength and watching his tubby, random hero and bailed after 40 minutes.
Rodrigo Cortes' Red Lights had the makings of an intriguing paranormal mystery-thriller but Cortes, who wrote and directed the chilling Buried, couldn't crack the third-act problem. His film deals with Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy, as academic debunkers of paranormal hoaxes who may have met their match in a famous blind psychic played by Robert De Niro. But the longer it went on, the less satisfying it became, leading to a finale that felt deflated, rather than explosive.
The day's one bright spot was The First Time, a romantic teen comedy with a deft, light touch by writer-director Jonathan Kasdan, son of Lawrence and brother of Jake.
This commentary continues on my website.
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With the AOC e1649Fwu ($139 list) you're no longer limited to just a laptop screen while traveling. This 15.6-inch portable monitor lets you extend your current laptop display for use with large spreadsheets, or you can use it for presentations or in a dual monitor setup to display different applications on each screen. Its swiveling support arm lets you use it in portrait or landscape mode, and it has an auto-pivot feature that automatically changes the screen orientation when you rotate the panel. It's a bit bulkier than the Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 ($199.99 list, 4 stars) however, and its glossy coating and cabinet showcase every fingerprint smudge.
Design and Setup
At 2.3 pounds the featherweight e1649Fwu weighs exactly the same as Lenovo's 14-inch LT1421 even though it offers a bigger screen size. However, at 1.4 inches it's almost twice as thick as the LT1421 (0.37- 0.85-inches) and its curved cabinet design is not as sleek looking as the LT1421's ThinkVision design. The cabinet is 9.2-inches high and 14.6-inches wide, and has a glossy piano black finish, which looks nice when it's clean but can quickly become a smudgy mess after handling it for a while.
The 15.6-inch TN+ panel is framed by thin 0.50-inch bezels on the sides and slightly wider 0.75-inch bezels on the top and bottom. The bottom bezel sports a silver AOC logo. Like the rest of the cabinet, the bezels and screen coating are glossy and prone to smudging. And while the shiny screen helps give colors some pop, it can be very reflective under certain lighting conditions. Around back is a support arm that folds into the cabinet when not being used. The arm is mounted on a swivel mechanism that allows you to prop up the monitor horizontally on your desktop for use in landscape mode or position it vertically to view it in portrait mode. The monitor automatically changes screen orientation according to how the monitor is positioned, so you don't have to do it manually in the graphics control panel.
As with the Lenovo LT1421, the e1649Fwu only has a single mini-USB port on the back and lacks function buttons, a power switch, and picture controls. But the LT1421 has a brightness control, while the e1649Fwu does not. The e1649Fwu doesn't require a power cord as it pulls power from the USB port. It comes with a CD containing DisplayLink drivers and a Y-shaped USB cable with two connectors on the PC end (some PCs may not provide enough power through a single USB port, in which case the second connector must be used).
Installation is easy enough: Simply load the included DisplayLink software then plug the small end of the USB cable into the monitor's mini-USB port and one of the two regular sized USB connectors in your PC. A DisplayLink icon will appear in your system tray; right click it to choose how you want the e1649Fwu to behave. You can have it mirror your laptop's screen, use it as an extended desktop, or set it as your main monitor. There's an option to optimize it for video, but that doesn't do much to improve the choppy video that comes as a result of transferring a video signal via a USB 2.0 port. In addition to the software CD and USB cable the e1649Fwu comes with a three year warranty covering parts, labor, and backlighting.
Performance
Despite its mirror-like characteristics the e1649Fwu's glossy screen delivers nice, bright colors and natural looking skin tones. It had no trouble displaying even the smallest text from the DisplayMate Scaled Fonts test, and there was no trace of tinting anywhere in the grayscale. However, it struggled to reproduce the darkest and lightest shades of gray from the 64-Step Grayscale test. In other words, it performs like a typical laptop screen.
Viewing angle performance was also typical of a laptop screen; there was some color shifting from the far side angles and significant darkening from the top and bottom angles. The top and bottom angle performance can be problematic when you use the monitor in portrait mode as it will now have very narrow side angle viewing issues.
The AOC e1649Fwu is a neat little 15.6-inch monitor that lets you bring a dual-display setup on the road. Its auto-rotate feature makes it easy to switch from landscape to portrait mode without having to use your graphics control panel, and it displays vivid colors and crisp text. Grayscale and viewing angle performance could be better however, and you'll have to keep a polishing cloth handy to wipe away fingerprints. If you prefer a thinner, sleeker model with a non-reflective screen, the Lenovo LT1421 is a better choice.
