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Social Networks Are The Next Big Mobile Advertising Platform (Mobile Marketing Watch) Social media advertising has grown thanks to customized ad units on Facebook and Twitter, writes Eric Mugnier, of M&C Saatchi Mobile. Facebook has definitely shown its potential, although largely with direct response app acquisition campaigns. This success is largely due to the quality of data that Facebook provides, which helps fine-tune targeting and ensure relevance and downloads. This is also due to new ad units rolled out over the last few months that allow users to install advertised apps without leaving Facebook. But Facebook and Twitter also need to prove their ad products can do more than just drive short-term spikes in consumer engagement.?Read >
Facebook?s Friend And Relationship Status Through Big Data (The New York Times) Wolfram Alpha released a detailed report this week about people?s friendships and relationship habits on Facebook. The research was culled from data linked to 1 million user accounts and found that, on average, people have 342 friends on Facebook. This metric has continued to grow rapidly in recent years. ?Read >
Data Researchers Use Facebook Likes To Gauge Public Health (GigaOM) Facebook ?likes? are increasingly giving public health officials valuable clues into the country?s wellbeing. Recently, researchers at the Children?s Hospital in Boston analyzed aggregated data on users? Facebook activity and interests to examine the connection between online social environments and obesity prevalence. They found that areas with higher percentages of people with interests related to healthy activities and fitness had lower obesity rates, while populations with a greater percentage of people who had liked or commented on television was an indicator of higher obesity rates. Read >
Bad News Driving Marketers Away From Twitter (CNBC) There may be a double-edged sword when it comes to social media marketing. Marketers can target Twitter users in real-time based on keywords found in tweets, but what if those terms are negative and focused on terror? Twitter also allows advertisers to insert a message atop its list of nine trending topics in a spot called the "promoted trend." This digital billboard sits alongside users' streams on its site and mobile application, and costs $200,000 a day in the U.S. What if those nine topics reflect bad news? ?Read >
The 2013 NFL Draft On Social Media?(Social Times) The NFL began draft picks for the upcoming football season last night. Stars will be made, dreams will be crushed, and plenty of bets will be placed on the outcome of this event. An analysis of social media by Fizziology ranks the prospects in terms of social volume.
ESPN and the NFL Network will be reporting on the draft via their Twitter feeds.
Read >
Using Social Media To Increase Productivity (Business2Community) What is the business value of social media? That?s the big question. There?s a land rush for control of the Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) space, with promises being made to improve office collaboration. Most organizations are chasing after these lofty goals without a strategy, hoping to find that magical answer to their platform adoption woes, unsure of the relationship between the tools they deploy and their impact on productivity. This article proposes some criteria by which to formulate clear goals for workplace social platforms, including collaboration, data-gathering, and driving desired behaviors.? Read >
The Most Engaged Brands On Twitter (Nestivity and UCLA via CMSWire) Twitter has rapidly become a vehicle for brand marketing and reinforcement. Here is a list of the top 25 brands that best utilize Twitter for customer engagement.? Read >
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Saturday reported its first case of H7N9 bird flu in the southern province of Hunan, the latest sign the virus that has killed 23 people in the country is continuing to spread.
The official Xinhua news agency said the patient was a 64-year-old woman from Shaoyang city who developed a fever on April 14, four days after having contact with poultry. Her condition had improved with treatment, it added.
The flu was first detected in March. This week, the World Health Organization called the virus "one of the most lethal", and said it is more easily transmitted than an earlier strain that has killed hundreds around the world since 2003.
None of the 41 people who had come into contact with the newly-confirmed Hunan patient, identified only by the surname Guan, had shown symptoms, Xinhua said.
A 54-year-old man who fell ill in Jiangxi province was also being treated in Hunan, where he was diagnosed with H7N9, Xinhua said.
The Hunan cases come a day after the eastern province of Fujian reported its first case and during the same week that a man in Taiwan become the first case of the flu outside mainland China. He caught the flu while travelling in China.
Chinese scientists confirmed on Thursday that chickens had transmitted the flu to humans.
(Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)
In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)
In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? North Korea announced Saturday that an American detained for nearly six months is being tried in the Supreme Court on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, a crime that could draw the death penalty if he is convicted.
The case involving Kenneth Bae, who has been in North Korean custody since early November, further complicates already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington following weeks of heightened rhetoric and tensions.
The trial mirrors a similar situation in 2009, when the U.S. and North Korea were locked in a standoff over Pyongyang's decision to launch a long-range rocket and conduct an underground nuclear test. At the time, North Korea had custody of two American journalists, whose eventual release after being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor paved the way for diplomacy following months of tensions.
Bae was arrested in early November in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea's far northeastern region bordering China and Russia, according to official state media. In North Korean dispatches, Bae, a Korean American, is called Pae Jun Ho, the North Korean spelling of his Korean name.
The exact nature of his alleged crimes has not been revealed, but North Korea accuses Bae, described as a tour operator, of seeking to overthrow North Korea's leadership.
"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it," the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Saturday. "His crimes were proved by evidence. He will soon be taken to the Supreme Court of the DPRK to face judgment."
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. No timing for the verdict issued at the austere Supreme Court in Pyongyang was given.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. government is "aware of reports that a U.S. citizen will face trial in North Korea" and that officials from the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang had visited Bae on Friday. She said she had no other information to share.
Because Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations, the Swedish Embassy in North Korea represents the United States in legal proceedings.
Friends and colleagues described Bae as a devout Christian from Washington state but based in the Chinese border city of Dalian who traveled frequently to North Korea to feed the country's orphans.
At least three other Americans detained in recent years also have been devout Christians. While North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the regime.
Under North Korea's criminal code, crimes against the state can draw life imprisonment or the death sentence.
In 2009, American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to hard labor for trespassing and unspecified hostile acts after being arrested near the border with China and held for four months.
