WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House has voted to continue the collection of hundreds of millions of Americans' phone records in the fight against terrorism.
The House rejected a measure to end the program's authority. The vote was 217-205 on Wednesday.
Republican Rep. Justin Amash had challenged the program as an indiscriminate collection of phone records. His measure, if approved by the full House and Senate and signed by the president, would have ended the program's statutory authority.
The White House, national security experts in Congress and the Republican establishment had lobbied hard against Amash's effort.
Libertarian-leaning conservatives and some liberal Democrats had backed Amash's effort.
The vote was unlikely to settle the fight pitting privacy rights against government efforts to thwart terrorism.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Originally moths developed ears so that they could hear their worst enemy, the bat, but now moths also use their ears to communicate about sex in a great number of different ways.
In what has to be one of the most brilliant self-defense mechanisms ever developed, several species of tropical moths are able to rasp their genitals against their bodies to produce ultrasonic signals that confuse an attacking bat's acoustical targeting system.
Several species of Tiger Moth and Hawk Moth have been found to use this technique, which is thought to serve as a warning for bats to keep their distance as the insects are equipped with dangerous barbed legs they're not afraid to use. But it's also a clever way to jam a bat's radar, or at least momentarily throw them off target giving the moths a few precious seconds to make their escape. Not to mention the effect it has on the Tiger Moth bar scene. [Nature via Popular Science]
Until now, Logitech's Harmony line has been the name in programmable remotes. Now the company's back with three follow-up products, and they differ enough from earlier models to warrant an explanation. Instead of using a programmable IR remote, the Harmony Ultimate, Harmony Smart Control and Harmony Ultimate Hub each offload the IR-emitting duties to a networked device, allowing smartphones and tablets to act as remotes too. Additionally, the Hub uses Bluetooth to control your game console. Ranging in price from $99 to $349, the lineup covers almost every budget, with the Hub sold as a standalone accessory for smartphones and tablets. Meanwhile, the Smart Control includes a simple remote, and the high-end Ultimate Hub swaps a basic remote for the Harmony Touch. How exactly might these enhance your home theater enjoyment? Read on to find out.
July 1, 2013 ? The agriculture industry is researching new technologies to help feed the growing population. But feeding the world without harming air quality is a challenge.
According to a new article in Animal Frontiers, biotechnologies increase food production and reduce harmful gas output from cattle.
"We are increasing the amount of product with same input," said Clayton Neumeier, PhD student at University of California, Davis, in an interview.
In the Animal Frontiers paper, Neumeier describes a recent experiment using biotechnologies. In the experiment, a test group of cattle were treated with biotechnologies. Different groups of cattle received implants, Ionophores and Beta-adrenergic agonists. These biotechnologies help cattle grow more efficiently. A control group of cattle were not treated with any of these biotechnologies.
Researchers measured gas output by placing finishing steers in a special corral that traps emissions. Each treatment group was tested four times to ensure accurate results.
The researchers also tested a dairy biotechnology called rBST. This biotechnology is a synthetic version of a cattle hormone that does not affect humans. Many producers inject cows with rBST to help them produce more milk.
In their experiment, the researchers gave rBST to a test group of cows and gave no rBST to a control group of cows. They discovered that the rBST group produced more milk per cow. When cows produce more milk, greenhouse gas emissions decrease because farms need fewer cows.
Dr. Kim Stackhouse, National Cattleman's Beef Association Director of Sustainability, said animal agriculture has reduced emissions through the use of technologies. Technologies that improve animal performance, crop yields, and manure management and the installation of biogas recovery systems have all contributed to reducing the environmental impact of beef.
Biogas recovery systems are used in processing facilities to produce energy from animal waste. Animal waste is collected in lagoons, where the gas is captured. The gas is transported through an internal combustion area that produces energy for heat and electricity.
"I expect there to be more improvement as we continue be more efficient, continue to do more with less and also strive to find new improvement opportunities," Stackhouse said.
Some consumers do not like the use of biotechnology in food production. Neumeier thinks these consumers are unaware of the benefits of biotechnology. His research shows that biotechnology can produce more food and lower gas emissions.
"We need to inform them that these are valuable tools for those two reasons and not be turned off by the use of biotechnology," Neumeier said.
Bioengineering fungi for biofuels and chemicals productionPublic release date: 1-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, July 1, 2013Among the increasingly valuable roles fungi are playing in the biotechnology industry is their ability to produce enzymes capable of releasing sugars from plants, trees, and other forms of complex biomass, which can then be converted to biofuels and biobased chemicals. Advances in fungal biology and in bioengineering fungal systems industrial applications are explored in a series of articles in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles are available on the Industrial Biotechnology website.
Guest Editors Scott Baker, PhD, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL, Richland, WA), Antoine Margeot, PhD, IFP Energies nouvelles (Rueil-Malmaison Cedex, France), and Adrian Tsang, PhD (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), collaborated on the IB IN DEPTHSpecial Section on Fungal Biology in Industrial Biotechnology.
