WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama launched a new plan to tackle climate change on Tuesday with a call to limit carbon pollution from all U.S. power plants and a signal that he would block a proposed pipeline from Canada if it boosted greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama's long-awaited plan, detailed in a speech at Georgetown University, drew sharp criticism from the coal industry, which would be hit hard by carbon limits, and Republicans, who accused the Democratic president of advancing policies that harm the economy.
Obama's first-term attempt to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions in a "cap and trade" system was thwarted by Congress, and his administration's long process of studying whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline has raised hackles from business groups and Republican opponents.
His comments on the TransCanada Corp pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to refineries in Texas, were his strongest signal yet that its environmental costs could outweigh the project's economic benefits. The administration will decide whether to approve the pipeline later this year or in early 2014.
"Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," Obama said.
"The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward," he said.
Using his executive powers, Obama said he was directing the Environmental Protection Agency to craft new emissions rules for thousands of power plants, the bulk of which burn coal and which account for roughly one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
"We don't have time for a meeting of the flat earth society," Obama said, referencing critics who do not believe climate change is happening.
Share prices for major U.S. coal mining companies slipped again on Tuesday after falling sharply on Monday in anticipation of the Obama plan.
The EPA is routinely challenged in court, both by industry groups seeking to quash rules, and by green groups trying to push the agency to set tougher standards.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican-leaning states have petitioned the Supreme Court to review rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The details of the new regulations will be drafted over the next year, and their costs are still to be determined. Obama wants them to be finalized by June 2015.
"Laying out a specific schedule makes it a lot more difficult for the president to turn back," said Michael Levi, head of the Council on Foreign Relations' energy and climate program.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Valerie Volcovici, Steve Holland, and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Ros Krasny and Leslie Gevirtz)
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. U.S. AWAITS LANDMARK VOTE ON GAY MARRIAGE
The Supreme Court is expected to issue decisions today on two laws that could give gay Americans marriage rights and the same benefits as married heterosexual couples.
2. ARCHBISHOP WISHES PEACEFUL 'END' FOR MANDELA
Lucas Aedwaba offered a prayer after visiting the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader in a hospital, where he's critically ill with a lung infection.
3. CHAOS WITH ABORTION VOTE AFTER FILIBUSTER
Screaming protesters prevented Texas Republicans from passing a restrictive abortion ban before a midnight deadline.
4. WHAT SOUTHERN STATES PLAN AFTER VOTING RIGHTS DECISION
Some pledged to pass laws requiring voters to show photo IDs and others want to set earlier hours after the Supreme Court freed states from federal oversight.
5. 'NYET' ON TURNING OVER SNOWDEN
Putin acknowledges the NSA leaker is at a Moscow airport, and rejected U.S. pleas to extradite him.
6. DEMOCRATS HANG ON TO KERRY SEAT
Rep. Ed Markey defeated Republican Gabriel Gomez, and the state's Democrats didn't repeat the upset of three years ago when Republican Scott Brown succeeded Sen. Edward Kennedy.
7. AUSTRALIA PRIME MINISTER OUSTED
Predecessor Kevin Rudd defeated Julia Gillard in a party leadership ballot she called for after her authority was challenged
8. 'KING OF COMMODITIES' DIES
Marc Rich, a trader indicted on fraud and tax evasion charges, was pardoned by Bill Clinton at the end of his presidency. He died in Switzerland at 78.
9. TEXAS TO MAKE HISTORY
The nation's busiest death penalty state plans to execute its 500th inmate tonight ? a woman convicted of killing her neighbor with a candelabra in the 1990s.
10. IS PAULA DEEN TOAST?
The food diva is expected to speak on the "Today" show today, but experts say she has already damaged her reputation in the fallout from her admission of using racial slurs.
Afghan national security arrive near the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside the presidential palace Tuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at which President Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group. (AP photo/Rahmat Gul)
Afghan national security arrive near the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside the presidential palace Tuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at which President Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group. (AP photo/Rahmat Gul)
Smoke rises from the eastern gate of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday June 25, 2013. The Taliban said they have hit one of the most secure areas of the Afghan capital with a suicide attack, as a series of explosions rocked the gate leading into the presidential palace. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? One moment I was standing in a quiet, secure and heavily guarded area and the next it had turned into a battlefield.