They were freed later that year to former President Bill Clinton, who flew to Pyongyang to negotiate their release in a visit that then-leader Kim Jong Il treated as a diplomatic coup.
Including Ling and Lee, Bae is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released.
"For North Korea, Bae is a bargaining chip in dealing with the U.S.," said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea. "The North will use him in a way that helps bring the U.S. to talks when the mood slowly turns toward dialogue."
As in 2009, Pyongyang is locked in a standoff with the Obama administration over North Korea's drive to build nuclear weapons.
Washington has led the campaign to punish Pyongyang for launching a long-range rocket in December and carrying out a nuclear test, its third, in February.
North Korea claims the need to build atomic weapons to defend itself against the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea and over the past two months has been holding joint military drills with South Korea that have included nuclear-capable stealth bombers and fighter jets.
Diplomats from China, South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Russia have been conferring in recent weeks to try to bring down the rhetoric and find a way to rein in Pyongyang before a miscalculation in the region sparks real warfare.
South Korean defense officials said earlier in the month that North Korea had moved a medium-range missile designed to strike U.S. territory to its east coast.
The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the three-year Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.
___
Associated Press writers Jean H. Lee in Pyongyang; Sam Kim and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Tom Strong in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Lee, AP's Korea bureau chief, at www.twitter.com/newsjean and Sam Kim at www.twitter.com/SamKim_AP.
The family recently went on a trip to Tokyo but my doc ordered that I continue my bed rest so I was unable to go. Before the official bed rest request of my doc, I was dreaming of visiting Japanese craft stores.? I had heard of stories of endless floors of craft supplies from friends who have visited Tokyo and pictured rows and rows of pens, washi tape, super glue and paper.? I remembered watching David Celdran's show "Executive Class" years ago and could not forget his visit to this store filled with exquisite papers.? I researched online and found?a blog that featured Ito-ya and Tokyu Hands (sorry, I can't seem to find that Tokyu Hands blog post)...and drooled.? Hahaha!? But as fate would have it, it wasn't my time to go craft-crazy in Japan yet. So my dear hubby and little girl went with the rest of the family.? The super news is that the whole family enjoyed, had family bonding and had loads of stories to tell!
To cheer me up, they had a whole bunch of craft presents as treats for me!? It was as though I visited the craft stores myself!? Even better (in a way), since I didn't have to rack my brains figuring out which ones to get and which to leave behind plus I'm really thrifty (as those who know me would attest) and can resist the urge to splurge ( even with my favorite things) so I would not have gone home with these many, little treasures if I shopped for myself.
Here are the items the family brought home for me ( Thank you!? Thank you!? Most are from dear hubby.? He even saved the Tokyu Hands paper bag in case I wanted to blog/write about it. Really thoughtful of him.? Plus, he only bought one item for himself during this whole trip. :')? Touching but guilt-inducing at the same time). I have to admit I haven't brought myself to opening most of the items yet.? I'm still savoring the crispness of each one in their little packaging (Yes, nerd alert!).??
Most of these are from Tokyu Hands located in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo (except for some items which I will indicate below).??
And the star of the show is this staple-less stapler!? I discovered this through a friend and was amused and amazed at its ingenuity!? Here are some photos to illustrate its genius.
Here are the photos of the Tokyu Hands floor guide (for more on the floor guide, you may check out this link) and the store bags.?
Here are the items which dear hubby found before visiting Tokyu Hands.? He can't remember the name of this particular store anymore.?
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That's it!? So if Tokyo is your next travel destination and you are a craft-fanatic like me, I hope this gives you a glimpse of what crafts to find .? I am pretty sure there are many, many more craft treasure troves all around the city.? Happy Tokyo craft-hunting!
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc has hired advisers to prepare a possible $100 billion cash and stock bid to take full control of Verizon Wireless from joint venture partner Vodafone Group Plc, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Verizon, which already owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, has not yet put forward a proposal to Vodafone but it has hired both banking and legal advisers for a possible bid, the sources said.
Verizon hopes to start discussions with Vodafone soon for a friendly deal but is prepared to take a bid public if the British company does not engage in talks, one of the sources added.
There are no guarantees that Vodafone will be interested in a deal or that any bid will materialize, the sources said.
Over the past decade, Verizon has made little secret of its wish to buy out its British partner from the joint venture, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier. The sources said that Verizon is ready to push aggressively for a deal.
Verizon, benefiting from record low interest rates as well as its own strong stock price, is confident that the company can raise about $50 billion of bank financing, the sources said. It plans to pay for the rest of the deal with its own shares, they added. The sources asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential.
Verizon's board is expected to discuss details of a potential Verizon Wireless buyout next week at a scheduled meeting which will be held ahead of the company's annual shareholder meeting, one of the sources said.
Verizon spokesman Bob Varettoni declined to comment, but pointed to the U.S. telephone company's statement earlier this month, in which it said it would be a willing buyer of Vodafone's share of their Verizon Wireless venture.
Verizon Wireless and Vodafone were not immediately available for comment late on Wednesday.
The Verizon Wireless stake makes up about two-thirds of Vodafone's market capitalization at the valuation being contemplated. The business also gives Vodafone exposure to the booming U.S. market. But Vodafone has been exploring what to do with its stake as Chief Executive Vittorio Colao streamlines a company built on the foundations of aggressive expansion.
Analysts have said a sale of the Verizon Wireless stake would enable Vodafone to return cash to shareholders, purchase fixed-line assets in Europe or potentially make the company an attractive takeover target for other telecom giants such as AT&T Inc.
For Verizon Communications, which relies on the Verizon Wireless operations for growth, taking full ownership would give it much more flexibility as a result of the cash generated from the wireless business.
New Street analyst Jonathan Chaplin said he expected Vodafone to demand more, but $100 billion was a good starting point.