COMPARISON TABLE Compare the AOC e1649Fwu with several other monitors side by side.
More monitor reviews: ??? AOC e1649Fwu ??? Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 ??? Asus VG278H ??? Acer S231HL ??? Asus PA246Q ?? more
RENO, Nev. ? Lawyers for Ben Roethlisberger and a woman who accused him of raping her at a Lake Tahoe hotel-casino in 2008 have reached a settlement that ends her civil lawsuit against the Steelers quarterback.
Cal Dunlap, the Reno lawyer representing the woman, confirmed the settlement on Friday but declined to discuss the terms of the agreement.
"The matter has been resolved and I have no further comment," he told The Associated Press.
The Reno Gazette-Journal first reported the settlement on its website. It also dismisses claims against Harrah's employees whom the woman had accused of covering up the alleged sexual assault in Roethlisberger's penthouse suite in July 2008.
Dunlap first told Washoe District Court Judge Brent Adams in papers filed last Nov. 30 that his client wanted to have a stay lifted so the case could be dismissed because a settlement was pending.
"All parties have reached a resolution of all claims and counterclaims," he wrote.
Adams formally dismissed the case Dec. 27 but neither side had publicized it until now.
David Cornwell, Roethlisberger's lawyer, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on Friday. His agent, Ryan Tollner, said neither he nor Roethlisberger would have any comment.
The Nevada Supreme Court had ruled against the two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback's request in August to have the case moved from Reno to Carson City because it was closer to where the alleged incident had occurred at Harrah's in Stateline.
The woman was a VIP casino hostess at Harrah's when she said Roethlisberger allegedly lured her to his room under the pretense of fixing his television. Roethlisberger was in town at the time to play in a celebrity golf tournament.
Roethlisberger denied the allegations.
The original lawsuit filed in 2009 sought a minimum of $440,000 in damages from the quarterback, at least $50,000 in damages from the Harrah's officials and an unspecified amount in punitive damages.
The woman said she never filed a criminal complaint because she feared Harrah's would side with Roethlisberger and she would be fired.
? The ESA has removed its support from the controversial SOPA bill. ? A new Diablo III developer blog entry has detailed some major changes to the gameplay system. ? Ken Levine has announced that BioShock: Infinite will contain a hardcore difficulty known as ?1999 mode.? ? The PC requirements for Mass Effect 3 have been announced. ? Super Mario Crossover has a new version coming out, and it looks awesome. ? Notch has announced that Minecraft has hit more than 20 million players.
And from Paste?s own news coverage: ? Watch a new design and technology trailer for Max Payne 3. ? Check out our reviews of Amy and To the Moon.
Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Detectives investigating a decapitated human head found by hikers in the hills below the iconic Hollywood sign have discovered a severed hand in the same general area, Los Angeles police said on Wednesday.
The hand was uncovered during an exhaustive search of a seven-acre expanse of Griffith Park, where two female hikers who were walking dogs came across the head in a bag on Tuesday, Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said.
"We found a severed hand in proximity to the head," Smith said, adding the find came during a search conducted with the help of a cadaver dog supplied by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.
The hand was discovered about 50 yards from the head in a popular recreation and tourist area not far from Griffith Observatory, Smith added. The search was continuing in the park in the heart of metropolitan Los Angeles that is home to a 53-mile network of trails, equestrian paths and fire roads.
"It's very early yet," Smith said. "We took a photo of the hand and we're going to transport it to the coroner's office for examination."
Police said the head, which Smith said appeared to belong to a man between the ages of 40 and 60, was discovered when two dogs the hikers were walking began playing with it. The women, realizing what it was, called park rangers.
Smith said the head appeared to belong to a person who was "possibly Caucasian, possibly Armenian."
Authorities believe the head had not been at the site for a long time, based in part on the fact that there were no animal bites on it.
The iconic Hollywood sign on Mount Lee above Los Angeles originally read "Hollywoodland" and was created to promote a housing development in 1923. The last few letters deteriorated in the late 1940s and the part that remained was restored in 1978.
(Additional reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
It's hard to get excited about textbooks, until you see something like this: Apple just made the notecard obsolete. No more index cards, no more boxes—no paper. iBooks 2 turns your reading habits into instant study help. More »
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A man was shot and killed in a restaurant of the hotel hosting the U.S. women's soccer team during the Olympic qualifying tournament.
Coach Pia Sundhage said none of her players witnessed the shooting and they were unaware of the incident until it was over. The U.S. is one of three soccer teams at the hotel.
"We were at a meeting. We were meeting and talking soccer," Sundhage said after Wednesday's practice session. "We're safe and secure."