It was 6:30 a.m., and I waiting with about 20 other journalists for an escort into the palace for a speech by President Hamid Karzai. It was a routine assignment for Kabul journalists, and the presidential compound is a scenic and peaceful oasis lined with pine trees in my chaotic hometown.
Suddenly I saw the four armed men jump out of their vehicle. They kneeled down and started shooting. Two of them fired at presidential palace security guards stationed at a checkpoint. The two others aimed their weapons at the Ariana Hotel, where the CIA is known to have an office.
I didn't know what to do. Bullets were flying all over. Gunfire was coming from different directions. No one really knew who were the attackers and who were the security forces because both sides were wearing similar uniforms.
I thought at first that this must be an insider attack or an argument between security guards. I just couldn't believe that Taliban fighters could have made it this far into the presidential compound, through two checkpoints. After about a minute, I realized the attackers must be Taliban because they were firing in so many different directions.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE: Rahim Faiez, a correspondent with The Associated Press in Afghanistan since January 2002, was waiting in a security area outside the heavily fortified Afghan presidential compound in Kabul for an escort to the palace to cover a speech by President Hamid Karzai when he got caught up Tuesday in a brazen Taliban attack. This is his account.
___
I hit the ground and kept my head down, asking myself, what I should do? I looked around to try to find a place to use as a shelter and call my office ? report the news as fast as possible.
Mostly, though, my thoughts focused on my small children ? my nearly 6-year-old son, Mohammad Akmal, and my two daughters, Hadia, who is 4, and Muqadasa, just 15 months.
Some other reporters took shelter behind an armored SUV used by an American television network. A few others lay in a ditch.
I saw a white, small, religious shrine nearby, and crawled about 10 to 15 meters (yards), then ran as fast as I could toward the wall of the shrine. I saw blood on my clothes but was sure I had not been hit. Later I noticed scratches on my arms and knees from pulling my body across the ground.
I finally reached the wall and thought it was safe enough to take my mobile phone and call the office.
Breathless and scared, I shouted over the phone to a colleague, "David, attackers are inside and a shooting is going on." He was shocked.
Grenades and rockets were exploding in the background and automatic weapons were firing. My colleague asked, "Are you safe, Rahim? Are you OK? I replied I was fine, even if I wasn't entirely.
Then I managed to take a deep breath and started reporting, the battle still going on in the background.
Most of the reporters moved with me behind the shrine.
Looking out, we saw a small boy, around 6 years old, wearing a school uniform and running close to us. He was so brave, not crying, but of course very worried.
We grabbed him and pulled him behind the wall. He didn't know how to call his parents but one of the reporters had a number for the director of his nearby school. He called and told the director that one of his students was with us and safe.
I wanted to move out from behind the wall and take some photos with my cell phone. But bullets kept coming and never gave me the chance. We all wanted to leave from our precarious position, but security guards from the other gate, about 50 meters (yards) away from us, kept shouting that we must stay there. Otherwise we could be shot from the CIA building because guards there wouldn't know who we were.
We sheltered behind that wall for about an hour until the shooting finally eased. During that time, my father called me twice. I lied to him, telling him I was farther from the battle than I really was.
More guards moved into the area, first securing it and finally motioning to us one by one to leave. By then, we later learned, eight attackers and three guards lay dead.
But at the moment I wasn't sure whether other attackers were hiding nearby. I felt safe only when I finally got away from the area. I called my father and told him I was on my way back to the office and not to worry.
June 24, 2013 ? A new study shows that the vocal training of older rats reduces some of the voice problems related to their aging, such as the loss of vocal intensity that accompanies changes in the muscles of the larynx. This is an animal model of a vocal pathology that many humans face as they age. The researchers hope that in the future, voice therapy in aging humans will help improve their quality of life.
The research appears in The Journals of Gerontology.
University of Illinois speech and hearing science professor Aaron Johnson, who led the new study along with his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, said that aging can cause the muscles of the larynx, the organ that contains the vocal folds, to atrophy. This condition, called presbyphonia, may be treatable with vocal training, he said.