"This is a good time for both sides to think seriously about a transaction. Vodafone's probably never going to get a better multiple than now," Chaplin said. "The growth rate (for Verizon Wireless) probably has to slow over time particularly as Sprint and T-Mobile USA and AT&T improve."
Verizon came close to doing a deal in 2004, when Vodafone tried to buy AT&T Wireless but lost the auction to Cingular. That deal would have allowed Vodafone to bring its brand across the Atlantic and would have required it to sell its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless.
If a deal were to happen now, it would come at a time when the telecommunications industry has recently seen a fresh round of consolidation attempts. MetroPCS Communications Inc shareholders voted on Wednesday to approve a merger with No.4 U.S. wireless service provider T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG.
The merger came after Deutsche Telekom's 2011 effort to sell T-Mobile to AT&T for $39 billion got blocked by U.S. antitrust regulators. Verizon would be unlikely to face similar obstacles in a Verizon Wireless buyout.
Meanwhile, Dish Network Corp, the No.2 U.S. satellite TV provider, last week offered to buy wireless service provider Sprint Nextel Corp for $25.5 billion in cash and stock, challenging a proposed deal between Sprint and Japan's SoftBank Corp.
TAX STRUCTURE
One of the main obstacles to a deal so far has been the expectation that Vodafone could incur a tax bill of around $20 billion if it sells its holding, meaning Verizon would have to pay a high price to make it worthwhile for the British company.
But the sources said any deal would be structured to result in an eventual tax bill that would likely be $5 billion or less.
Under the plan, Verizon would buy Vodafone's U.S. holding company that owns the British group's Verizon Wireless interest as well as some other assets in countries such as Germany and Spain, the sources said. That structure would allow Verizon to take advantage of a provision in British tax law called substantial shareholder exemption, they said.
The exemption applies under certain conditions for capital gains realized from the sale of stock in companies in which the seller owns at least 10 percent of the stock and has owned that amount of stock for at least a year, according to Robert Willens, a New York accounting and tax expert and a professor at Columbia Business School.
Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said last week that he was extremely confident it could purchase the Vodafone stake without any major tax implications. He did not elaborate on how this would work.
"The $5 billion tax bill is completely consistent with our estimate of the taxes they'd have to pay for separating the international stakes from the Vodafone subsidiary that holds Verizon Wireless," Chaplin said.
DEAL FINANCING
Verizon's shares have risen about 20 percent so far this year as its wireless business has easily outperformed its smaller colleagues in terms of profitability and customer growth, and amid rising hopes that it will purchase the rest of Verizon Wireless.
Investors say the conditions for a deal have improved as a result of Verizon's strong results, its share price gains, and low interest rates.
Any deal that includes such a large stock component may, though, mean dilution for Verizon Communications shareholders.
If the deal is struck for $100 billion, Chaplin said it would increase Verizon Communications' 2014 earnings per share by 25 percent even after including dilution of the Verizon stock and interest payments on the portion of the deal that would be financed by debt.
"It would be the biggest debt placement ever but we think it could be done," Chaplin said.
The sources said Verizon has not launched a formal fund-raising effort but did not foresee obstacles to raising the money for a deal.
So far this year, Vodafone's shares have risen about 23 percent after lagging in the final few months of 2012. The recent gains have been attributed by analysts to hopes that it will sell the stake to Verizon.
(Reporting By Soyoung Kim in New York; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Martin Howell)
Apr. 25, 2013 ? A protein known to be a key player in the development of Parkinson's disease is able to enter and harm cells in the same way that viruses do, according to a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study.
The protein is called alpha-synuclein. The study shows how, once inside a neuron, alpha synuclein breaks out of lysosomes, the digestive compartments of the cell. This is similar to how a cold virus enters a cell during infection. The finding eventually could lead to the development of new therapies to delay the onset of Parkinson's disease or halt or slow its progression, researchers said.
The study by virologist Edward Campbell, PhD, and colleagues, was published April 25, 2013 in the journal PLOS ONE.
Alpha-synuclein plays a role in the normal functioning of healthy neurons. But in Parkinson's disease patients, the protein turns bad, aggregating into clumps that lead to the death of neurons in the area of the brain responsible for motor control. Previous studies have shown that these protein aggregates can enter and harm cells. Campbell and colleagues showed how alpha synuclein can bust out of lysosomes, small structures that collectively serve as the cell's digestive system. The rupture of these bubble-like structures, known as vesicles, releases enzymes that are toxic to the rest of the cell.
"The release of lysosomal enzymes is sensed as a 'danger signal' by cells, since similar ruptures are often induced by invading bacteria or viruses," said Chris Wiethoff, a collaborator on the study. "Lysosomes are often described as 'suicide bags' because when they are ruptured by viruses or bacteria, they induce oxidative stress that often leads to the death of the affected cell."
In a viral or bacterial infection, the deaths of such infected cells may overall be a good thing for the infected individual. But in Parkinson's disease, this same protective mechanism may lead to the death of neurons and enhance the spread of alpha-synuclein between cells in the brain, Campbell said. "This might explain the progressive nature of Parkinson's disease. More affected cells leads to the spread of more toxic alpha-synuclein aggregates in the brain," Campbell said. "This is very similar to what happens in a spreading viral infection."
Campbell stressed that these studies need to be followed up and confirmed in other models of Parkinson's disease. "Using cultured cells, we have made some exciting observations. However, we need to understand how lysosomal rupture is affecting disease progression in animal models of Parkinson's disease and, ultimately, the brains of people affected by Parkinson's disease. Can we interfere with the ability of alpha-synuclein to rupture lysosomes in these settings? And will that have a positive effect on disease progression? These are the questions we are excited to be asking next."