Police were called to the Sheraton Wall Centre at about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday and found the body of a man dead from apparent gunshot wounds in a restaurant.
Teams from Cuba and the Dominican Republic also were staying at the hotel.
U.S. goalie Hope Solo tweeted: "Saved by our instant yoga session. Was about to walk to starbucks when all hell broke loose in the lobby of our hotel! Life is precious..."
Police had not identified the victim and had no information on a suspect. A cracked window and bullet hole could be seen from outside the hotel. It marked the city's first homicide of the year.
Richard Scott, with Soccer Canada, said CONCACAF officials went to the hotel after the shooting to confirm no one was injured.
"I would imagine that probably 99 percent of the athletes would have been in their rooms at that time," he said.
The eight-team CONCACAF tournament begins Thursday with Canada against Haiti. The U.S. team plays the Dominican Republic on Friday.
The tournament runs through Jan. 29.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If it seems like way too much time has passed since Courteney Cox last quaffed a vase-sized goblet of red wine on prime-time TV, there is a respite in sight. ABC has announced that the critically acclaimed comedy Cougar Town will be returning for it's third season on Tuesday, Feb. 14 at 8:30 p.m. (So, if you're one of the show's rabid fans, guess that takes care of your Valentine's plans.)
TEL AVIV (Reuters) ? Internet and network security provider Check Point Software Technologies beat forecasts with a jump in fourth-quarter profit and forecast growth in 2012 in line with analysts' estimates.
Its shares were up 6.1 percent at $54.00 on Nasdaq on Tuesday.
Chairman and Chief Executive Gil Shwed said there were many reasons to believe that awareness among enterprises of the need for network security would continue to grow.
"But we can't forget there are unfavourable economic factors," Shwed told a news conference. "We expect to see similar growth rates to what we forecast last year."
Israel-based Check Point said it continues to take market share from competitors such as Cisco Systems and is expanding its addressable market.
The company's software blades architecture -- independent, modular software building blocks that prevent network intrusion and are bought on an annual subscription basis -- is selling strongly and boosting deferred revenue growth, he said.
Check Point also launched new appliances, which combine hardware and software, that have been well received in the market, he added.
"As cyber-attacks and security risks reach new levels of sophistication, customer expectations for their security infrastructure also increase," Shwed said.
Check Point has high hopes for its anti-bot software blade, which it plans to launch in early 2012. Bots are hard-to-detect pieces of software that invade networks.
CYBER WARFARE
Shwed said most of the cyber attacks experienced in Israel in recent days have been from bots. Check Point's new technology will help prevent such attacks.
Hackers disrupted online access to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, El Al Airlines and three banks on Monday, just days after an unidentified hacker proclaiming Palestinian sympathies posted the details of thousands of Israeli credit card holders on the Internet. [ID:nL6E8CG26X]
"What happened yesterday was an attack by thousands of computers around the world, some even in Israel," Shwed said, explaining that hackers from abroad manipulated computers in Israel without their users' knowledge by using bots.
Armed with nearly $2.9 billion in cash, Check Point is continuing to buy back shares and look for acquisitions.
"The Check Point story remains on very solid ground, and we believe its high-end appliances could become a growth driver in 2012 and beyond," Oppenheimer analyst Shaul Eyal said.
The company posted fourth-quarter earnings per diluted share of 84 cents, up from 73 cents a year earlier. Buoyed by gains across all key business activities, revenue rose 12 percent to a record $356.8 million.
Check Point had been forecast to earn 82 cents a share on revenue of $355.6 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
"Significant strength in deferred revenue should more than quell any concern investors have over only $1 million in upside to street consensus," Citi analyst Walter Pritchard said in a note to clients.
For the first quarter Shwed forecast revenue of $305-$315 million and earnings per share before one-off items of 69-73 cents. The company is forecast by analysts to earn 72 cents on revenue of $313.6 million.
For all of 2012 he sees revenue of $1.345-$1.395 billion and EPS ex-items of $3.10-$3.20. It is forecast to post revenue of $1.381 billion and adjusted EPS of $3.16.
University of Minnesota biologists replicate key evolutionary stepPublic release date: 17-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeff Falk jfalk@umn.edu 612-626-1720 University of Minnesota
More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on the Earth's surface began forming multicellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. Just how that happened is a question that has eluded evolutionary biologists.
But scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences have replicated that key step in the laboratory using natural selection and common brewer's yeast, which are single-celled organisms. The yeast "evolved" into multicellular clusters that work together cooperatively, reproduce and adapt to their environment in essence, precursors to life on Earth as it is today.