In the Overview "Fungi and Industrial Biotechnology A Special Issue for an Amazing Kingdom," Dr. Baker says, "For more than a century fungi have had an enormous footprint in industrial biotechnology, from the first US biotechnology patent to current research in biofuels and renewable chemicals."
The Special Section includes Review articles by Kevin McCluskey, PhD, Curator of the Fungal Genetics Stock Center at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, entitled "Biological Resource Centers Provide Data and Characterized Living Material for Industrial Biotechnology," and by Justin Powlowski, PhD's group at the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Etienne Jourdier, PhD, and colleagues present a "Comprehensive Study and Modeling of Acetic Acid Effect on Trichoderma reesei Growth." Contributing the research study "In-Stream Itaconic Acid Recovery from Aspergillus terreus Fedbatch Fermentation" is a research team from TNO Microbiology & Systems Biology, Zeist, the Netherlands, let by Professor Peter Punt.
Included in the Fungal Biology Special Section is an IB Interview with Blake Simmons, PhD, Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI, Emeryville, CA) and Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, CA), and Jon Magnuson, PhD, JBEI and PNNL. John Nicksich, Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (PNNL, Richland, WA), describes the cutting-edge technology used to explore and bioengineer fungi in the Catalyzing Innovation article "EMSL Capabilities and Expertise: Pushing the Frontiers of Bioengineering."
"Scientific and technological advances in the life sciences are providing exciting new ways to engage old and familiar microbial friends in a number of novel and innovative industrial biotechnology activities," says Larry Walker, PhD, Co-Editor-in-Chief and Professor, Biological & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
###
About the Journal
Industrial Biotechnology, led by Co-Editors-in-Chief Larry Walker, PhD, and Glenn Nedwin, PhD, MoT, is an authoritative journal focused on biobased industrial and environmental products and processes, published bimonthly in print and online. The Journal reports on the science, business, and policy developments of the emerging global bioeconomy, including biobased production of energy and fuels, chemicals, materials, and consumer goods. The articles published include critically reviewed original research in all related sciences (biology, biochemistry, chemical and process engineering, agriculture), in addition to expert commentary on current policy, funding, markets, business, legal issues, and science trends. Industrial Biotechnology offers the premier forum bridging basic research and R&D with later-stage commercialization for sustainable biobased industrial and environmental applications.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Environmental Engineering Science and Sustainability: The Journal of Record. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
140 Huguenot St.,
New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215 http://www.liebertpub.com
Phone: (914) 740-2100
(800) M-LIEBERT
Fax: (914) 740-2101
[ | 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.
Bioengineering fungi for biofuels and chemicals productionPublic release date: 1-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, July 1, 2013Among the increasingly valuable roles fungi are playing in the biotechnology industry is their ability to produce enzymes capable of releasing sugars from plants, trees, and other forms of complex biomass, which can then be converted to biofuels and biobased chemicals. Advances in fungal biology and in bioengineering fungal systems industrial applications are explored in a series of articles in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles are available on the Industrial Biotechnology website.
Guest Editors Scott Baker, PhD, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL, Richland, WA), Antoine Margeot, PhD, IFP Energies nouvelles (Rueil-Malmaison Cedex, France), and Adrian Tsang, PhD (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), collaborated on the IB IN DEPTHSpecial Section on Fungal Biology in Industrial Biotechnology.
In the Overview "Fungi and Industrial Biotechnology A Special Issue for an Amazing Kingdom," Dr. Baker says, "For more than a century fungi have had an enormous footprint in industrial biotechnology, from the first US biotechnology patent to current research in biofuels and renewable chemicals."
The Special Section includes Review articles by Kevin McCluskey, PhD, Curator of the Fungal Genetics Stock Center at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, entitled "Biological Resource Centers Provide Data and Characterized Living Material for Industrial Biotechnology," and by Justin Powlowski, PhD's group at the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Etienne Jourdier, PhD, and colleagues present a "Comprehensive Study and Modeling of Acetic Acid Effect on Trichoderma reesei Growth." Contributing the research study "In-Stream Itaconic Acid Recovery from Aspergillus terreus Fedbatch Fermentation" is a research team from TNO Microbiology & Systems Biology, Zeist, the Netherlands, let by Professor Peter Punt.
Included in the Fungal Biology Special Section is an IB Interview with Blake Simmons, PhD, Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI, Emeryville, CA) and Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, CA), and Jon Magnuson, PhD, JBEI and PNNL. John Nicksich, Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (PNNL, Richland, WA), describes the cutting-edge technology used to explore and bioengineer fungi in the Catalyzing Innovation article "EMSL Capabilities and Expertise: Pushing the Frontiers of Bioengineering."