Jeffrey H. Kordower, PhD, professor of neurological sciences, professor of neurosurgery and director of the Research Center for Brain Repair at Rush University Medical Center, said the study "is an important finding by a group of investigators who are beginning to make their impact in the field of Parkinson's disease. This paper adds to the growing concept that alpha-synuclein, a main culprit in the cause of Parkinson's disease, can transfer from cell to cell. This paper elegantly puts a mechanism behind such a transfer. The findings will help shape the direction of Parkinson's disease research for years to come."
Campbell and Wiethoff are assistant professors in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Other co-authors are David Freeman (first author), Rudy Cedillos, Samantha Choyke, Zana Lukic, Kathleen McGuire, Shauna Marvin, Andrew M. Burrage and Ajay Rana of Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine; Stacey Sudholt of Missouri School of Medicine; and Christopher O'Connor of North Central College in Naperville, Il.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Loyola University Health System, via Newswise.
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Journal Reference:
David Freeman, Rudy Cedillos, Samantha Choyke, Zana Lukic, Kathleen McGuire, Shauna Marvin, Andrew M. Burrage, Stacey Sudholt, Ajay Rana, Christopher O'Connor, Christopher M. Wiethoff, Edward M. Campbell. Alpha-Synuclein Induces Lysosomal Rupture and Cathepsin Dependent Reactive Oxygen Species Following Endocytosis. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e62143 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062143
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons - probably nerve gas - in their fight against rebels trying to force out President Bashar al-Assad, the Israeli military's top intelligence analyst said on Tuesday.
Brigadier-General Itai Brun made the comments at a Tel Aviv security conference a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on a visit to Israel that U.S. intelligence agencies were still assessing whether such weapons had been employed.
U.S. President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a "red line" for the United States that would trigger unspecified U.S. action.
"To the best of our understanding, there was use of lethal chemical weapons. Which chemical weapons? Probably sarin," Brun said in the most definitive Israeli statement on the issue to date.
Photos of victims showing foam coming out of their mouths and contracted pupils were signs deadly gas had been used, he said.
Forces loyal to Assad were behind the attacks on "armed (rebels) on a number of occasions in the past few months, including the most reported incident on March 19", Brun said.
The Syrian government and rebels last month accused each other of launching a chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo.
On Monday, Hagel said the use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces would be a "game changer" and the United States and Israel "have options for all contingencies".
Hagel met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday, a day after flying in an Israeli military helicopter over the occupied Golan Heights on the edge of the fighting in Syria that has entered its third year.
"This is a difficult and dangerous time, this is a time when friends and allies must remain close, closer than ever," Hagel, in remarks to reporters before his talks with Netanyahu, said about the United States and Israel.
IMPASSE
Discussions between Syria and the United Nations on a U.N. investigation of possible use of chemical weapons have been at an impasse due to the Syrian government's refusal to let the inspectors visit anywhere but Aleppo, diplomats and U.N. officials said last week.
U.N. diplomats said Britain and France had provided Ban's office with what they believed to be strong evidence that chemical weapons also had been used in the city of Homs.
Israel, which has advanced intelligence capabilities that it shares with its Western allies, has voiced concerned that parts of Syria's chemical arsenal would end up in the hands of jihadi fighters or the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, with which it waged a 2006 war.
Israel leaders have cautioned they will not allow that to happen. In an attack it has not formally confirmed, Israeli planes bombed an arms convoy in Syria in February, destroying anti-aircraft weapons destined for Hezbollah.
Brun, who was speaking at the annual security conference of The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said Israel's military was studying a number of future scenarios facing Syria.
"More likely, as time goes by, are the scenarios of chaos and anarchy, or that of (Syria) breaking up into cantons. These pose major challenges for Israel. The chance of a different central government still exists, but it is growing less likely with time," Brun said.
(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller and David Alexander; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered a businessman convicted of selling Saddam Hussein raw materials for mustard gas to pay compensation to victims of chemical weapon attacks by the late Iraqi dictator's regime.
The landmark ruling was largely symbolic for the 16 survivors as the businessman, Hans van Anraat, is serving a prison sentence for selling the chemicals and is believed to be destitute. But it served as a warning to individuals or businesses who may still try to sell chemicals to tyrants at a time of reports that poison gas is being used in Syria's bloody civil war.
"I am of course very happy that the judgment is finally in our favor," said Rebas Kadir, the only victim in court. "For us it was very important that it sent a message that something like this should not and cannot happen."
Kadir was just 4 years old when he survived Saddam's notorious 1988 attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in Iraq in which an estimated 5,600 civilians were killed. His parents, brother and sister died and he was left with badly damaged lungs that make even day-to-day activities like climbing a flight of stairs tough.
Saddam, then Iraq's dictator, ordered the Halabja attack as part of a scorched-earth campaign to crush a Kurdish rebellion in the north, which was seen as aiding Iran in the final months of its war with Iraq.
Kadir now lives in the Netherlands, where Van Anraat is serving a 16 ?-year sentence for supplying Saddam with a chemical known as TDG,in the full knowledge that it was going to be used to make poison gas.
Van Anraat, who was not in court, was ordered to pay each survivor ?25,000 ($32,475).
He was Iraq's sole supplier of TDG, or thiodiglycol, for its mustard gas production program. His lawyer, Hans Vermeer, said Wednesday that Van Anraat believed the chemical was to be used in the Iraqi textile industry.
Judges rejected that argument at his 2005 trial and said he knew the chemicals might well be used for war crimes, but sold more than 1,000 tons to Saddam anyway, motivated by greed. Van Anraat continued selling the chemicals even after learning of the Halabja attack.
Wednesday's case in The Hague came amid mounting claims of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
A senior Israeli military intelligence official said on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons last month in his battle against insurgent groups.