Their achievement is published in the January 16 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It all started about two years ago with a casual comment over coffee that bridging the famous multi-cellularity gap would be "just about the coolest thing we could do," recall postdoctoral researcher Will Ratcliff and associate professor Michael Travisano, both from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
So they decided to give it a try. Then came the big surprise. It wasn't actually that difficult. Using yeast cells, culture media and a centrifuge, it only took them one experiment conducted over about 60 days, says Travisano, who is senior author on the PNAS paper.
"I don't think anyone had ever tried it before," says lead author Ratcliff. "There aren't many scientists doing experimental evolution, and they're trying to answer questions about evolution, not recreate it."
Despite their modesty, the achievement has earned praise and admiration from evolutionary biologists around the world.
"To understand why the world is full of plants and animals, including humans, we need to know how one-celled organisms made the switch to living as a group, as multicelled organisms," said Sam Scheiner, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology. "This study is the first to experimentally observe that transition, providing a look at an event that took place hundreds of millions of years ago."
Funding for the research was obtained in February 2011, with coauthors R. Ford Denison and Mark Borrello, adjunct and associate professors, respectively, in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
Ratcliff and Travisano gave the scientific community a glimpse of their discovery at a conference last summer and have subsequently been invited to talk about it at other meetings. The PNAS article represents the first time full details about the research have been disclosed. "The article provides us with the first opportunity to show the breadth of evolutionary change that we've observed," Travisano says.
In essence, here's how the experiments worked. The two chose brewer's yeast or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast used since ancient times to make bread and beer, because it is abundant in nature and grows easily. They added it to a nutrient-rich culture media and allowed the cells to grow for a day in test tubes. Then they used a centrifuge to stratify the contents by weight. As the mixture settled, cell clusters landed on the bottom of the tubes faster because they are heavier. They removed the clusters, transferred them to fresh media, and grew them up again. Sixty cycles later, the clusters now hundreds of cells looked roughly like spherical snowflakes.
Analysis showed that the clusters were not just groups of random cells that adhered to each other, but related cells that remained attached following cell division. That was significant because it meant they were genetically similar, which promotes cooperation. When the clusters reached a critical size, some cells essentially committed suicide (apoptosis) to allow offspring to separate. The offspring reproduced only after they attained the size of their parents.
"A cluster alone isn't multiellular," Ratcliff said. "But when cells in a cluster cooperate, make sacrifices for the common good, and adapt to change, that's an evolutionary transition to multicellularity."
In order for multicellular organisms to form, most cells need to sacrifice their ability to reproduce, an altruistic action that favors the whole but not the individual, Ratcliff said. For example, all cells in the human body are essentially a support system that allows sperm and eggs to pass DNA along to the next generation. Thus, multicellularity is by its nature extremely cooperative. "Some of the best competitors in nature are those that engage in cooperation, and our experiment bears that out," said Travisano.
Evolutionary biologists have estimated that multicellularity evolved independently in about 25 groups. Travisano and Ratcliff wonder why it didn't evolve more often in nature, since it's not that difficult to recreate it in a lab. Considering that trillions of one-celled organisms lived on the Earth for millions of years, it seems as if it should have, Ratcliff said.
Maybe that's a question they will answer in the future, using the fossil record for thousands of generations of their multicellular clusters, which is stored in a freezer in Travisano's lab. Since the frozen samples contain multiple lines that independently became multicellular, they can compare them to learn if similar or different mechanisms and genes were responsible in each case, Travisano said.
The research duo's next steps will be to look at the role of multicellularity in cancer, aging and other critical areas of biology.
"Our multicellular yeast are a valuable resource for investigating a wide variety of medically and biologically important topics," Travisano said. "Cancer was recently described as a fossil from the origin of multicellularity, which can be directly investigated with the yeast system. Similarly the origins of aging, development, and the evolution of complex morphologies are open to direct experimental investigation that would otherwise be difficult or impossible."
###
Travisano joined the College of Biological Sciences faculty in 2007. The multicellularity discovery adds to his record of "firsts" in experimental evolution over the past 25 years. Before joining the Travisano lab group, Ratcliff earned his Ph.D. at the College of Biological Sciences, with Denison as his adviser. Ratcliff has become something of a rock star on the academic conference circuit, and he won the W.D. Hamilton Award for best student presentation at Evolution 2011, the premier conference for evolutionary biologists.
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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.
University of Minnesota biologists replicate key evolutionary stepPublic release date: 17-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeff Falk jfalk@umn.edu 612-626-1720 University of Minnesota
More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on the Earth's surface began forming multicellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. Just how that happened is a question that has eluded evolutionary biologists.
But scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences have replicated that key step in the laboratory using natural selection and common brewer's yeast, which are single-celled organisms. The yeast "evolved" into multicellular clusters that work together cooperatively, reproduce and adapt to their environment in essence, precursors to life on Earth as it is today.
Their achievement is published in the January 16 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It all started about two years ago with a casual comment over coffee that bridging the famous multi-cellularity gap would be "just about the coolest thing we could do," recall postdoctoral researcher Will Ratcliff and associate professor Michael Travisano, both from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
So they decided to give it a try. Then came the big surprise. It wasn't actually that difficult. Using yeast cells, culture media and a centrifuge, it only took them one experiment conducted over about 60 days, says Travisano, who is senior author on the PNAS paper.
"I don't think anyone had ever tried it before," says lead author Ratcliff. "There aren't many scientists doing experimental evolution, and they're trying to answer questions about evolution, not recreate it."
Despite their modesty, the achievement has earned praise and admiration from evolutionary biologists around the world.
"To understand why the world is full of plants and animals, including humans, we need to know how one-celled organisms made the switch to living as a group, as multicelled organisms," said Sam Scheiner, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology. "This study is the first to experimentally observe that transition, providing a look at an event that took place hundreds of millions of years ago."
Funding for the research was obtained in February 2011, with coauthors R. Ford Denison and Mark Borrello, adjunct and associate professors, respectively, in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
Ratcliff and Travisano gave the scientific community a glimpse of their discovery at a conference last summer and have subsequently been invited to talk about it at other meetings. The PNAS article represents the first time full details about the research have been disclosed. "The article provides us with the first opportunity to show the breadth of evolutionary change that we've observed," Travisano says.
In essence, here's how the experiments worked. The two chose brewer's yeast or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast used since ancient times to make bread and beer, because it is abundant in nature and grows easily. They added it to a nutrient-rich culture media and allowed the cells to grow for a day in test tubes. Then they used a centrifuge to stratify the contents by weight. As the mixture settled, cell clusters landed on the bottom of the tubes faster because they are heavier. They removed the clusters, transferred them to fresh media, and grew them up again. Sixty cycles later, the clusters now hundreds of cells looked roughly like spherical snowflakes.
Analysis showed that the clusters were not just groups of random cells that adhered to each other, but related cells that remained attached following cell division. That was significant because it meant they were genetically similar, which promotes cooperation. When the clusters reached a critical size, some cells essentially committed suicide (apoptosis) to allow offspring to separate. The offspring reproduced only after they attained the size of their parents.
"A cluster alone isn't multiellular," Ratcliff said. "But when cells in a cluster cooperate, make sacrifices for the common good, and adapt to change, that's an evolutionary transition to multicellularity."
In order for multicellular organisms to form, most cells need to sacrifice their ability to reproduce, an altruistic action that favors the whole but not the individual, Ratcliff said. For example, all cells in the human body are essentially a support system that allows sperm and eggs to pass DNA along to the next generation. Thus, multicellularity is by its nature extremely cooperative. "Some of the best competitors in nature are those that engage in cooperation, and our experiment bears that out," said Travisano.
Evolutionary biologists have estimated that multicellularity evolved independently in about 25 groups. Travisano and Ratcliff wonder why it didn't evolve more often in nature, since it's not that difficult to recreate it in a lab. Considering that trillions of one-celled organisms lived on the Earth for millions of years, it seems as if it should have, Ratcliff said.
Maybe that's a question they will answer in the future, using the fossil record for thousands of generations of their multicellular clusters, which is stored in a freezer in Travisano's lab. Since the frozen samples contain multiple lines that independently became multicellular, they can compare them to learn if similar or different mechanisms and genes were responsible in each case, Travisano said.
The research duo's next steps will be to look at the role of multicellularity in cancer, aging and other critical areas of biology.
"Our multicellular yeast are a valuable resource for investigating a wide variety of medically and biologically important topics," Travisano said. "Cancer was recently described as a fossil from the origin of multicellularity, which can be directly investigated with the yeast system. Similarly the origins of aging, development, and the evolution of complex morphologies are open to direct experimental investigation that would otherwise be difficult or impossible."
###
Travisano joined the College of Biological Sciences faculty in 2007. The multicellularity discovery adds to his record of "firsts" in experimental evolution over the past 25 years. Before joining the Travisano lab group, Ratcliff earned his Ph.D. at the College of Biological Sciences, with Denison as his adviser. Ratcliff has become something of a rock star on the academic conference circuit, and he won the W.D. Hamilton Award for best student presentation at Evolution 2011, the premier conference for evolutionary biologists.
