To a nonnative speaker, what a difference a misheard word makes.
By Jennie Chu / June 27, 2013
Baltimore Oriole ? in Indiana
Bob Wellinski/The LaPorte Herald-Argus/AP
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I used to dream of a stadium filled with fans, everyone on their feet and holding a chocolate sandwich cookie, chanting, "Oreos, Oreos, Oreos," as Baltimore's baseball team won the World Series.
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I should be clear that (a) I know nothing about baseball, (b) I love Oreos, and (c) English is my second language. It is incredibly easy for me to mix up words that sound similar.
My Oreos dreams persisted until one night when I was having dinner with my friend Dave, a sports fanatic, and the subject of baseball came up.
"How cool is that?" I said. "A baseball team is named after a cookie!"
"What team is named after a cookie?" Dave asked.
"Oreos ? you know, the Baltimore team."
Dave cast a long, silent glance at me and then said: "The Orioles are named after a bird, not a cookie." He proceeded to spell it, trying to get me to pick up the difference between orioles and Oreos. I could hear the laughter in his voice.
This business of mixing up words is embarrassing, especially when I mispronounce people's names. Craig and Greg; John and Joan; Marian and Myriam. A few years ago, I worked with a Gail, who sat across from me, and a Gil, who sat next to me. When I called out to Gail (or to Gil), nine times out of 10, both would reply, "Are you talking to me?"
My son Alex laughed his pants off (not pans or pens, but pants) when I told him I had a "sneaker" for a snack. "Mom," he said, "Snickers, S-n-i-c-k-e-r-s, is a candy bar. Sneaker, s-n-e-a-k-e-r, is the shoe."
At least I am not swimming alone in this sea of mispronunciation. According to englishforums.com and collegenet.com, both native and nonnative speakers have trouble pronouncing words like nuclear, Realtor, jewelry, library, and rural. Nuclear is often mispronounced "nu-cu-lear," Realtor becomes "Rea-la-tor," and jewelry changes to "jew-le-ry." Dr. Language at yourdictionary.com lists the 100 most often mispronounced words and phrases in English. For all intents and purposes (not "all intensive purposes"), here are some words to watch out for.
?Carpal tunnel syndrome is a medical condition, not an instance of carpooling in a tunnel.
?While a card shark sounds more dangerous, the word is cardsharp.
?Bob wire did not fence off the American frontier, barbed wire did.
?A blessing in the skies may refer to a rainbow, but you probably misheard "a blessing in disguise."
"Take your time speaking, correctly enunciating each word," is Dr. Language's advice.
An added bonus is that pronouncing words correctly helps you spell them accurately, too, says Dr. Language. A friend of mine, who is a Venezuelan living in the United States, once wrote "see me before you live" on a note to one of his staff. Had my friend pronounced "live" and "leave" properly, he could have avoided ever having to employ a dead person.
"Pay particular attention to new sounds," says Linda Miller, associate director at the Emerson College Writing Center, who has taught English as a second language for 30-plus years. Many English sounds don't exist in other languages, so nonnative speakers like me often substitute unfamiliar sounds with sounds they know from their own language. Linda was sometimes called "Rinda" because the "l" sound doesn't exist in the speaker's native language. And I had once announced my intention to memorize a "ple-teho-la" of English vocabularies in an ESL class. Chinese, my mother tongue, does not possess the sound of "th" or "r," after all.
Armed with tips from the experts, I asked Alex to demonstrate the correct pronunciation of orioles and Oreos. Unlike Eliza in "My Fair Lady" who was able to enunciate "rain," "Spain," and "plain" with clarity after some training, I never arrived at the epiphany of correctly distinguishing orioles from Oreos. Granted, Alex is no Professor Higgins and a two-minute lesson is all we could handle as mother and son.
I no longer dream about a stadium full of fans chanting "Oreos, Oreos." I now dream about a flock of little bright orange birds singing to me like a church choir with a mission: "Orioles, orioles, orioles...."
Year-over-year sales of homes rose in Orland Park as did median prices of houses, according to the Mainstreet Organization of Realtors.
Orland Park saw increases both in the number of homes sold and in the average?home price during May 2013, compared to May 2012, according to the Mainstreet Organization of Realtors (MORe).
The village saw 48 homes sold last month, compared to 33 in May 2012. Median prices rose to $275,500 last month, up from $253,000 in May 2012.
Sales of single-family, detached homes in suburban Chicago increased 29.1 percent in May 2013 compared with the same period a year ago, MORe reported. Sales in the 200 communities MORe gathers information on in DuPage, Lake and suburban Cook counties?experienced notable sales gains last month.
Sales momentum is expected to continue in those communities, as the number of detached homes under contract in May grew by 45 percent in those same communities, according to MORe.
Competition in the housing market is going to continue as the market works through a backlog of distressed properties, said Tonya Corder, president of MORe and managing broker of Keller Williams Preferred Realty in Orland Park.
?Buyers need to come in aggressively with their first price, especially on moderately priced homes in good condition,? Corder said ?We are seeing multiple offers and people writing contracts on properties the day they come onto the market. ... There is a buzz going on in real estate right now. People want to take advantage of this market.?
Patch's Mary Ann Lopez contributed to this report.
Breaking habits before they startPublic release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Turning off cells in a habit-associated brain region prevents rats from learning to run a maze on autopilot
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Our daily routines can become so ingrained that we perform them automatically, such as taking the same route to work every day. Some behaviors, such as smoking or biting your fingernails, become so habitual that we can't stop even if we want to.
Although breaking habits can be hard, MIT neuroscientists have now shown that they can prevent them from taking root in the first place, in rats learning to run a maze to earn a reward. The researchers first demonstrated that activity in two distinct brain regions is necessary in order for habits to crystallize. Then, they were able to block habits from forming by interfering with activity in one of the brain regions the infralimbic (IL) cortex, which is located in the prefrontal cortex.
