Coalition files legal action over WA charter law - Northwest - The ...

By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP | Associated Press ? Published February 27, 2013 Modified February 27, 2013

SEATTLE ? A coalition of educators and community groups on Wednesday filed a legal challenge with the state attorney general, questioning the constitutionality of Washington's new charter schools law.

The three-page "legal demand" asks Attorney General Bob Ferguson to investigate seven constitutional issues with the law approved by voters in November.

The coalition - led by the Washington Education Association, the League of Women Voters and El Centro del la Raza - says if the attorney general doesn't take action, they will file a lawsuit in state courts. Their issues range from the way the law would divert money from public schools to private non-profit organizations to a perceived violation of the requirement that the superintendent of public instruction should supervise everything related to public schools.

They question the way levy dollars could be converted to a new purpose without consulting voters if a regular public school is converted to a charter school, as is allowed under the new law.

The group, which includes the state's largest teachers' union, doesn't like a provision of the new law that restricts collective bargaining units of charter school employees to the school in which they work.

"The Charter School Act is an unconstitutional law that impedes the state's progress toward fully funding public education and places even greater pressure on school districts to fill this gap," their letter said.

The attorney general's office did not immediately reply to a phone call requesting comment.

Washington became the 42nd state to OK the independent public schools in November. Voters authorized the opening of up to 40 charter schools over five years. The new law sets up a Charter School Commission to authorize groups to open charter schools and puts the State Board of Education in charge of approving applications by local school districts that also want to authorize charter schools.

Source: http://www.theolympian.com/2013/02/27/2440236/coalition-files-legal-action-over.html

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2 Shocking Hollywood Splits! Find Out Who It Was...

Michelle Williams & Jason Segel and Rachel McAdams & Michael Sheen have called it quits! See more celeb pairs who are back to going solo

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/gone-splitsville-celebrity-breakups/1-b-16462?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Agone-splitsville-celebrity-breakups-16462

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Ambulatory Healthcare Services announces opening of dedicated ...

The new facility opens Sunday through Thursday from 7am to 3pm and provides pre-employment and occupational health screening and. These services will enable organizations to regularly monitor workers exposed to hazards within the workplace. It will also help detect occupational diseases and work-related illnesses.

Organizations will also benefit from the consultancy provided by the new facility on how to take precautionary measures against exposure to work-related diseases and hazards to ensure the wellbeing of employees. The workers using the facilities of the clinic will receive basic fitness advice to achieve a good work-life balance.

Earlier, the tests were carried out from the Disease Prevention & Screening Center located adjacent to Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi.

Mohamed Hawas, Acting Director of Disease Prevention and Screening Centre, AHS, said: "The new dedicated facility will prove convenient for government agencies and other organizations that are mandated to provide an occupational medical certification for their staff to ensure their medical fitness. The purpose built building is equipped to cater to large clientele and in pleasant surroundings."

Tests carried out by the center include audiometry for employees that are regularly exposed to loud noise, lung function tests for individuals subjected to environments with dust and fumes, and blindness testing for professions where good vision is required for the prevention of accidents. Color vision testing is also available at the center.

The new department is fitted out with specific waiting areas for male and female clients. The facility is staffed by two occupational health specialists, a pulmonary disease specialist and a general practitioner. The support function includes two nurses, an occupational health technician, phlebotomist and a radiographer.

Al Madina Occupational Health Department is licensed by the Health Authority - Abu Dhabi (HAAD) to provide these special services in the emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Source: http://www.ameinfo.com/ambulatory-healthcare-services-announces-dedicated-occupational-331598

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Sears Canada profit falls on weak electronics sales

(Reuters) - Department store chain Sears Canada Inc's fourth-quarter profit fell 3 percent on lower sales of hardware and home electronic goods.

Revenue at the company, which is struggling to turn around its business ahead of U.S. retailer Target Corp's Canadian launch this spring, fell 5 percent to C$1.29 billion ($1.25 billion).

Net earnings fell to C$39.9 million ($38.8 million), or 39 Canadian cents per share, from C$41 million, or 39 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.