Britain and France also recently announced that they had evidence Assad's government had used chemical weapons. Although the U.S. says it has not been able to verify the claims, President Barack Obama has warned that the introduction of chemical weapons by Assad would be a "game changer."
Britain and France asked the U.N. to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in two locations near Damascus on March 19, as well as in the city of Homs on Dec. 23. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed an investigative team, but the Syrian government has largely blocked its effort. Syria, meanwhile, has accused the rebels of using chemical weapons.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of heart attack victims every year have none of the notorious risk factors before their crisis - not high cholesterol, not unhealthy triglycerides. Now the search for the mystery culprits has turned up some surprising suspects: the trillions of bacteria and other microbes living in the human gut.
In a study released on Wednesday, scientists discovered that some of the bugs turn lecithin - a nutrient in egg yolks, liver, beef, pork and wheat germ - into an artery-clogging compound called TMAO. They also found that blood levels of TMAO predict heart attack, stroke or death, and do so "independent of other risk factors," said Dr Stanley Hazen, chairman of cellular and molecular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute, who led the study.
That suggests a TMAO test could enter the arsenal of blood tests that signal possible cardiovascular problems ahead. "TMAO might identify people who are at risk (for heart attacks and strokes) despite having no other risk factors," Hazen said.
The discovery also suggests a new approach to preventing these cardiovascular events: altering gut bacteria so they churn out less TMAO.
The study joins a growing list of findings that link human "microbiota" - microbes in the gut, nose and genital tract, and on the skin - to health and disease. Research has shown that certain species of gut bacteria protect against asthma, for instance, while others affect the risk of obesity. Last week scientists reported that circumcision alters bacteria in the penis, and that this change (not only the anatomical one) helps protect men from HIV/AIDS, probably by reducing the number of bacteria that live in oxygen-free environments such as under the foreskin.
"It's very strong work," Dr Martin Blaser of New York University Langone Medical Center, a pioneer in studies of the microbiota, said of the TMAO study. "They show clearly that human microbiota play a key role in producing TMAO, suggesting new approaches to prevention and treatment" of cardiovascular disease.
NORMAL CHOLESTEROL, FATAL HEART ATTACK
The new study builds on a 2011 discovery by the Cleveland Clinic team that, in lab mice, gut bacteria turn lecithin in food into TMAO, or trimethylamine-N-oxide, causing heart disease. In addition, they found, people with high levels of TMAO are more likely to have heart disease.
But that research left two questions hanging: Do human gut bacteria trigger the lecithin-to-TMAO alchemy, like those in mice? And do high levels of TMAO predict heart attacks and stroke in people many years out, not simply mark the presence of cardiovascular disease at the time of the blood test?
To answer the first question, Hazen and his colleagues had 40 healthy adults eat two hard-boiled eggs, which contain lots of lecithin. Just as in lab mice, TMAO levels in the blood rose. After a week of broad-spectrum antibiotics, however, the volunteers' TMAO levels barely budged after they ate eggs, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"That showed that the intestinal bacteria (which antibiotics kill) are essential for forming TMAO," said Hazen.
Next, to see whether TMAO predicts cardiovascular events, the researchers measured its levels in 4,007 heart patients. After accounting for such risk factors as age and a past heart attack, they found that high levels of TMAO were predictive of heart attack, stroke and death over the three years that the patients were followed.
Moreover, TMAO predicted risk more accurately than triglyceride or cholesterol levels, Hazen said. And it did so in people without substantial coronary artery disease or dangerous lipid levels as well as in sicker patients.
Specifically, people in the top 25 percent of TMAO levels had 2.5 times the risk of a heart attack or stroke compared to people in the bottom quartile.
The reason TMAO is so potent is that it makes blood cholesterol build up on artery walls, causing atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and, if the buildup ruptures and blocks an artery, stroke or heart attack.
Earlier this month, the Cleveland Clinic researchers reported that gut bugs also transform carnitine, a nutrient found in red meat and dairy products, into TMAO, at least in meat eaters. Vegetarians made much less TMAO even when eating carnitine as part of the study, suggesting that avoiding meat reduces the gut bacteria that turn carnitine into TMAO, while regular helpings of dead animals encourages their growth and thus the production of TMAO.
More studies are needed to show whether TMAO reliably predicts cardiovascular crises, and does so better than other blood tests. Experts disagree on how many people have no other risk factors but would be flagged by TMAO. Dr Gordon Tomaselli, chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and past president of the American Heart Association, guesses it is less than 10 percent or so of the people who eventually have heart crises.
Someone with high levels of TMAO could reduce her cardiovascular risk by eating fewer egg yolks and less beef and pork. But someone with a two-eggs-a-day habit but low TMAO probably has gut microbes that aren't very adept at converting lecithin to TMAO, meaning she can eat eggs and the like without risking a coronary.
Just as statins control unhealthy cholesterol, prebiotics (compounds that nurture "healthy" gut microbes) or probiotics (the good bugs themselves) might control unhealthy TMAO. For now, however, no one knows which prebiotics or probiotics might do that. In one study, probiotics actually increased TMAO-producing bacteria - "not what you want," Hazen said.
Neither will popping antibiotics work: bacteria become resistant to the drugs. Developing compounds that crimp the ability of the bacteria to turn lecithin into TMAO, Hazen said, is more likely to succeed.
(Reporting by Sharon Begley; editing by Michelle Gershberg and Prudence Crowther)
Apr. 23, 2013 ? A potential new way to fight obesity-related illness has been uncovered, thanks to serendipitous research led by investigators at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
The collaborators, from Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Cornell University, discovered the essential nutrient vitamin E can alleviate symptoms of liver disease brought on by obesity. "The implications of our findings could have a direct impact on the lives of the approximately 63 million Americans who are at potential risk for developing obesity-related liver disease in their lifetimes," says Danny Manor, an associate professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
On Wednesday, April 24, Manor and colleague Varsha Thakur will present the group's findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting in Boston.