The MIT researchers, led by Institute Professor Ann Graybiel, used a technique called optogenetics to block activity in the IL cortex. This allowed them to control cells of the IL cortex using light. When the cells were turned off during every maze training run, the rats still learned to run the maze correctly, but when the reward was made to taste bad, they stopped, showing that a habit had not formed. If it had, they would keep going back by habit.
"It's usually so difficult to break a habit," Graybiel says. "It's also difficult to have a habit not form when you get a reward for what you're doing. But with this manipulation, it's absolutely easy. You just turn the light on, and bingo."
Graybiel, a member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is the senior author of a paper describing the findings in the June 27 issue of the journal Neuron. Kyle Smith, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, is the paper's lead author.
Patterns of habitual behavior
Previous studies of how habits are formed and controlled have implicated the IL cortex as well as the striatum, a part of the brain related to addiction and repetitive behavioral problems, as well as normal functions such as decision-making, planning and response to reward. It is believed that the motor patterns needed to execute a habitual behavior are stored in the striatum and its circuits.
Recent studies from Graybiel's lab have shown that disrupting activity in the IL cortex can block the expression of habits that have already been learned and stored in the striatum. Last year, Smith and Graybiel found that the IL cortex appears to decide which of two previously learned habits will be expressed.
"We have evidence that these two areas are important for habits, but they're not connected at all, and no one has much of an idea of what the cells are doing as a habit is formed, as the habit is lost, and as a new habit takes over," Smith says.
To investigate that, Smith recorded activity in cells of the IL cortex as rats learned to run a maze. He found activity patterns very similar to those that appear in the striatum during habit formation. Several years ago, Graybiel found that a distinctive "task-bracketing" pattern develops when habits are formed. This means that the cells are very active when the animal begins its run through the maze, are quiet during the run, and then fire up again when the task is finished.
This kind of pattern "chunks" habits into a large unit that the brain can simply turn on when the habitual behavior is triggered, without having to think about each individual action that goes into the habitual behavior.
The researchers found that this pattern took longer to appear in the IL cortex than in the striatum, and it was also less permanent. Unlike the pattern in the striatum, which remains stored even when a habit is broken, the IL cortex pattern appears and disappears as habits are formed and broken. This was the clue that the IL cortex, not the striatum, was tracking the development of the habit.
Multiple layers of control
The researchers' ability to optogenetically block the formation of new habits suggests that the IL cortex not only exerts real-time control over habits and compulsions, but is also needed for habits to form in the first place.
"The previous idea was that the habits were stored in the sensorimotor system and this cortical area was just selecting the habit to be expressed. Now we think it's a more fundamental contribution to habits, that the IL cortex is more actively making this happen," Smith says.
This arrangement offers multiple layers of control over habitual behavior, which could be advantageous in reining in automatic behavior, Graybiel says. It is also possible that the IL cortex is contributing specific pieces of the habitual behavior, in addition to exerting control over whether it occurs, according to the researchers. They are now trying to determine whether the IL cortex and the striatum are communicating with and influencing each other, or simply acting in parallel.
The study suggests a new way to look for abnormal activity that might cause disorders of repetitive behavior, Smith says. Now that the researchers have identified the neural signature of a normal habit, they can look for signs of habitual behavior that is learned too quickly or becomes too rigid. Finding such a signature could allow scientists to develop new ways to treat disorders of repetitive behavior by using deep brain stimulation, which uses electronic impulses delivered by a pacemaker to suppress abnormal brain activity.
###
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, the Stanley H. and Sheila G. Sydney Fund and funding from R. Pourian and Julia Madadi.
Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
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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.
Breaking habits before they startPublic release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Turning off cells in a habit-associated brain region prevents rats from learning to run a maze on autopilot
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Our daily routines can become so ingrained that we perform them automatically, such as taking the same route to work every day. Some behaviors, such as smoking or biting your fingernails, become so habitual that we can't stop even if we want to.
Although breaking habits can be hard, MIT neuroscientists have now shown that they can prevent them from taking root in the first place, in rats learning to run a maze to earn a reward. The researchers first demonstrated that activity in two distinct brain regions is necessary in order for habits to crystallize. Then, they were able to block habits from forming by interfering with activity in one of the brain regions the infralimbic (IL) cortex, which is located in the prefrontal cortex.
The MIT researchers, led by Institute Professor Ann Graybiel, used a technique called optogenetics to block activity in the IL cortex. This allowed them to control cells of the IL cortex using light. When the cells were turned off during every maze training run, the rats still learned to run the maze correctly, but when the reward was made to taste bad, they stopped, showing that a habit had not formed. If it had, they would keep going back by habit.
"It's usually so difficult to break a habit," Graybiel says. "It's also difficult to have a habit not form when you get a reward for what you're doing. But with this manipulation, it's absolutely easy. You just turn the light on, and bingo."
Graybiel, a member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is the senior author of a paper describing the findings in the June 27 issue of the journal Neuron. Kyle Smith, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, is the paper's lead author.
Patterns of habitual behavior
Previous studies of how habits are formed and controlled have implicated the IL cortex as well as the striatum, a part of the brain related to addiction and repetitive behavioral problems, as well as normal functions such as decision-making, planning and response to reward. It is believed that the motor patterns needed to execute a habitual behavior are stored in the striatum and its circuits.
Recent studies from Graybiel's lab have shown that disrupting activity in the IL cortex can block the expression of habits that have already been learned and stored in the striatum. Last year, Smith and Graybiel found that the IL cortex appears to decide which of two previously learned habits will be expressed.
"We have evidence that these two areas are important for habits, but they're not connected at all, and no one has much of an idea of what the cells are doing as a habit is formed, as the habit is lost, and as a new habit takes over," Smith says.
To investigate that, Smith recorded activity in cells of the IL cortex as rats learned to run a maze. He found activity patterns very similar to those that appear in the striatum during habit formation. Several years ago, Graybiel found that a distinctive "task-bracketing" pattern develops when habits are formed. This means that the cells are very active when the animal begins its run through the maze, are quiet during the run, and then fire up again when the task is finished.