Fourth-quarter profit included a pretax gain of C$29.7 million from the sale of a joint venture interest and a voluntary buyout program, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Adjusted EBIDTA fell 39 percent to C$62.4 million.

Parent Sears Holdings Corp , which cut its stake in Sears Canada to 51 percent from 90 percent in November, said in January that Sears Canada's fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA would fall by about half.

Sales at established stores, a key measure for retailers, fell 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter on lower sales of home electronics and snowblowers.

Sears Holding said in January that sales at the Canadian unit were affected by unseasonably warm temperatures in parts of Canada.

Rival retailer Canadian Tire Corp said last week same-store sales fell 1.1 percent due to the late onset of winter in Ontario and Quebec.

Canadian retail sales plunged 2.1 percent in December amid slumping new-car sales and a weak Christmas shopping season, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Department store sales fell 9.6 percent.

Sears Canada's shares closed at C$9.30 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

($1 = 1.0287 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sears-canada-profit-falls-weak-hardware-sales-120957546--sector.html

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Novel combination therapy shuts down escape route, killing glioblastoma tumor cells

Novel combination therapy shuts down escape route, killing glioblastoma tumor cells

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of brain tumor in adults, is challenging to treat because the tumors rapidly become resistant to therapy. As cancer researchers are learning more about the causes of tumor cell growth and drug resistance, they are discovering molecular pathways that might lead to new targeted therapies to potentially treat this deadly cancer.

Scientists at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in San Diego worked collaboratively across the laboratories of Drs. Paul Mischel, Web Cavenee and Frank Furnari to investigate one such molecular pathway called the mammalian target of rapamycin or mTOR. This signaling pathway is hyperactivated in close to 90 percent of glioblastomas and plays a critical role in regulating tumor growth and survival. Therapies that inhibit mTOR signaling are under investigation as drug development targets, but results to date have been disappointing: mTOR inhibitors halt the growth but fail to kill the tumor cells.

A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences uncovers an unexpected but important molecular mechanism of mTOR inhibitor resistance and identifies a novel drug combination that reverses this resistance.

The story begins with a closer look at a gene-encoded protein called promyleocytic leukemia gene or PML. The study investigators explored the role of PML in causing resistance to mTOR inhibitor treatment. They found that when glioblastoma patients are treated with drugs that target the mTOR pathway, the levels of PML rise dramatically. Further, they showed that PML upregulation made the tumor cells resistant to mTOR inhibitors, and that if they suppressed the ability of the tumor cells to upregulate the PML protein, the tumor cells died in response to the mTOR inhibitor therapy.

"When we looked at cells in in vivo models and patients treated in the clinic, it became clear that the glioblastoma cells massively regulated PML enabling them to escape the effects of mTOR inhibitor therapy," reported senior author Paul Mischel, MD, Ludwig Institute member based at the University of California at San Diego.

"Our team hypothesized that if we could use a pharmacological approach to get rid of PML and combine it with an mTOR inhibitor, it could change the response from halting growth to cell death. The question was how?" added Mischel.

Previous research had shown that the use of low-dose arsenic could cause degradation of the PML protein in patients with leukemia. The team hypothesized that if arsenic could degrade PML, it may reverse resistance to mTOR inhibitors. The combination of mTOR and low-dose arsenic in mice indeed showed a synergistic effect, with massive tumor cell death along with very significant shrinkage of the tumor in mice with no ill side effects.

"Current therapy upregulates PML, turning off the mTOR signaling pathway. The tumor cells hide, waiting for the target signal to return," said Mischel. "When low-dose arsenic is added, not only does it stop the cell from returning, it shuts down the escape route killing the tumor cell."

These results present the first clinical evidence that mTOR inhibition promotes PML upregulation in mice and patients, and that it mediates drug resistance. The clinical relevance was confirmed when researchers looked at before- and after-treatment tissue samples from patients treated with mTOR inhibitors, confirming that PML goes up significantly in post treatment of mTOR inhibitors.

"These data suggest a new approach for potential treatment of glioblastoma," said Mischel. "We are moving forward to test that possibility in people."