As is often the case in science, Manor's research team at Case Western stumbled upon the findings entirely by accident. While studying the effect of vitamin E deficiency on the central nervous system, "we used liver tissue to practice our surgical techniques," recalled Manor, an associate professor of nutrition and pharmacology. To the team's surprise, they realized that the mice were in fact in the advanced stages of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Known as NASH for short, it's a common complication of obesity characterized by fat accumulation, oxidative stress and inflammation in the liver. It is the most severe form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and is a major cause of tissue scarring known as cirrhosis that leads to liver failure and may progress to liver cancer.
An essential antioxidant, vitamin E had been shown by recent studies to alleviate some symptoms of NASH in human patients, suggesting that there is a link between adequate vitamin E levels and liver disease. To test this hypothesis, the team studied a mouse that was engineered to lack a protein that regulates the levels of vitamin E in the body. As expected, they observed increased oxidative stress, fat deposition and other signs of liver injury in the mice. Importantly, points out Manor, "supplementation with vitamin E averted the majority of NASH-related symptoms in these animals, confirming the relationship between vitamin E deficiency and liver disease."
The precise effects of vitamin E on health have previously been difficult to ascertain, though its antioxidative properties were suggested to offer some protection from a variety of well-known maladies, including heart disease, cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS).
"These findings may have a significant impact on public health," says Manor, "as the vast majority of adults in the United States do not consume the amount of vitamin E recommended by the National Institute of Medicine."
For adults, the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin E is 15 milligrams a day. Vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, leafy greens and fortified cereals commonly contain vitamin E. "Simple and affordable dietary intervention may benefit people at risk for this debilitating disease," Manor says.
There is currently no treatment for NASH, making it one of the most common reasons for liver transplantation. Manor also points out that "NASH piggybacks on the two great epidemics of our time: obesity and Type 2 diabetes."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity affects more than one-third of adults and one-sixth of children in the U.S., while nearly one in 10 Americans today suffers from diabetes, rates that have been climbing over the past two decades. Thus, for Manor, the significance of his group's findings is not only the possibility that they will aid those who are currently sick but that they may also "affect many people who are presently healthy, but are at risk for becoming obese or diabetic in the future."
Moreover, Manor believes that his group's discovery will be key to determining the molecular details of NASH itself. "Right now, we really don't understand how NASH progresses from mild liver damage to severe liver failure," he said. "Our results will enable us to dissect the different steps in this progression, as well as study how oxidative stress affects liver function more generally, giving possible insights into other related disorders."
The team's work is supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
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The family of Sunil Tripathi endured much emotional pain as speculation swirled that the still-missing Brown University student was a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing. Users of the Reddit social news site fanned the flames ? and now they, along with the site's leadership, are apologizing to Tripathi's family.
"We have apologized privately to the family of missing college student Sunil Tripathi, as have various users and moderators," Erik Martin, Reddit's general manager, wrote in a blog post on Monday. He continued:
We want to take this opportunity to apologize publicly for the pain they have had to endure. We hope that this painful event will be channeled into something positive and the increased awareness will lead to Sunil's quick and safe return home. We encourage everyone to join and show your support to the Tripathi family and their search.
Martin noted that while "some of the activity on Reddit fueled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties," the crowd-sleuthing began "with noble intentions."
He also pointed out that the importance of Reddit's long-standing policy "to not allow personal information on [the] site" was emphasized in this situation. "We hoped that the crowdsourced search for new information would not spark exactly this type of witch hunt," Martin writes. "We were wrong. The search for the bombers bore less resemblance to the types of vindictive Internet witch hunts our no-personal-information rule was originally written for, but the outcome was no different."
Reddit users weren't alone in spreading false accusations about Tripathi. On Twitter, various high-followeraccountstweeted that police scanners identified Tripathi as a suspect. Around the same time, Facebook users posted accusations on a page set up to help locate the missing student.
Shortly after 2 a.m. ET on Friday, NBC News, via correspondent Pete Williams, reported on Twitter that "speculation that one of the bombing suspects is a missing student is not correct," citing law enforcement sources. By Friday afternoon, Martin quietly sent an initial apology to the Tripathi family via email. The family shared this email with NBC News at the time.
Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both 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+.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? From the T-101 to Data from Star Trek, humans have been presented with the fictional dilemma of how we empathize with robots. Robots now infiltrate our lives, toys like Furbies or robot vacuum cleaners bring us closer, but how do we really feel about these non-sentient objects on a human level? A recent study by researchers at the University of Duisburg Essen in Germany found that humans have similar brain function when shown images of affection and violence being inflicted on robots and humans.
Astrid Rosenthal-von der P?tten, Nicole Kr?mer, and Matthias Brand of the University of Duisburg Essen, will present their findings at the 63rd Annual International Communication Association conference in London. Rosenthal-von der P?tten, Kr?mer and Brand conducted two studies. In the first study, 40 participants watched videos of a small dinosaur-shaped robot that was treated in an affectionate or a violent way and measured their level of physiological arousal and asked for their emotional state directly after the videos. Participants reported to feel more negative watching the robot being abused and showed higher arousal during the negative video.
The second study conducted in collaboration with the Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Essen, used functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI), to investigate potential brain correlations of human-robot interaction in contrast to human-human interaction. The 14 participants were presented videos showing a human, a robot and an inanimate object, again being treated in either an affectionate or in a violent way. Affectionate interaction towards both, the robot and the human, resulted in similar neural activation patterns in classic limbic structures, indicating that they elicit similar emotional reactions. However, when comparing only the videos showing abusive behavior differences in neural activity suggested that participants show more negative empathetic concern for the human in the abuse condition.