This kind of pattern "chunks" habits into a large unit that the brain can simply turn on when the habitual behavior is triggered, without having to think about each individual action that goes into the habitual behavior.
The researchers found that this pattern took longer to appear in the IL cortex than in the striatum, and it was also less permanent. Unlike the pattern in the striatum, which remains stored even when a habit is broken, the IL cortex pattern appears and disappears as habits are formed and broken. This was the clue that the IL cortex, not the striatum, was tracking the development of the habit.
Multiple layers of control
The researchers' ability to optogenetically block the formation of new habits suggests that the IL cortex not only exerts real-time control over habits and compulsions, but is also needed for habits to form in the first place.
"The previous idea was that the habits were stored in the sensorimotor system and this cortical area was just selecting the habit to be expressed. Now we think it's a more fundamental contribution to habits, that the IL cortex is more actively making this happen," Smith says.
This arrangement offers multiple layers of control over habitual behavior, which could be advantageous in reining in automatic behavior, Graybiel says. It is also possible that the IL cortex is contributing specific pieces of the habitual behavior, in addition to exerting control over whether it occurs, according to the researchers. They are now trying to determine whether the IL cortex and the striatum are communicating with and influencing each other, or simply acting in parallel.
The study suggests a new way to look for abnormal activity that might cause disorders of repetitive behavior, Smith says. Now that the researchers have identified the neural signature of a normal habit, they can look for signs of habitual behavior that is learned too quickly or becomes too rigid. Finding such a signature could allow scientists to develop new ways to treat disorders of repetitive behavior by using deep brain stimulation, which uses electronic impulses delivered by a pacemaker to suppress abnormal brain activity.
###
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, the Stanley H. and Sheila G. Sydney Fund and funding from R. Pourian and Julia Madadi.
Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
The joint military exercises are in response to Japan's nervousness about China's interest in disputed islands in the East China Sea.
By Justin McCurry,?Correspondent / June 27, 2013
In this Feb. 13, 2013 photo, Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force soldiers deplane from a US Marine MV-22 Osprey during a joint US-Japan military drill at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in California.
Kyodo News/AP
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A series of unprecedented joint drills, code-named Dawn Blitz, began earlier this month between the United States and Japan off the coast of California with a specific aim: a joint amphibious assault on the island after it has been seized by a small, but heavily armed, invading force.?
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San Clemente Island, located about 75 miles northwest of San Diego, is acting as a surrogate for the disputed island chain known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Japanese officials insist publicly that the drills?are not targeting a third country, adding that the island's identity is purely hypothetical.
The exercise has added to tensions thousands of miles away in waters near the Senkaku Islands, a group of islands in the East China Sea that the Japanese government bought from their private owners last year, triggering violent protests in China and sending Sino-Japanese ties to their lowest point in years.?
The ongoing dispute over the territory, and the ease with which Chinese surveillance ships regularly patrol nearby waters, have exposed Japan's vulnerability to an attack on the string of islands on its west and southwest coasts, including Okinawa and the Senkaku Islands. The prospect of armed conflict over the Senkaku Islands has Japan understandably nervous. As Dawn Blitz indicates, developing the ability to defend and retake them has become a priority.
"The defense of remote islands is a pressing issue, but the SDF [Japan's self-defense forces]?has just begun training to develop such capabilities, which are required of US Marines," Japan's vice chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Koichi Isobe, told reporters. "Japan needs to determine its defense strategy and procure necessary equipment and train SDF members for this purpose."
The drills, which end later this week, began with an initial assault led by about 80 US Marines and three MV-22 Osprey aircraft, followed by a Japanese amphibious force. In all, Japan has committed about 1,000 troops to the Dawn Blitz operation, along with two warships. Troops from New Zealand and Canada are also taking part.
"I will tell you that I was very impressed with not just the cooperation, but really the operational capabilities that [Japan's self-defense forces or?SDF] are starting to bring together," says Brig. Gen. John Broadmeadow, commanding general of the US Marine Corps 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
China had reportedly called on the US and Japan to cancel the operation, which began just two days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Obama held a summit in California. Tokyo and Washington ignored the request.?
An official source familiar with Dawn Blitz conceded that the drills were designed to demonstrate to Beijing that Japan is bolstering its deterrence capability with the help of its US ally.
"We're aware of China's objections, but from a Japanese and US perspective, the object of the exercise is to build a powerful deterrent and demonstrate that the two forces are seamlessly connected ? to show the Chinese that they are battle-ready," the source told the Monitor on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media. "There is nothing unusual in that."?
China has lodged a protest against the drills.
The country's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said only that Beijing hoped "the relevant sides can focus on peace and stability in this region, and do more to contribute to mutual trust and regional peace and stability."
Faced with Defense Department budget cuts and a new military focus on the Asia-Pacific, US officials are keen for Japan to play a more active role in the security alliance.?
The joint drills are a key part of that strategy, given that Japan does not have its own amphibious assault vehicles.
Tricky spot??
But the exercises put Washington in a potentially tricky position, say some analysts. Under the US-Japan security treaty it is obliged to help Japan deter an attack on its territory, but it has publicly refused to take sides on the Senkaku island issue. Instead, it has called for calm and encouraged the two sides to hold negotiations.
"I don't think Dawn Blitz puts the US in a tricky position," the official says. "They started the drill just after the Obama-Xi summit to avoid any diplomatic repercussions. But the fact that Japan and the US went ahead with the exercise also sends a message ? that they are on the same page when it comes to deterring possible Chinese aggression."
The need to bolster the defense of Japan's outlying islands was first recognized by its last prime minister, the left-of-center Yoshihiko Noda, whose administration effectively nationalized the Senkaku Islands last year.
Under the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, the need to create a special force, modeled on the US Marines, capable of repelling a Chinese assault on the Senkaku Islands has taken on greater urgency.