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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.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? A blackout scheduled for Wednesday to protest against proposed legislation on online piracy has failed to get the support of the biggest Internet players.
Despite calls for the participation of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other big names, the biggest participants are the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the social-news website Reddit.
The situation shows that, while technology companies are concerned about the legislation, the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), the companies are not prepared to sacrifice a day's worth of revenue and risk the ire of users for a protest whose impact on lawmakers is hard to gauge.
Wikipedia and Reddit will black out their pages so visitors will see only information about Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
Of the biggest tech sites that have voiced opposition to the legislation, only Google is planning any type of change to its site tomorrow. It too will have information about the bills, although users will still be able to conduct Google searches.
"Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and Web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet," said a Google spokeswoman. "So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page."
That solution allows Google to keep revenue attached to its searches, while still highlighting the issue.
Microblogging service Twitter also declined to participate, with chief executive Dick Costolo taking on critics of the decision on Twitter over the weekend.
"Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish," he wrote.
Costolo followed up with a Tweet stating the company will continue to take an active role in opposing the bills.
"Watch this space," he tweeted.
That position of criticizing the bills, but sitting out the blackout is echoed by many big tech companies, including several who wrote to Congress in November to complain about the legislation, such as AOL Inc, eBay Inc, Mozilla and Zynga Inc.
"We are not adjusting the consumer experience on our properties tomorrow, but we will be helping to drive awareness of key issues around these bills to our users," said Tekedra Mawakana, senior vice president for public policy at AOL.
In November, a number of technology companies wrote to key lawmakers expressing opposition to the bill, including eBay, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Mozilla.
Still, the blackout had signed up thousands of participating sites by late Tuesday and succeeded on at least one level: attracting the attention of lawmakers and industry leaders backing the bills. They were quick to attack it.
"This publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts," said Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a sponsor of SOPA. "Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy."
Former senator Chris Dodd, who now chairs the Motion Picture Association of America, labeled the blackout a "gimmick" and called for its supporters to "stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy."
The legislation, designed to curb access and payments to overseas websites that traffic in stolen content or counterfeit groups, has been a major priority for entertainment companies, publishers, pharmaceutical firms and many industry groups. They maintain the proposed law is critical to curbing online piracy they say costs them billions of dollars a year.
Internet companies have furiously opposed the legislation and have ramped up their lobbying efforts in recent months, arguing it would undermine innovation and free speech rights and compromise the functioning of the Internet.
It was seemingly on the fast track for approval by Congress until the White House criticized aspects of it over the weekend.
(Reporting By Sarah McBride and Jasmin Melvin; editing by Andre Grenon)
Corrects second paragraph to show that Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, not dictionary.
ANKARA, Turkey - About 10,000 people, including fans from several Turkish clubs, bid farewell on Sunday to Lefter Kucukandonyadis, one of Turkey's top football players, who has died at 86.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egemen Bagis, Turkey's EU minister, atended the funeral ceremony at Fenerbahce's Sukru Saracoglu Stadium. Kucukandonyadis died of pneumonia Friday in Istanbul.
Midfielder Emre Belozoglu and other Fenerbahce players carried his coffin, draped in Turkish and Fenerbahce flags, to the pitch before the crowd observed a minute of silence in his memory.
Kucukandonyadis was the captain of Turkey's national team, making 46 appearances for his country. His club career included Fenerbahce, where he scored 423 goals in 615 games.
Fenerbahce fans who had no doubt that Lefter could turn every opportunity into a goal, often shouted: "give it (the ball) to Lefter, let him write it (the score) down in the book," Fenerbahce said on its website.
Born in 1925 in Istanbul to a fisherman father from Turkey's minority Greek community, Kucukandonyadis was the first player from Turkey to play abroad. He transferred to Italy's Fiorentina in 1951 followed by a spell with Nice in France.
After his retirement in 1966, Kucukandonyadis coached clubs in Greece, South Africa and Turkey.
Kucukandonyadis was buried in the island of Buyukada near Istanbul, where he was born.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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??Queens Park Rangers and Bolton both avoid upsets in their FA Cup replay games on Tuesday.
Rudolf Breuss was an educated man from Austria who had an innate knowing of the human body along with a love for humanity. He turned his attention to locating an alternative, gentle medication for cancer along with other illnesses considering conventional treatments were intrusive plus not often effective.
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Cancer is a disease of total toxicity. Look at everything you experience about a daily basis. Air pollution, h2o pollution, pesticides plus pesticides about all commercially produced food, refined foods, preservatives, chemicals plus food colours. The body wasnt readily available for this build-up of manufactured harmful substances, cannot deal along plus so they accumulate in the program and therefore is the purpose for disease.