"Scientific and technological advances in the life sciences are providing exciting new ways to engage old and familiar microbial friends in a number of novel and innovative industrial biotechnology activities," says Larry Walker, PhD, Co-Editor-in-Chief and Professor, Biological & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
###
About the Journal
Industrial Biotechnology, led by Co-Editors-in-Chief Larry Walker, PhD, and Glenn Nedwin, PhD, MoT, is an authoritative journal focused on biobased industrial and environmental products and processes, published bimonthly in print and online. The Journal reports on the science, business, and policy developments of the emerging global bioeconomy, including biobased production of energy and fuels, chemicals, materials, and consumer goods. The articles published include critically reviewed original research in all related sciences (biology, biochemistry, chemical and process engineering, agriculture), in addition to expert commentary on current policy, funding, markets, business, legal issues, and science trends. Industrial Biotechnology offers the premier forum bridging basic research and R&D with later-stage commercialization for sustainable biobased industrial and environmental applications.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Environmental Engineering Science and Sustainability: The Journal of Record. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
140 Huguenot St.,
New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215 http://www.liebertpub.com
Phone: (914) 740-2100
(800) M-LIEBERT
Fax: (914) 740-2101
[ | 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.
NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Cairo where a large crowd of people are gathered to protest Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's handling of the country one year after he was elected.
By Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News
Tens of thousands of opponents and supporters of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi flooded the streets of Cairo as competing protests turned lethal on Sunday.
Violent clashes left three dead, the country's minister of health said.
Suspected pro-Morsi Islamists on a motorbike opened fire on anti-government demonstrators in the southern city of Assiut, killing one and wounding seven, security officials told The Associated Press.
Protesters infuriated by that killing then marched to the office of the Freedom and Justice party, the political wing of Morsi?s Muslim Brotherhood, where they were met with a hail of bullets, leaving two people dead, according to the AP. An anti-Morsi protester was murdered earlier in the town of Beni Suef, the AP reported.
Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters
Protesters opposing Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi shout slogans against him and brotherhood members during a protest at Tahrir square in Cairo June 30, 2013.
Hours after the prearranged protests began, swarms of anti-government demonstrators were still massed in Tahrir Square, crucible of the 2011 so-called ?Arab Spring? uprisings that overthrew autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.
?The people want the fall of the regime!? they chanted. Many waved national flags ? only this time not in defiance of an aging dictator but as a form of dissent against their first-ever elected leader, who only assumed office a year ago to the day.
Meanwhile, legions of Morsi?s allies remained outside the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque near the Ittihadiya presidential palace. Some wore military-style regalia and carried shields and clubs, purportedly as a defense against potential attacks from the opposition, according to the AP.
Not including the casualties from Sunday, at least seven people, including an American college student in Maryland, had already been killed in clashes between opposition protesters and Morsi-allied groups in the last week.
Sunday?s protests represent the peak of a year of turbulence and turmoil in which Egypt has been rocked by scores of political crises, dozens of bloody clashes and a declining economy that has set off a spate of power outages, fuel shortages, skyrocketing prices and routine lawlessness and crime.
The opposing sides of the conflict are representative of the bitter political, social, and religious divisions in contemporary Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood and other hard-line groups form the backbone of the pro-Morsi camp. Many of Morsi's proponents have characterized the protests as a conspiracy by Mubarak's political allies to return the former leader to power.
The anti-government movement brings together secular and liberal Egyptians, moderate Muslims and Christians, and wide swaths of the general public the opposition says has rejected the Islamists and their regime.
Liberal leaders say nearly half all Egyptian voters ? some 22 million people ? have signed a petition calling for new elections.
"We all feel we're walking on a dead-end road and that the country will collapse," said Mohamed El-Baradei, a former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and now liberal party leader in his homeland.
Despite mounting pressure, Morsi did not buckle in advance of the preplanned protests, dismissing the widespread dissent as an undemocratic assault on his electoral legitimacy, Reuters reported.
Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters
Protesters opposing Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi shout slogans against him and members of the Muslim Brotherhood during a demonstration in Tahrir square in Cairo June 30, 2013.
But he also proposed to make changes to the new, Islamist-inflected constitution, saying he was not personally responsible for controversial clauses on religious authority, which stirred up liberal animosity and triggered the popular revolt, according to Reuters.
For many Egyptians, though, all the turmoil that has followed the Arab Spring has just made life harder. Standing by his lonely barrow at an eerily quiet downtown Cairo street market, 23-year-old Zeeka was afraid more violence was coming.
"We're not for one side or the other," he told Reuters. "What's happening now in Egypt is shameful. There is no work, thugs are everywhere ... I won't go out to any protest.
"It's nothing to do with me. I'm a tomato guy."
Visiting sub-Saharan Africa, President Barack Obama has cautioned that rancor in the largest Arab country could rattle the region.
Protests in Egypt have occurred around the country in the last few days, with more expected Sunday. The demonstrations come two years after former president Hosni Mubarak was removed from power, and some are hoping the current protests will unseat Egypt's current leader Muhammed Morsi. NBC's Aymen Mohyeldin reports.
"Every party has to denounce violence," Obama said in Pretoria, South Africa, on Saturday. "We'd like to see the opposition and President Morsi engage in a more constructive conversation about how they move their country forward because nobody is benefiting from the current stalemate."
?Washington has evacuated non-essential personnel and redoubled security at its diplomatic missions in Egypt.
Reuters and The Associated Press?contributed to this report.
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