Japan raised its defense budget this year for the first time in 11 years, and is expected to devote much of the new funding to expanding the size and scope of the Western Army Infantry Regiment, the name given to a small unit of troops that has been practicing island warfare under the guidance of US Marines at Sasebo naval base in southwestern Japan.
Momentum for Abe???
The perceived threat from China to Japan's most vulnerable islands could give Mr. Abe the momentum he needs to dramatically alter Japan's defense posture if, as most observers believe, his Liberal Democratic Party seizes control of both houses of parliament in upper house elections next month.
Later this year, Japanese lawmakers are expected to debate the creation of a White House-style National Security Council and granting Japanese troops the right to engage in collective self-defense, or coming to the aid of the US or other ally under attack.
"I expect Abe to start spending his political capital on his 'values' agenda," says Jun Okumura, a Japan expert at the Eurasia Group. "He won't be able to take his eye off the economy, because the ultimate success of his values agenda will depend on how his economic program is taking effect. But after the upper elections he won't have to go to the polls for three years ? that's quite a big window."
In a recent paper for Chatham House, John Swenson-Wright, senior lecturer in modern Japanese politics and international relations at Cambridge University, said Abe's popularity, on the back of his economic program's early success, had enabled him to pursue new security and foreign-policy initiatives.?
"In the context of the cold war, successive prime ministers adopted an intentionally restricted role for the security forces," Mr. Swenson-Wright said. "Now, confronted by arguably more immediate and serious security challenges, both in East Asia and farther afield, Abe appears to be promoting a more ambitious and assertive defense posture."
Math! It can solve a lot of problems. It can be made deliberately fuzzy. It can help us break down complicated things. Like artist music royalties from streaming music stations. When David Lowery revealed that Pandora paid him only $16 for 1 million plays, there was an outrage. But some deeper math reveals that Pandora might actually pay a lot more than that.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Shows like "Game of Thrones," "Boardwalk Empire" and "Breaking Bad" killed off high-profile characters during this past season - but was any death as upsetting as the car accident that killed "Downton Abbey's" Matthew Crawley as he sped home from the hospital moments after seeing his wife and newborn son?
The crash happened in the final moments of Season 3 for the British drama, putting an abrupt and tragic end to a season that had begun with the long-awaited marriage of Matthew to Lady Mary. Coming on the heels of the death of Mary's sister Sybil after giving birth four episodes earlier, it gave "Downton" an unexpectedly high body count and infuriated more than a few fans.
Executive producer Gareth Neame, a fourth-generation show-business figure whose grandfather Ronald directed "Downton" stars Maggie Smith in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and Shirley MacLaine in "Gambit," created the show with writer Julian Fellowes and oversees the drama that is now following both the aristocracy and the servants of an elegant (but troubled) British manor in the years just after World War I.
He spoke to TheWrap over lunch at the Soho House, a regular haunt (and unofficial office of sorts) when he's in Los Angeles.
Well, you had an eventful Season 3. I suppose it was pretty powerful if you think that we started with the TV wedding of the year, followed by one sister being jilted at the altar, followed by another sister dying in childbirth, followed by the hero who just got married at the beginning of the season being killed following the birth of his child. When you put it like that, this is a soap opera par excellence.
Matthew's death is a case where the departure of an actor, Dan Stevens, had a huge impact on the storyline for next season. People have been saying, "How will you ever survive the demise of the Matthew Crawley character?" And I have no concerns about that whatsoever. We didn't want to lose Matthew, obviously -- but having lost him, the great thing about series television is that there are endless possibilities.
Shows are always having to work around actresses who are pregnant or people who are ill or an agent who has negotiated an out. Drama has endless possibilities, and the thing that looks like the worst that can happen, if you look at it in a completely different way, you suddenly realize that it's the best thing that can happen to you.
Also read: Paul Giamatti Joins 'Downton Abbey' Season 4
This adds dramatic rocket fuel to the fourth season. There's nothing better that could have happened than that twist. Mary Crawley's story is far more interesting now, and the dynamics of the show are far more interesting, that she has to rebuild her life rather than she has to evict the tenant farmers or something. Which might have been the storyline otherwise.
But when you learned that Stevens wouldn't be coming back, I'd imagine your first thought was not, "This is the greatest thing that could happen!" Absolutely not. No, I was very surprised by his decision, actually, and we tried very hard to keep Dan. But he had just got his mind to a place that he wanted to move on, to capitalize on the plaudits he received being in "Downton." I have not yet invented a legal way to force people to work for us once their contracts are up, unfortunately.
But why kill his character? There wasn't really any alternative other than a death. Because the audience was too invested in that couple to suggest that they could ever be estranged in any way. They would not have accepted that a couple whose marriage was so hard-won in the first place would just break up.
Was Sybil's death also caused by Jessica Brown Findlay (above left) declining to re-sign with the show? Yes. She wanted out. I was OK with that in the sense that that death gave us one of our best episodes. And the following week's episode is also incredibly profound. It's how the family deals with grief, and particularly how Robert and Cora are driven apart by the death of their daughter, and how by the end of that episode they've managed to get back together and grieve together. I felt that it was OK to lose Jessica for the dramatic strength that we would get.
You brought the idea of "Downton Abbey" to Julian Fellowes, who came up with the characters and storylines. Was your idea of what the show would be similar to what it turned out to be? Entirely. The idea of a drama, the time, the interplay between the upstairs and the downstairs, the very fast pace of the thing, the mixture of drama and comedy, the intertwined characters, the dynamic pace so to a modern audience it didn't feel like something old-fashioned. Although it is set in the past, the storytelling is highly contemporary. And the idea, which I think is quite fresh, that while the world we depict is not democratic at all, the way the drama is depicted is very democratic. All of the characters are equal.