A great deal of research in the field of human-robot interaction concentrates on the implementation of emotion models in robotic systems. These studies test implementations with regard to their believability and naturalness, their positive influence on participants, or enjoyment of the interaction. But there is little known on how people perceive "robotic" emotion and whether they react emotionally towards robots. People often have problems verbalizing their emotional state or find it strange to report on their emotions in human-robot interactions. Rosenthal-von der P?tten and Kr?mer's study utilized more objective measures linked to emotion like physiological arousal and brain activity associated with emotional processing.
"One goal of current robotics research is to develop robotic companions that establish a long-term relationship with a human user, because robot companions can be useful and beneficial tools. They could assist elderly people in daily tasks and enable them to live longer autonomously in their homes, help disabled people in their environments, or keep patients engaged during the rehabilitation process," said Rosenthal-von der P?tten. "A common problem is that a new technology is exciting at the beginning, but this effect wears off especially when it comes to tasks like boring and repetitive exercise in rehabilitation. The development and implementation of uniquely humanlike abilities in robots like theory of mind, emotion and empathy is considered to have the potential to solve this dilemma."
"Investigation on Empathy Towards Humans and Robots Using Psychophysiological Measures and fMRI," by Astrid Rosenthal-von der P?tten and Nicole Kr?mer; To be presented at the 63rd Annual International Communication Association Conference, London, England 17-21 June.
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Hot or cold, rain or snow, geoscientists say there's no evidence for earthquake weather. But the biggest storms are starting to prove them wrong.
The latest evidence for the link between earthquakes and major storms comes from Virginia, a state pummeled by Hurricane Irene in 2011. The storm hit just five days after the magnitude-5.8 Virginia earthquake, so hundreds of aftershocks were still rattling the state.
Seismologists saw a spike in aftershocks a few hours after the storm roared through, said Xiaofeng Meng, a graduate student at Georgia Tech and lead author of a study examining the aftershocks. The results of the research were presented Friday (April 19) at the Seismological Society of America's annual meeting in Salt Lake City.
The one-two punch was a unique natural experiment. An unusually dense network of earthquake monitors was already in place to watch the Virginia earthquake's residual rumblings. And the sheer number of aftershocks meant scientists had enough temblors to see the storm's possible effects.
Meng said the drop in air pressure as the hurricane passed over the region could have changed forces on faults stressed by the earthquake, sparking aftershocks. Perhaps the lower pressure unlocked the faults, letting them slip and thus causing earthquakes. The pressure drop from Hurricane Irene was within the range that can trigger earthquakes, Meng told OurAmazingPlanet.
In a similar vein, a 2009 study published in the journal Nature suggested pressure changes from typhoons in Taiwan are linked to slow-slip earthquakes, the gentle events that last for hours or days and are never felt at Earth's surface. Another way hurricanes and typhoons (same storms, different names) may start earthquakes is through heavy rains, which spawn landslides. As with atmospheric pressure changes, the landslide could shift the forces on underground faults, leading to earthquakes, according to research presented at the 2011 American Geophysical Union annual meeting.
The Georgia Tech team is not yet convinced the sharp increase in aftershocks after Hurricane Irene is truly linked to the hurricane ? it could just be a coincidence, Meng said. For example, there were unexplained small spikes before the hurricane arrived in Virginia.
"This is a debated topic," Meng said. "We hope to find solid evidence to prove or disprove the case."
Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
For development in Brazil, 2 crops are better than 1Public release date: 22-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kevin Stacey kevin_stacey@brown.edu 401-863-3766 Brown University
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] New research finds that double cropping planting two crops in a field in the same year is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians.
The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world's top producers of soybeans, corn, cotton, and other staple crops. That Brazil has become an agricultural powerhouse over the last decade or so is clear. What has been less clear is who is reaping the economic rewards of that agricultural intensification average Brazilians or wealthy landowners and outside investors.
Leah VanWey, associate professor of sociology at Brown University and the study's lead author, says her results suggest at least one type of agricultural intensification double cropping is associated with development that improves well-being for average rural Brazilians.
Looking at agricultural and economic data from the last decade, VanWey found that in municpios (counties) where double cropping is common, GDP and median per capita income were both substantially higher. Double cropping was also associated with higher quality schools and better public sanitation. "We looked at two indicators of private goods and two indicators of public goods," VanWey said. "Overall, we find this really nice pattern of impacts on development associated with double cropping. These benefits seem to be widespread through the population."
Meanwhile, intensification to single-crop fields from pasture with low stocking rates was not associated with development gains, the research found. VanWey says that is probably because double cropping is more labor intensive, which creates jobs, and more lucrative, which creates more tax revenue that can be invested in public goods. That was evidenced by a case study of two counties within Mato Grosso that was part of this new research.
"The community with the most double cropping also has a soy processing plant that employs thousands of workers as well as complementary poultry and swine raising and processing," VanWey said. "In the long run there isn't much money in just growing things and selling them, but processing allows the local area and workers to retain more of the per-unit cost of the final product."
The findings are published in an issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B focused on agricultural development in Brazil.
Mato Grosso has drawn much attention from scholars in recent years. It is not only the heart of Brazil's agricultural production but also sits on the border of the nation's cerrada (savanna) biome and the Amazon rainforest biome. Some evidence over the last decade suggests that even as agricultural production in the state has increased, deforestation in the Amazon region has slowed. For that reason, the state is seen by many as a model for agricultural development that minimizes harm to the environment.
To understand how land use is associated with economic development, VanWey teamed with John Mustard, professor of geological sciences at Brown, and Stephanie Spera, Mustard's graduate student. Spera and Mustard used imaging from NASA's Terra satellite to track land use changes in Mato Grosso from 2000 to 2011. They captured satellite images of the region every 16 days for a year. They looked for peaks in the greenness of the fields followed by a rapid loss of greenness, indicating the ripening and subsequent harvesting of a crop. Two peaks in greenness in the same year is an indicator that a field is double-cropped. Spera and Mustard recorded images from 2000 to 2001, and again from 2010 to 2011, to see how usage had changed over the decade. They found substantial increases in both single- and double-cropped fields.