Breuss place his patients about a juice quickly which effectively removes the metabolic waste plus opens mobile membranes of the protein build-up about tissues which prevents right oxygenation. This medication not merely remedies cancer and eliminates countless other difficulties like skin problems, obesity, infertility, kidney problems, irregularity plus dandruff, with name a some.
The Breuss Cancer Cure is a 42 day juice quickly. This is a course of combining certain vegetable juices with specially combined natural teas. This medication works with cancer along with other illnesses by completely cleansing plus cleansing the whole program.
The medication theory is with starve the cancer by deep detoxification with a combination of juices which consist of beetroot, carrot, celeriac, radish plus potato. Potato juice is truly one of the very best alkaline foods there is. Cancer can just exist in a sour or acidic environment plus laser hair removal makes the patients program alkaline, providing no food for the cancer with feed about, thereby starving it.
The specialized combination of juices plus teas selected in laser hair removal keep the body nourished because they are high in nutrients and minerals, meantime permitting the metabolism with get back into balance.
The success of that medication depends about it being followed just as guided. The body will initially experience the uncomfortable effects of headaches plus maybe nausea or depression however, this really is well regular plus signifies changes are happening plus the cleansing action has started. These signs could be allowed to arise plus soon pass.
It is absolutely imperative, if you are intending with to experience a all-natural cancer medication like Breuss juice quickly, which you engage a all-natural therapist, like a Naturopath or Homeopath with supervise plus guide you through the procedure.
Rudolf Breusss natural juice recipe is created by the Biotta organization of Switzerland according with his strict instructions. This is completely natural plus the veggies are forced without heat plus somehow which preserves all the live enzymes. Lactic acid is added to preserve the juice. If you are unable to juice the veggies oneself, Biotta juice is accessible bottled from health stores. His recommended natural teas are furthermore accessible at health stores.
?Do not be nervous of cancer. The cancer lives about solid foods just thus, if you just drink my vegetable juice plus natural teas for 42 days, the tumor dies plus you live?
A quote by Rudolf Breuss ? within the book The Breuss Cancer Cure
Up till 1990 approximately 45,000 doubtless more cancer patients plus patients with seemingly incurable illnesses have cured utilizing this fast.
Herbal Cancer Cures Related Sites : Herbal Cancer Cures
Joel Pineiro just completed a two-year, $16 million contract with the Angels, but he posted a 5.13 ERA in 146 innings last season and Jayson Stark of ESPN.com reports that he?s had to settle for a minor-league deal with the Phillies.
No official announcement has been made yet, but according to Stark the contract includes an invitation to spring training.
Even if Pineiro had zero big-league contracts on the table choosing the Phillies is an odd decision, as they have a fully stocked rotation and a sixth starter, Kyle Kendrick, under contract for $3.5 million despite likely being bullpen bound. Of course, the fact that guys like Pineiro are available for non-guaranteed minor-league contracts is also why giving $3.5 million to guys like Kendrick is such an iffy move in itself.
Pineiro had shoulder problems last season and a minuscule strikeout rate has made it tough for him to maintain a good performance year-to-year, but he induces plenty of ground balls and has a 4.06 ERA in 512 innings during the past three seasons.
Motorola debuted the Razr Maxx this week, an updated version of its recently released Droid Razr handset. Moto hasn't announced availability yet, but we got to spend some time on the show floor with one and see how it performed.
Stephen Colbert already has 5 percent of the South Carolina vote, says one poll. Stephen Colbert transferred control of his super PAC to comedian Jon Stewart. The move legally allows Colbert to enter the South Carolina GOP primary race.
Stephen Colbert isn't running for president ? at least not yet.
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During Thursday night's episode of "The Colbert Report," Colbert legally transferred his super political action committee to his friend and Comedy Central cohort Jon Stewart. Dropping by from "The Daily Show," Stewart happily signed the documents and accepted the post, which was ceremonially observed by the two holding hands and bodily transferring the PAC powers.
The move potentially paves the way for Colbert to enter the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, his home state. Campaigning politicians are prohibited from simultaneously running super PACs.
RECOMMENDED: Five comedians who ran for political office
But Colbert only hinted at such a decision, which he had grandly hyped ahead of Thursday's show. In flirting candidate style, he announced that he is forming "an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the president of the United States of South Carolina."
Patriotically colored balloons were released in the studio while a graphic screamed "I'm Doing It!"