Given the show's high profile in the U.K. and the U.S., are you now getting script notes from executives in two countries? We don't get any notes. The show wouldn't work that way. Julian writes every script. It's a huge workload, and there's no way he could do it if he were getting notes from multiple sources. The only way it works is if he writes the scripts and gives them to me. I comment on each one, he responds to the notes, and we do it together, just the two of us and Liz Trubridge, our producing partner on the project. It's a small, very reasonable team.
You're now getting into merchandising, with "Downton Abbey" clothing and furniture lines.
Yeah, we're developing products for the show, which is unusual in drama. Not that many dramas really lend themselves to products. But we're hopeful that there will be a range of products eventually.
Do you worry about diluting the brand?
Every single product design comes to me for personal approval so we don't bastardize the brand. We're selective about what we do. Fastidious. But it is a show for Middle America, for Middle Britain. It's not an opera or a Merchant Ivory film or something. It's getting massive audiences around the world -- and there is a market for people wanting to possess something of that identity.
We are a business, and personally I quite like elements of the business that bring revenue straight to the bottom line but don't involve making a new show.
Were you thinking of appealing to Middle America when you launched the show?
No. I was thinking of Middle Britain, and I was thinking of Anglophile America. I didn't think we'd go any wider than that. I wasn't expecting this extraordinary phenomenon, and we certainly didn't design the show in any way to make it more American.
You came out of the gate and did extremely well your first year at the Emmys, winning six awards including Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. Did that surprise you?
We were surprised. "Mildred Pierce" was the big thing in that category, but when we got the screeners out to the Academy, people started saying we were the dark horse. And by the day of the Emmys, I thought, we really have a chance here. And then Maggie Smith won, Julian won for script, Brian Percival the director won, and I thought, "Well, if we won director and writer, we're probably going to win."
And really, that first season got record audiences, but it was the momentum that built off the back of the Emmys that really helped with entertainment and foreign sales. The money that we spent on the campaign, you earn the money back 100 times over because of the attention that awards bring. People say awards are a lot of backslapping nonsense, and obviously there's a bit of that, but there is also a direct economic benefit that is unmistakable.
So how long can "Downton" keep going?
I don't think it's going to be a show that runs for 10 years. But we're on year four now and in very healthy shape. Everyone keeps trying to pin me down for how long we're going to run, and I say, "More than four and less than 10."
I would rather that this is a show that ran for six years rather than eight years, if those six years in 20 years time were still being relicensed and people loved the show, rather than eke it out longer and have people get tired of it. I think so far we've got the timing of most things on the show right, but knowing when to go is hard.
NEW YORK (AP) ? It's a big year for throwing. The greatest closer in baseball history, Mariano Rivera of the Yankees, is retiring. Aroldis Chapman, the overpowering Cincinnati Reds reliever, continues to fire fastballs beyond 100 mph.
And now some scientists say they've figured out when our human ancestors first started throwing with accuracy and fire power, as only people can: Nearly 2 million years ago.
That's what researchers conclude in a study released Wednesday by the journal Nature. There's plenty of skepticism about their conclusion. But the new paper contends that this throwing ability probably helped our ancient ancestor Homo erectus hunt, allowing him to toss weapons ? probably rocks and sharpened wooden spears.
The human throwing ability is unique. Not even a chimp, our closest living relative and a creature noted for strength, can throw nearly as fast as a 12-year-old Little Leaguer, says lead study author Neil Roach of George Washington University.
To find out how humans developed this ability, Roach and co-authors analyzed the throwing motions of 20 collegiate baseball players. Sometimes the players wore braces to mimic the anatomy of human ancestors, to see how anatomical changes affected throwing ability.
The human secret to throwing, the researchers propose, is that when the arm is cocked, it stores energy by stretching tendons, ligaments and muscles crossing the shoulder. It's like pulling back on a slingshot. Releasing that "elastic energy" makes the arm whip forward to make the throw.
That trick, in turn, was made possible by three anatomical changes in human evolution that affected the waist, shoulders and arms, the researchers concluded. And Homo erectus, which appeared about 2 million years ago, is the first ancient relative to combine those three changes, they said.
But others think the throwing ability must have appeared sometime later in human evolution.
Susan Larson, an anatomist at Stony Brook University in New York who didn't participate in the study, said the paper is the first to claim that elastic energy storage occurs in arms, rather than just in legs. The bouncing gait of a kangaroo is due to that phenomenon, she said, and the human Achilles tendon stores energy to help people walk.
The new analysis offers good evidence that the shoulder is storing elastic energy, even though the shoulder doesn't have the long tendons that do that job in legs, she said. So maybe other tissues can do it too, she said.
But Larson, an expert on evolution of the human shoulder, said she does not think Homo erectus could throw like a modern human. She said she believes its shoulders were too narrow and that the orientation of the shoulder joint on the body would make overhand throwing "more or less impossible."
Rick Potts, director of the human origins program at the Smithsonian Institution, said he is "not at all convinced" by the paper's argument about when and why throwing appeared.
The authors did not present any data to counter Larson's published work that indicates the erectus shoulder was ill-suited for throwing, he said.
And it is "a stretch" to say that throwing would give erectus an advantage in hunting, Potts said. Large animals have to be pierced in specific spots for a kill, which would seem to require more accuracy than one could expect erectus to achieve from a distance, he said.
Potts noted that the earliest known spears, which date from about 400,000 years ago, were used for thrusting rather than throwing.
___ Online:
Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature
___
Malcolm Ritter can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/malcolmritter
It's an honest mistake, thinking that marijuana and industrial hemp are one and the same. And in some ways they are: both are species of the genus cannabis, they both have the iconic five-fingered pot leafs, and both are widely sought after the world over. But aside from their outward appearance, they two have very little in common, including where it counts the most.
A Quick History of Hemp
We've been cultivating hemp for more than 12,000 years, making it one of humanity's earliest domesticated plants. While the Chinese have used the material in everything from shoes to paper since at least the 5th century BC, it did not arrive in Western Europe until relatively recently.