Post-doctoral students Akio Iwanami and Beatrice Gini from the Mischel lab as well as Ciro Zanca from the Furnari/Cavenee lab, also contributed significantly to this paper.

###

Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research: http://www.licr.org

Thanks to Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 27 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127038/Novel_combination_therapy_shuts_down_escape_route__killing_glioblastoma_tumor_cells

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TransAlta profit rises on lower maintenance costs

(Reuters) - Canadian power generation company TransAlta Corp reported a 58 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit, helped in part by lower maintenance costs.

Net earnings attributable to common shareholders rose to C$38 million ($37 million), or 15 Canadian cents per share, from C$24 million, or 11 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.

Comparable earnings rose to 21 Canadian cents per share from 13 Canadian cents per share.

Revenue fell 6 percent to C$661 million.

($1 = 1.0287 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/transalta-profit-rises-lower-maintenance-costs-130751622--finance.html

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Video: Brothers blaze trail in renowned classical orchestras

>>> back now at 8:46 with two young men from chicago enjoying enormous success in a surprising field. nbc's ron mott is here with their story. good morning.

>> it's a really lovely story, natalie. it's about the magill brothers, young african-american men who play clarinet and flute from major classical orchestras here in the u.s. they have highly coveted lead roles in the world where maybe 4% of the musicians are african-american or latino. a brother act unique in the rarefied world of classical music . anthony , who is 33, plays clarinet for the renowned new york metropolitan opera . while demare, four years older, plays lead flute for the seattle symphony orchestra . what is it about your brother's music that make it is special?

>> anthony 's musical voice is very, very clear. his personality shines. it is magnified through his clarinet.

>> my brother is pretty scary growing up when he talked about music and i respected everything he said. i would hear him practicing hours and hours. he was practicing more hours than i think would be considered normal.

>> they grew up in a working class household on the edge of chicago 's more troubled neighborhoods. parents ira, a retired teacher, and demare sr., a former firefighter mortgaged the house five times to pay for music lessons .

>> classical music , music without words as some people in my family would say, i would use it to lull them to sleep.

>> they believe their boys' careers began the moment demare, just 7 at the time, found an old flute in a closet, a flute they're keeping forever.

>> that's a foul right there.

>> reporter: their music really took off at a place where the magills now get rock star treatment, nonprofit that offers free lessons to disadvantage kids after school for nearly 30 years. they say they only felt different when they competed at other music schools .

>> in that context, there was no one that looked like me and i got a kick out of that. especially if i won.

>> reporter: they won a lot and earned scholarships and a chance to perform as teenagers in a very special neighborhood.

>> my television neighbor, demare and anthony magill .

>> renowned cellist yoyo ma asked demare to perform with him at the president's first inaugural.

>> better grades.

>> oh, there you go.

>> now whenever they're in chicago , they try to pass along what they've learned to the next generation. you may not know it, but the world of classical music is quite competitive. hundreds of musicians auditioning for those lead roles and the magill brothers now have. most of those positions have tenure so the magills could be in those prominent orchestra seats for life.

>> they are ground breakers for sure. ron allen , thank you so much.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50971210/

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Parents as Partners in Jewish Special Education | RJ Blog

by Lisa Friedman

Recently I had the good fortune to offer a workshop for educators that I called, ?Parents as Partners: Working with Parents in Jewish Special Needs Education.? I was well aware, from the start of the workshop, that the educators assembled wanted pointers on how to handle difficult conversations with parents. They were eager to help their students, but seemed to feel great apprehension around how to potentially develop open and supportive communication with parents.

Open and supportive communication with parents is essential for a successful Jewish supplemental school experience for any child, especially those with special learning needs. However, my goal in this workshop was to encourage a ?bigger picture,? more reflective approach to such dialogues, rather than just diving in to the challenging conversations.

Here are the key points that I feel can help to build the foundation for meaningful, supportive and productive relationships with parents:

• It?s all about relationships.
  All of the work that we do in synagogues is relationship-based. Building strong, lasting relationships with congregants is at the center of the work of rabbis, cantors, educators and other synagogue professionals. It should also be at the center of the work of our teachers in supplemental schools. Strong relationships are built on trust. Our parents need to trust that we are really here to support their children and that we really want to take this journey with them. All the more so for families of children with special needs, which leads me to my second key point.