Stewart and Colbert hashed out the peculiar legalities of their arrangement. With Colbert's lawyer (and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission) Trevor Potter on hand, they spelled out that while Colbert was legally forbidden from participating in strategy and advertising with the super PAC, he could still talk about his plans on his TV show and even volunteer for the super PAC.
Stewart declared Colbert vice president of youth outreach for the super PAC, which was renamed The Definitely Not Coordinated with Stephen Colbert Super PAC. Along with Potter, the three joined hands like a sports team and ? with thick irony ? cheered in unison: "Non-coordination!"
In 2007, Colbert attempted to enter the South Carolina primary but was stymied by filing fees. The super PAC could very well eliminate any such financial concerns. Colbert hasn't publically revealed the amount raised from viewer contributions by the PAC, but on Thursday he repeatedly hinted that it was a shockingly large amount.
Colbert has otherwise been very transparent about the PAC's workings, using it to parody the current system's contradictions and potential conflicts of interest. Political action committees stem from a 2010 Supreme Court decision that changed the rules of corporate political donations.
A Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday found that Colbert is polling ahead of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman in South Carolina. According to the survey, Colbert has 5 percent of the vote and Huntsman has 4 percent.
Upon reading those results on "The Report" on Wednesday, Colbert said: "This just got real."
RECOMMENDED: Five comedians who ran for political office
A breakdown of the banks planning to release earnings, with Richard Bove, Vice President of Equity Research, Rochdale Securities, who says the areas that will do is traditional banking, systems processing and the area that will be poorly performing in...
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Environmentalists and landowners in Texas will soon be able to go online and learn how much water has been used by oil and gas drillers in hydraulic fracturing.
Check out the thousands of anxious Chinese fanboys, awaiting overnight to descend on Beijing and Shanghai's Apple Stores like locust over Egypt. They are there to devour every iPhone 4S in sight. More »
Rooney Mara looks striking in a Valentino dress at the premiere of her film The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo held at the Cinema Embassy on Monday (January 9) in Rome, Italy.
Earlier in the day, the 26-year-old actress was joined by director David Fincher for the photo call at the St Regis Hotel. Rooney rocked a Dion Lee dress and Pierre Hardy shoes.
?I love the way Fincher works?.We really work well together. I think we?re very similar in a lot of different ways. We?re both obsessive and perfectionists. We?re both contrarians. Neither of us likes to be controlled,? Rooney told the LA Times about working with David on The Social Network and Dragon Tattoo.
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There are very few things more entertaining than Twitter during a @TimTebow game... Go #Tebow!Il y a environ 3 heuresvia UberSocial for BlackBerryRetweeted by 5 people
Acer decided to give us a little bit of a tease during its press conference at CES 2012. Just as we thought the show was over, Acer's Campbell Kan quickly flashed us a shiny new gadget ??the next-generation Iconia Tab tablet.
We were told that the device has a 1080p display and a quad-core processor before it was quickly hidden from sight.
No further details were provided about the device, but the brief peek was enough to catch our interest.
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Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.
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@andytraub Gah! Your iPhone got a DOS virus! ;) Hmm, maybe once your replacement comes you should give Siri... ow.ly/i/pnzC#17deIl y a environ 16 heuresvia Ow.ly
According to the latest Rasmussen presidential tracking poll, 53 percent of American voters say they at least somewhat disapprove of President Obama?s job performance. And you can count Obama?s cousin,?Milton R. Wolf, among them.
In a video Wolf made exclusively for The Daily Caller,?the board-certified diagnostic radiologist and medical director waxes about the president?s recent boast that he led the charge to provide Americans with a two-month, year-end extension of former President George W. Bush?s payroll tax cuts. Obama bragged in December speeches that he had delivered, on average, a $40 tax cut for every working American.
Big whoop, Wolf says.
?Forty dollars ? is enough money to tip your beach waiter serving you pi?a?coladas ? at least on one of the 17 days of your Hawaiian vacation.?Forty dollars can buy at least one phony ACORN signature on an Indiana primary petition.
?Forty?dollars can buy the entire DVD boxed set of Rev. Jeremiah Wright?s sermons ? just in case you?ve missed any over the last 20 years.?Forty?dollars can buy a couple cartons of cigarettes for your Chicago friends, Blago and Rezko. They may come in handy where they?re going.?
Watch:
?No president,? Wolf states, ?should destroy our country with socialized medicine, bank bailouts and a failed trillion-dollar shovel-ready stimulus.?
?He should stop bowing to foreign leaders. It just makes America look weak. Plus,? he jokes, ?it draws attention to his skinny legs.?
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Public release date: 17-Jan-2012
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