Cannabis sativa, "grew and was known in the Neolithic period all across the northern latitudes, from Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Ukraine) to East Asia (Tibet and China)," stated Elizabeth Wayland Barber in her book Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean, noting that it did not reach Western Europe until the Iron Age. "I strongly suspect, however, that what catapulted hemp to sudden fame and fortune as a cultigen and caused it to spread rapidly westwards in the first millennium BC was the spread of the habit of pot-smoking from somewhere in south-central Asia, where the drug-bearing variety of the plant originally occurred. The linguistic evidence strongly supports this theory, both as to time and direction of spread and as to cause."
When it did land in Europe, hemp became a very valuable crop as its fibers could be processed into rope and sailcloth, as Christopher Columbus did. What's more, hemp fibers have proven themselves longer, stronger, more absorbent and insular than cotton, which is why George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew it. The plant has even shown promise as both a biogas precursor, thanks to the long hydrocarbons in its oil, and as a soybean replacement, as it contains more fatty acids and dietary fiber than soy.
Today, hemp is big business. China is the single largest grower and exporter of industrial hemp, though more than 30 countries produce the crop. It goes into everything from foodstuffs to cosmetics to textiles. Hemp is legal to import into the United States; however, due to our draconian prohibition of cannabis, hemp is illegal to grow, at least on the federal level. Nineteen states have enacted legislation to promote the use of hemp while another nine?Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia?have legalized its production outright.
A Weed by Any Other Name
As any self-respecting stoner can tell you, there are two strains of weed that get you high: the tall, scraggly sativas that originated in Southeast Asia and the short, bushy indicas from the Middle East. But there's actually a third strain, cannabis ruderalis, from which we derive industrial hemp. These three species all produce a pair of antagonistic chemical compounds? cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)?albeit in varying ratios.
Sativas are especially high in THC (containing anywhere from 10 to 30 percent THC), which produces the euphoric stoner "head high," and low in CBD, which has been shown to relieve a number of maladies. Indicas are also high in THC but have elevated levels of CBD, which provides a mellower "body high." Ruderalis is the inverse of sativas in that they contain virtually zero THC and massive amounts of CBD. This is the result of both the species' natural disposition and generations of breeding.
The certified low-THC varieties used in Europe and Canada contain maybe 0.2 to 0.3 percent THC when fully matured, and even the lesser-used varieties bred as biofuel precursors top out at 1 percent THC by volume. Trying to get high smoking a one percent THC concentration would be akin to getting hammered on O'Douls, as studies have shown that a sub-one percent concentration produces the same effects as placebo. What's more, the large amounts of the non-psychotropic antagonistic CBD compound further overwhelms the effects of the THC.
As Test Pledge, an arm of the Hemp Industries Association, suggested in a 2000 study, industrial hemp doesn't even contain enough THC to set off a common pre-employment urine test:
Even industrial hemp varieties, bred for low THC content, produce small non-psychoactive quantities of THC - short for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. If seeds are not properly cleaned after harvesting, excess trace residual THC sticks to their hulls and infuses oil and other products. Until 1998, when thoroughly cleaned seeds from Canada and the European Union became widely available, hemp oil containing more than 50 parts per million (ppm) of THC was often found in the market. While too low in THC to cause psychoactivity, studies have shown that such oil may produce a positive drug test for marijuana. Of course, that has also caused a few cases of alleged false-positives in workplace drug testing.
To determine whether current hemp foods can still cause positive drug tests, a Canadian governmental research program (ARDI) and members of the hemp industry commissioned a toxicological study. 15 individuals consumed hemp oil with a known THC concentration. Four different daily doses were given, each for a ten-day period, to allow the THC concentration to reach steady-state concentration in the body. At the end of each period, two urine samples were collected and analyzed. The study found that none of the 15 individuals who consumed up to 600 ?g (micrograms, or one-millionth of a gram) of THC per day were even close to producing a urine sample that was "confirmed positive".
With current seed-cleaning technology and the correspondingly low trace THC levels in hemp oil and hemp nut, producing a confirmed positive test result would require that unrealistically high amounts of hemp oil or hemp nut be eaten. The practice of "confirming" all urine samples, which test positive in an initial screening test is followed by all federal and most private employers. Because some employers and law enforcement agencies rely on screening tests only, screening positive results caused by copious hemp food ingestion are conceivable, yet not likely.
The pets at the Edmonton Humane Society (EHS) are about to get a lot more friends visiting them.
EHS has launched a virtual tour of its main building with Google Tours to give the general public a better idea about the organization?s behind-the-scenes action.
?We?re hoping more and more people will be drawn to come into the building directly,? EHS spokesperson Shawna Randolph said Monday. ?It helps connect us with the rest of the world.?
The facility?s digital tour is the largest Edmonton building featured in Google Tours at 47,000 square feet.
?I thought it would be a really good tool for them,? said Jim Whitesell, the photographer that approached EHS about the project.
Whitesell hopes his photographs enlighten the public, much like the experience enlightened him.
?I have a much better understanding about what goes on at the Edmonton Humane Society now. It?s important for everybody to be able to see that,? he said.
The tour also features signs filled with EHS information.
?It?s not just looking at pictures, you?re learning about us as you take the tour,? said Randolph.
The 3M Mobile Projector MP300 is my new poster child for products that just miss getting everything right. It's small, lightweight, bright, physically attractive, and easy to set up. But it's limited to a single connector?an MHL-enabled HDMI port?which makes it a great choice if you can take advantage of the connector, and completely useless if you can't.
The single-port design isn't quite as limiting as it might seem. In addition to letting you connect to image sources with HDMI, Mini-HDMI, and Micro-HDMI connectors, it also lets you connect, using appropriate adaptors, to sources with an Apple Lightning port, a DisplayPort, a DVI-I or DVI-D port, or an MHL-enabled micro USB port, which includes any number of smartphones and tablets. You can even plug in the Roku Stick that we reviewed late last year. In fact, 3M sells the identical projector with the Roku Stick included, as the 3M Streaming Projector ($300 street).