VanWey then matched those data to local economic data, with the help of Brown undergraduates Rebecca de Sa and Dan Mahr.
The research showed that intensification to single-crop fields from pasture had no effect on economic variables. Double cropping, however, was associated with strong gains. For example, where double cropping was common, median income was substantially higher. According to VanWey's calculations, median income for citizens of Mato Grosso would be decreased from 346 Brazilian reals per month (about $190) to 144 reals without the effects of double cropping. On the other hand, if all areas double cropped, monthly income would increase to 459 reals.
"[Double cropping] increases median incomes in an entire county, not just among people working in agriculture," VanWey said. "So I'm arguing that it's going to have these effects on the entire economy by providing employment that's related to the agriculture."
The positive association with public goods such as schools was strong as well. For that analysis, VanWey looked at a 10-point quality assessment scale used by the Brazilian government. She calculated that if all areas of Mato Grosso double cropped, scores on the assessment for public schools would increase from an average of 4.2 to 5.4.
The increases in measures of both personal wealth and public goods suggest widespread economic development associated with double cropping, VanWey concludes. However she's not yet ready to advocate for public policy steps like blanket subsidies for double cropping. More research needs to be done, she says, to find out why double cropping thrives in some places but not others.
She and her colleagues are working on those questions now.
###
Funding for the research came from NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and Brown University's Environmental Change Initiative.
Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call 401-863-2476.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
For development in Brazil, 2 crops are better than 1Public release date: 22-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kevin Stacey kevin_stacey@brown.edu 401-863-3766 Brown University
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] New research finds that double cropping planting two crops in a field in the same year is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians.
The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world's top producers of soybeans, corn, cotton, and other staple crops. That Brazil has become an agricultural powerhouse over the last decade or so is clear. What has been less clear is who is reaping the economic rewards of that agricultural intensification average Brazilians or wealthy landowners and outside investors.
Leah VanWey, associate professor of sociology at Brown University and the study's lead author, says her results suggest at least one type of agricultural intensification double cropping is associated with development that improves well-being for average rural Brazilians.
Looking at agricultural and economic data from the last decade, VanWey found that in municpios (counties) where double cropping is common, GDP and median per capita income were both substantially higher. Double cropping was also associated with higher quality schools and better public sanitation. "We looked at two indicators of private goods and two indicators of public goods," VanWey said. "Overall, we find this really nice pattern of impacts on development associated with double cropping. These benefits seem to be widespread through the population."
Meanwhile, intensification to single-crop fields from pasture with low stocking rates was not associated with development gains, the research found. VanWey says that is probably because double cropping is more labor intensive, which creates jobs, and more lucrative, which creates more tax revenue that can be invested in public goods. That was evidenced by a case study of two counties within Mato Grosso that was part of this new research.
"The community with the most double cropping also has a soy processing plant that employs thousands of workers as well as complementary poultry and swine raising and processing," VanWey said. "In the long run there isn't much money in just growing things and selling them, but processing allows the local area and workers to retain more of the per-unit cost of the final product."
The findings are published in an issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B focused on agricultural development in Brazil.
Mato Grosso has drawn much attention from scholars in recent years. It is not only the heart of Brazil's agricultural production but also sits on the border of the nation's cerrada (savanna) biome and the Amazon rainforest biome. Some evidence over the last decade suggests that even as agricultural production in the state has increased, deforestation in the Amazon region has slowed. For that reason, the state is seen by many as a model for agricultural development that minimizes harm to the environment.
To understand how land use is associated with economic development, VanWey teamed with John Mustard, professor of geological sciences at Brown, and Stephanie Spera, Mustard's graduate student. Spera and Mustard used imaging from NASA's Terra satellite to track land use changes in Mato Grosso from 2000 to 2011. They captured satellite images of the region every 16 days for a year. They looked for peaks in the greenness of the fields followed by a rapid loss of greenness, indicating the ripening and subsequent harvesting of a crop. Two peaks in greenness in the same year is an indicator that a field is double-cropped. Spera and Mustard recorded images from 2000 to 2001, and again from 2010 to 2011, to see how usage had changed over the decade. They found substantial increases in both single- and double-cropped fields.
VanWey then matched those data to local economic data, with the help of Brown undergraduates Rebecca de Sa and Dan Mahr.
The research showed that intensification to single-crop fields from pasture had no effect on economic variables. Double cropping, however, was associated with strong gains. For example, where double cropping was common, median income was substantially higher. According to VanWey's calculations, median income for citizens of Mato Grosso would be decreased from 346 Brazilian reals per month (about $190) to 144 reals without the effects of double cropping. On the other hand, if all areas double cropped, monthly income would increase to 459 reals.
"[Double cropping] increases median incomes in an entire county, not just among people working in agriculture," VanWey said. "So I'm arguing that it's going to have these effects on the entire economy by providing employment that's related to the agriculture."
The positive association with public goods such as schools was strong as well. For that analysis, VanWey looked at a 10-point quality assessment scale used by the Brazilian government. She calculated that if all areas of Mato Grosso double cropped, scores on the assessment for public schools would increase from an average of 4.2 to 5.4.
The increases in measures of both personal wealth and public goods suggest widespread economic development associated with double cropping, VanWey concludes. However she's not yet ready to advocate for public policy steps like blanket subsidies for double cropping. More research needs to be done, she says, to find out why double cropping thrives in some places but not others.
She and her colleagues are working on those questions now.
###
Funding for the research came from NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and Brown University's Environmental Change Initiative.
Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call 401-863-2476.
[ | 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.
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Public release date: 22-Apr-2013
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