• Say YES:
  Parents of children with special needs can spend many hours of their days in ?battle.? They often struggle with doctors, insurance agents, therapists, secular school teachers and so on. When they join a faith community, what I believe they most want is to find a place where they don?t have to fight, where they can be accepted as they are and where their family can come for respite and rejuvenation. It seems logical that they should be able find this in a synagogue community. The most significant thing that synagogue professionals can say to parents and family members of those with special needs or disabilities is, ?Yes, we can meet Jonah?s needs. Now help me understand how to do that? or, ?Yes, of course your family can worship here and be a part of our community. Please help me understand how we can make that possible for you.?I am not suggesting that every request can and will be met with ?yes,? but we have to start by opening the door and building the relationship, so that if there are things that are not possible, we can speak about them openly and honestly. When we start with yes, we rely on our trusting relationships to guide us.

• Parents of children with special needs need to grieve.
  When parents learn of a child?s disability, they need to grieve ? not for the child, but for the idea of what they thought parenting would be. They have to process through the grief of what they may not be able to have, while coming to terms with the new reality of what they can have. This is not easy. But isn?t this the very nature of the work of a religious community? Aren?t we in the business of pastoral care?Too often, I think that educators believe that grief counseling is the work of clergy. Too often, we compartmentalize our congregant?s needs into ?clergy stuff? and ?school stuff.? But when a child with special needs significantly struggles in religious school, parents can be thrown back into the grief cycle, this time wondering if they will have to give up on their idea of bar/bat mitzvah (not to mention confirmation, marriage, or any other Jewish life cycle events). When educators focus on a student?s limitations, they may inadvertently put a family back into a stance of defensiveness. Again, I am not suggesting that we don?t ever discuss a child?s limitations, but rather that we need to do this in the context of supporting relationships that begin with ?yes.? When we honor the grief process and support our families through such challenges, we continue to foster trusting relationships.

Fostering relationships leads us to build community and enables us to open our doors, our congregations, our schools and our hearts so that all will be welcome.

Lisa Friedman is the Education Co-Director at Temple Beth-El in Hillsborough, New Jersey. This position includes overseeing an extensive Special Needs program within the Religious School with programs designed to help students successfully learn Hebrew, learn about their Jewish heritage and feel connected to their Jewish community. In addition, Lisa?s works with families, staff and clergy to ensure a smooth transition for special needs students from Religious School through the b?nei mitzvah process and beyond.

Originally posted at Jewish Special Needs

Source: http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2013/02/12/parents-as-partners-in-jewish-special-education/

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Science And Tech In President Obama's SOTU

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Welcome to the Scientific American podcast Science Talk, posted on February 13, 2013. I?m Steve Mirsky. On this episode: ?Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race.? That?s the President, of course. In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama talked about climate change, energy and manufacturing technology innovation and STEM education, that is, science, technology, engineering and math. Here are the approximately 12 minutes of the speech that dealt with those subjects:

?Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing.? After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three.? Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan.? Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico.? And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again.?

?There are things we can do, right now, to accelerate this trend.? Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio.? A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.? There?s no reason this can?t happen in other towns.

?So tonight, I?m announcing the launch of three more of these manufacturing hubs, where businesses will partner with the Department of Defense and Energy to turn regions left behind by globalization into global centers of high-tech jobs.? And I ask this Congress to help create a network of 15 of these hubs and guarantee that the next revolution in manufacturing is made right here in America.? We can get that done.?

?Now, if we want to make the best products, we also have to invest in the best ideas.? Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy -- every dollar.? Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer?s.? They?re developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs; devising new material to make batteries 10 times more powerful.? Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation.? Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race.? We need to make those investments.??

?Today, no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy.? After years of talking about it, we?re finally poised to control our own energy future.? We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years.? We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas, and the amount of renewable energy we generate from sources like wind and solar -- with tens of thousands of good American jobs to show for it.? We produce more natural gas than ever before -- and nearly everyone?s energy bill is lower because of it.? And over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen.