A major catch, of course, is that the choices don't include either a VGA connector, which is still the ubiquitous choice for Windows computers, or support for USB direct display, which would be a good alternative. Also notable for its absence is a USB A connector that would let you plug in a USB memory key as an image source. That said, however, if you have an image source with a connector you can use, the projector can do an impressive job.
Basics and Setup The MP300 scores well on portability. It measures roughly 2.0 by 4.3 by 4.2 inches (HWD), but seems smaller, because of rounded edges and tapering, and it weighs just 11 ounces complete with its rechargeable battery. Even with the power block, the total weight is only one pound one ounce. However, you may well choose to leave the power block at home, thanks to a long battery life, at a claimed three and a half hours in Eco mode or two and a half hours in Standard mode.
Like most projectors in its weight class, the MP300 is built around a DLP chip and LED light source, with the light source meant to last the life of the unit. The company rates it at 20,000 hours. The native resolution is WVGA (854 by 480), with input resolutions limited to standard video, rather than common computer, resolutions, at 480p (640 by 480p and 720 by 480p), 576p (720 by 576p), 720p (1280 by 720p), and 1080i (1920 by 1080i and 1440 by 1080i).
Setup is simple. Plug in a cable, point the projector at whatever you're using as a screen, and focus the image. As is typical for projectors this size, there's no zoom control, which means you have to move the projector to adjust image size. The focus control earns special mention for being much easier to adjust than with most small projectors.
One potential problem is that although the MP300 comes with an HDMI to HDMI cable, it doesn't come with any adaptors for other ports, and 3M doesn't sell any. That means you'll have to get them elsewhere, which can be more of a problem than you might think.
The connector is on the back of the unit inside a small depression and facing sideways. The positioning lets you plug in a cable?or a Roku Stick?and then close the back cover without anything sticking out behind the MP300. Unfortunately, the limited clearance between the edge of the connector and the body of the projector can get in the way.
In addition to the HDMI to HDMI cable that comes with the projector, I tried four different cables with an HDMI connector on one end and found that two of them wouldn't seat properly. This would be less of an issue if 3M also included, or at least sold, cables and adaptors that were guaranteed to fit, but it doesn't. For my tests, I connected the projector to a Blu-ray player, using one of the HDMI to HDMI cables that fit properly.
Brightness and Image Quality The MP300 is rated at 60 lumens. That's less than some other, slightly heavier, LED-based portable projectors, like the 300-lumen Editors' Choice 3M Mobile Projector MP410, and it's a lot less than typical projectors that use standard lamps, like the 2,800-lumen Editors' Choice Epson EX3212 SVGA 3LCD Projector that I recently reviewed. As I've pointed out in other reviews, however, perception of brightness is logarithmic, so if one projector offers one fifth as many lumens as another projector, you'll perceive it is as being far more than one fifth as bright.
Based on The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendation for image brightness, a 60-lumen image using a 1.0 gain screen is suitable for a 30 to 41-inch diagonal image at a 16:9 aspect ratio in theater dark lighting, or a roughly 20-inch image with moderate ambient light. For my tests, however, I found the MP300 usable for long sessions at slightly larger sizes as well, settling on a 41-inch wide (46-inch diagonal) image as bright enough for comfortable viewing.
With no VGA port on the MP300, I couldn't run our standard suite of data image tests. However, the projector scored impressively well on our video tests, despite the low native resolution putting some obvious limits on its ability to show fine detail.
It did an excellent job resisting posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually) and a good job with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), even in scenes that tend to cause those problems. It also did a good job with skin tones, and showed only a minimal level of noise. The quality was certainly good enough to be comfortable to watch for long sessions.
Rainbows and Other Issues Rainbow artifacts, with light areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows, are always a potential concern for any single-chip DLP projector. Even though I see these artifacts easily, however, I saw very few with most test clips with the MP300. The exception was with a black and white clip, where they showed often enough to be annoying. Even so, unless you're planning to watch black and white movies or old TV shows, it's unlikely that you'll find the rainbow artifacts bothersome.
Also demanding mention is the MP300's 2-watt speaker. As with the sound systems in most small projectors, it's essentially useless. Even at full volume, it was barely loud enough to make out words in a quiet room from a foot away. If you need sound, plan on using the audio output port, preferably with a powered headset or speakers.
I'd like this projector a lot better if you could use it with a computer by way of VGA or USB Direct Display. But if you have an HDMI port or other digital video output on your computer, or you don't need to use it with a computer, that's not an issue. The projector has a lot to recommend it otherwise, with a usably bright, reasonably high quality image; easy setup; light weight; and long battery life. If you need a highly portable projector for an image source that the 3M Mobile Projector MP300 works with, it's a more than attractive choice.
June 24, 2013 ? We now understand the nature of the giant storms on Saturn. Through the analysis of images sent from the Cassini space probe belonging to the North American and European space agencies (NASA and ESA respectively), as well as the computer models of the storms and the examination of the clouds therein, the Planetary Sciences Group of the University of the Basque Country has managed to explain the behaviour of these storms for the very first time. The article explaining the discovery, the lead author being Enrique Garc?a Melendo, researcher at the Fundaci? Observatori Esteve Duran -- Institut de Ci?ncies de l'Espai, of Catalonia, was published in Nature Geosciences.
Approximately once every Saturnian year -- equivalent to 30 Earth years -- an enormous storm is produced on the ringed planet and which affects the aspect of its atmosphere on a global scale. These gigantic storms are known as Great White Spots, due to the appearance they have on the atmosphere of the planet. The first observation of one of these was made in 1876; the Great White Spot of 2010 was the sixth one to be observed. On this occasion the Cassini space vehicle was able to obtain very high resolution images of this great meteorological structure. The storm initiated as a small brilliant white cloud in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere of the planet, and grew rapidly and remained active for more than seven months. Over this time an amalgam of white clouds was generated which expanded to form a cloudy and turbulent ring with a surface area of thousands of millions of square kilometres. Two year age the Planetary Sciences Group presented a first study of the storm and which was published on the front cover of Nature on the 7th of July, 2011. Now, with this new research, the hidden secrets of the phenomenon have been revealed, studying in detail the "head" and the "focus" of the Great White Spot.