?But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.? Now, it?s true that no single event makes a trend.? But the fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15.? Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods -- all are now more frequent and more intense.? We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science -- and act before it?s too late.

?Now, the good news is we can make meaningful progress on this issue while driving strong economic growth.? I urge this Congress to get together, pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago.? But if Congress won?t act soon to protect future generations, I will.? I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.

?Four years ago, other countries dominated the clean energy market and the jobs that came with it.? And we?ve begun to change that.? Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America.? So let?s generate even more.? Solar energy gets cheaper by the year -- let?s drive down costs even further. As long as countries like China keep going all in on clean energy, so must we.

?Now, in the meantime, the natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence.? We need to encourage that.? And that?s why my administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits.? That?s got to be part of an all-of-the-above plan.? But I also want to work with this Congress to encourage the research and technology that helps natural gas burn even cleaner and protects our air and our water.

?In fact, much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together.? So tonight, I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.? If a nonpartisan coalition of CEOs and retired generals and admirals can get behind this idea, then so can we.? Let?s take their advice and free our families and businesses from the painful spikes in gas prices we?ve put up with for far too long.

?I?m also issuing a new goal for America:? Let?s cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next 20 years.? We'll work with the states to do it.? Those states with the best ideas to create jobs and lower energy bills by constructing more efficient buildings will receive federal support to help make that happen.

?America?s energy sector is just one part of an aging infrastructure badly in need of repair.? Ask any CEO where they?d rather locate and hire -- a country with deteriorating roads and bridges, or one with high-speed rail and Internet; high-tech schools, self-healing power grids.? The CEO of Siemens America -- a company that brought hundreds of new jobs to North Carolina -- said that if we upgrade our infrastructure, they?ll bring even more jobs.? And that?s the attitude of a lot of companies all around the world??

?These initiatives in manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, housing -- all these things will help entrepreneurs and small business owners expand and create new jobs.? But none of it will matter unless we also equip our citizens with the skills and training to fill those jobs. And that has to start at the earliest possible age.

?Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road.? But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program.? Most middle-class parents can?t afford a few hundred bucks a week for a private preschool.? And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives.? So tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.? That's something we should be able to do.

?Every dollar we invest in high-quality early childhood education can save more than seven dollars later on -- by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime.? In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children, like Georgia or Oklahoma, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own.? We know this works.? So let?s do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. Let?s give our kids that chance.??

?Let?s also make sure that a high school diploma puts our kids on a path to a good job.? Right now, countries like Germany focus on graduating their high school students with the equivalent of a technical degree from one of our community colleges.? So those German kids, they're ready for a job when they graduate high school.? They've been trained for the jobs that are there.? Now at schools like P-Tech in Brooklyn, a collaboration between New York Public Schools and City University of New York and IBM, students will graduate with a high school diploma and an associate's degree in computers or engineering. We need to give every American student opportunities like this.

?And four years ago, we started Race to the Top -- a competition that convinced almost every state to develop smarter curricula and higher standards, all for about 1 percent of what we spend on education each year.? Tonight, I?m announcing a new challenge to redesign America?s high schools so they better equip graduates for the demands of a high-tech economy.? And we?ll reward schools that develop new partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on science, technology, engineering and math -- the skills today?s employers are looking for to fill the jobs that are there right now and will be there in the future.?

That?s it for this episode. Get your science news at our website, www.scientificamerican.com, where you can check out the excerpt from Ben Goldacre?s new book Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients. The excerpt is titled: ?Trial sans Error: How Pharma-Funded Research Cherry-Picks Positive Results? I?m scheduled to interview Ben next week, so tune in soon for a full podcast about the book, which is one of the titles available as your free book at audible.com, www.audible.com/sciam. Meanwhile, you can follow us on Twitter, where you?ll get a tweet whenever a new article hits the website. Our twitter name is @sciam. For Scientific American?s Science Talk, I?m Steve Mirsky, thanks for clicking on us.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=18964ccb6335d7c1dc4dd877ff688e1e

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New research shows complexity of global warming

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Global warming from greenhouse gases affects rainfall patterns in the world differently than that from solar heating, according to a study by an international team of scientists in the January 31 issue of Nature. Using computer model simulations, the scientists, led by Jian Liu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Bin Wang (International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa), showed that global rainfall has increased less over the present-day warming period than during the Medieval Warm Period, even though temperatures are higher today than they were then.

The team examined global precipitation changes over the last millennium and future projection to the end of 21st century, comparing natural changes from solar heating and volcanism with changes from man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Using an atmosphere-ocean coupled climate model that simulates realistically both past and present-day climate conditions, the scientists found that for every degree rise in global temperature, the global rainfall rate since the Industrial Revolution has increased less by about 40% than during past warming phases of the earth.

Why does warming from solar heating and from greenhouse gases have such different effects on global precipitation?

"Our climate model simulations show that this difference results from different sea surface temperature patterns. When warming is due to increased greenhouse gases, the gradient of sea surface temperature (SST) across the tropical Pacific weakens, but when it is due to increased solar radiation, the gradient increases. For the same average global surface temperature increase, the weaker SST gradient produces less rainfall, especially over tropical land," says co-author Bin Wang, professor of meteorology.

But why does warming from greenhouse gases and from solar heating affect the tropical Pacific SST gradient differently?

"Adding long-wave absorbers, that is heat-trapping greenhouse gases, to the atmosphere decreases the usual temperature difference between the surface and the top of the atmosphere, making the atmosphere more stable," explains lead-author Jian Liu. "The increased atmospheric stability weakens the trade winds, resulting in stronger warming in the eastern than the western Pacific, thus reducing the usual SST gradient?a situation similar to El Ni?o."

Solar radiation, on the other hand, heats the earth's surface, increasing the usual temperature difference between the surface and the top of the atmosphere without weakening the trade winds. The result is that heating warms the western Pacific, while the eastern Pacific remains cool from the usual ocean upwelling.

"While during past global warming from solar heating the steeper tropical east-west SST pattern has won out, we suggest that with future warming from greenhouse gases, the weaker gradient and smaller increase in yearly rainfall rate will win out," concludes Wang.

###

Jian Liu, Bin Wang, Mark A. Cane, So-Young Yim, and June-Yi Lee: Divergent global precipitation changes induced by natural versus anthropogenic forcing. Nature, 493 (7434), 656-659; DOI: 10.1038/nature11784.

University of Hawaii ? SOEST:

Thanks to University of Hawaii ? SOEST for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 22 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126550/New_research_shows_complexity_of_global_warming

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Johnny Cash Receives Forever Stamp : MusicRow ? Nashville's ...

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The United States Postal Service will release a Johnny Cash Forever stamp as part of the 2013 Music Icons series.

The portrait was?made by Frank Bez during the 1963 photo shoot for the project Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. Greg Breeding served as art director and designer for the stamp.

?We get about 40,000 suggestions for stamp ideas each year but only about 20 topics make the cut,? said?USPS representative Mark Saunders to?Matt Murray of TODAY. ?These suggestions are reviewed by the Postmaster General?s Citizens? Stamp Advisory, whose role is to narrow down that 40,000 to roughly 20 and then provide their recommendations to the Postmaster General for final approval.?

A release date for the Johnny Cash stamp has not yet been announced. The name and likeness remain under license from the John R. Cash Revocable Trust.

The?Music Icon?series is issued as part of the 2013 program, which includes the Hatch Show Print Emancipation Proclamation?design.Tejano music?s Lydia Mendoza?inaugurated the Music Icons Series, which is expected to include three influential music makers.

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Eric Parker serves as Marketing Manager for MusicRow, RowFax and the CountryBreakout Chart. He holds a B.B.A. in Entertainment and Music Business with a background working with label, publishing, management and PR firms.

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Source: http://www.musicrow.com/2013/01/johnny-cash-receives-forever-stamp/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=johnny-cash-receives-forever-stamp

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