The team of astronomers analysed the images taken from the Cassini probe in order to measure the winds in the "head" of the storm, the focus where the activity originated. In this region the storm interacts with the circulating atmosphere, forming very intense sustained winds, typically of 500 kilometres an hour. "We did not expect to find such violent circulation in the region of the development of the storm, which is a symptom of the particularly violent interaction between the storm and the planet's atmosphere," commented Enrique Garc?a. They were also able to determine that these storm clouds are at 40 km above the planet's own clouds.
Information about the mechanisms causing meteorological phenomena
The research revealed the mechanism that produces this phenomenology. The team of scientists designed mathematical models capable of reproducing the storm on a computer, providing a physical explanation for the behaviour of this giant storm and for its lengthy duration. The calculations show that the focus of the storm is deeply embedded, some 300 km above the visible clouds. The storm transports enormous quantities of moist gas in water vapour to the highest levels of the planet, forming visible clouds and liberating enormous quantities of energy. This injection of energy interacts violently with the dominant wind of Saturn to produce wind storms of 500 km/h. The research also showed that, despite the enormous activity of the storm, this was not able to substantially modify the prevailing winds which blow permanently in the same direction as Earth's parallels, but they did interact violently with them. An important part of the computer's calculations were made thanks to the Centre de Serveis Cient?fics i Acad?mics de Catalunya (CESCA), and the computer services at the Institut de Ci?ncies de l'Espai (ICE), also based in the Catalan capital of Barcelona.
Apart from the curiosity of knowing the physical processes underlying the formation of these giant storms on Saturn, the study of these phenomena enable us to enhance our knowledge of the models employed in research into meteorology and the behaviour of Earth's atmosphere, in a very different environment and impossible to simulate in a laboratory. "The storms on Saturn are, in a way, a test bank of the physical mechanisms underlying the generation of similar meteorological phenomena on Earth," commented Agust?n S?nchez Lavega, Director of the Planetary Sciences Group at the UPV/EHU.
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? Authorities continue to investigate, but not talk about, the killing of a semi-pro football player whose body was found a mile from New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.
A spokeswoman for the Bristol County district attorney's office said Sunday that officials are not releasing details. Spokeswoman Yasmina Serdarevic said officials also are not talking about the cause of death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, whose body was found on Monday. His death was ruled a homicide.
Hernandez was questioned and his home searched as part of the police investigation into the Dorchester man's death.
State police officers and dogs searched Hernandez's North Attleboro home for more than three hours on Saturday.
An attorney for Hernandez has said he would not comment on the searches.
New England Patriots spokesman Stacey James has said the team does not expect to comment during the police investigation. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was waiting for the legal process to take its course.
The Patriots drafted Hernandez out of Florida in 2010. He has since combined with Rob Gronkowski to form one of the top tight end duos in the NFL. He missed 10 games last season with an ankle injury and had shoulder surgery in April but is expected to be ready for training camp. Last summer, the Patriots gave him a five-year contract worth $40 million.
As tornado season continues and hurricane seasons ramps up, window manufacturers nationwide are working hard to publicize their impact-resistant lines of windows and doors. Just in the past few weeks, national manufacturers such as Pella and regional window makers such as Florida-based PGT have issued press releases to boost what they hope to be a coming boom for these stronger?but far more costly?product lines.
Impact glass is engineered to protect you from flying debris thrown by excessive storm force winds. The window will shatter on impact but will stay in place so shards don't go flying through the house. The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to be a busy one, and homeowners, having seen the destruction wrought by recent storms and tornadoes, are increasingly willing to incur the additional cost of windows that at least stand a chance of surviving a major storm.
Impact-resistant window sales are also increasing thanks to the overall residential construction turnaround. Although the remodeling and new-construction market is on the rebound nationwide, PGT, based in hurricane hotbed Florida, reports a 28 percent increase in revenue over the last six months alone.
While I generally look upon code-mandated cost increases with a leery eye (expensive impact-resistant windows and doors are required by extreme building codes in many coastal areas), I can't argue with the fact that these products will help protect your property better during large storms.
Tim Layton is a home and DIY blogger for Popular Mechanics. Follow him on Twitter @RemodelingGuy.
Speaking as a former hiring manager, I dislike ?Dear Hiring Manager? since that?s not my title. My preference is for ?Dear Sir or Madam.?
What I?m writing for, though, is to emphasize that if a name is given in the advertisement, ALWAYS address the letter to that person.
I once received a letter that was obviously copied from a book. For the date, the writer typed ?Date: ______? and handwrote the date. The ad said ?reply to Dave,? and the salutation was ?Dear Hiring Manager:? (at least he properly used a colon. The first sentence was ?In response to your advertisement in the Newspaper A/Newspaper B/Newspaper C, I am applying for a position as Position A/Position B/Position C?? (newspaper names and positions not revealed hear, to help protect the ignorant; this was 20 years ago, after all). The applicant had CIRCLED the newspaper name and position title.
Needless to say, he was not considered any further. The only reason the letter didn?t go into the shredder immediately is that I kept it, without identifying information, as an example of how NOT to write a cover letter.
Just a last point for applicants to consider: if the advertisement or job posting doesn?t specifically say ?no cover letter,? write one. That was my first cut ? if I couldn?t read the letter, I didn?t care what the applicant?s technical abilities were. Whether or not it?s stated in the job description EVERY job requires communications skills.
Any tech that allows humans a new type of insight is inevitably turned on ourselves. We want to know what else we can find out from peering in on our bodies or minds in a new way. Of course, x-ray machines were pretty much used from the start for that purpose, but it's amazing to see these 1908 photos examining how a fashion trend was impacting health.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
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