Johnson said in a healthy, young larynx the vocal folds completely close and open during vibration. This creates little puffs of air we hear as sound. In people with presbyphonia, however, the atrophied vocal folds do not close properly, resulting in a gap during vocal fold vibration.
Degradation of the neuromuscular junction, or the interface between the nerve that signals the vocal muscle to work and the muscle itself, also contributes to the symptoms of presbyphonia, Johnson said. In a healthy human, when the signal reaches the neuromuscular junction, it triggers a release of chemicals that signal the muscle to contract. But an age-related decline in the neuromuscular junction can cause weakness and fatigue in the muscle, and may result in a person having a breathy or weak voice and to become fatigued as a result of the extra effort needed to communicate.
Surgery and injections may help correct the gap between the vocal folds seen in presbyphonia, but these invasive procedures are often not viable in the elderly population, Johnson said.
His previous experience working with the elderly as a former classical singer and voice teacher propelled Johnson to "become interested in what we can do as we get older to keep our voices healthy and strong."
"We know exercise strengthens the limb musculature, but we wanted to know if vocal exercise can strengthen the muscles of the voice," Johnson said.
To find out if vocal training could have an effect on the strength and physiology of the vocal muscles in humans, Johnson turned to a rat model. Rats make ultrasonic vocalizations that are above the range of human hearing, but special recording equipment and a computer that lowers the frequency of the rat calls allows humans to perceive them. (They sound a bit like bird calls).
Because rats and humans utilize similar neuromuscular mechanisms to vocalize, the rats make ideal subjects for the study of human vocal characteristics, Johnson said.
Both the treatment and control groups contained old and young male rats. In the treatment group, a female rat was placed into a cage with a male rat. When the male expressed interest in her, the female was removed from the cage, causing the male rat to vocalize. The male was rewarded with food for these vocalizations, and after eight weeks of this operant conditioning in which rewards were only given for certain responses, all of the rats in the treatment group had been trained to increase their number of vocalizations during a training session.
At the end of the eight-week period, the researchers measured the intensity of the rats' vocalizations and analyzed the animals' larynges to see whether the training had any effect on the condition of their neuromuscular junctions.
The researchers found the trained old and young rats had similar average vocal intensities, but the untrained older rats had lower average intensities than both the trained rats and the young rats that had not been trained. They also found several age-related differences within the groups' neuromuscular mechanisms.
"Other research has found that in the elderly, there is a dispersion, or breaking apart, of the neuromuscular junction at the side that is on the muscle itself," Johnson said. "We found that in the older rats that received training, it wasn't as dispersed."
These "singing rats" are the "first evidence that vocal use and vocal training can change the neuromuscular system of the larynx," Johnson said.
"While this isn't a human study, I think this tells us that we can train ourselves to use our voices and not only reduce the effects of age on the muscles of our voices, but actually improve voices that have degraded," Johnson said.
Johnson is also affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois.
Audio file: Rats like those used in University of Illinois speech and hearing sciences professor Aaron Johnson's study make ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) that are above the range of human hearing, but special recording equipment and a computer that lowers the frequency of the rat calls allows humans to perceive them. As the recording shows, the USVs sound a bit like bird calls. : http://news.illinois.edu/WebsandThumbs/johnson,aaron/rat_vocalizations.mp3
Supermoon peaked Sunday morning, but good viewing will continue for the next few days. The unusual relationship between Earth and the moon makes supermoon a particularly good show.
By Mark Sappenfield,?Staff writer / June 23, 2013
Supermoon rises behind the Home Place clock tower in Prattville, Ala., Saturday.
Dave Martin/AP
Enlarge
"Supermoon" officially arrived at about 7 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time Sunday morning, with the moon making its closest swing by Earth this year. About a half hour later, the moon reached full status, making it appear 12 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than a regular full moon.
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Don't worry if you missed it. The effect should still linger for a few nights, meaning Sunday, Monday, and even Tuesday should give a good sense of this year's supermoon.
And social media was alight with the event, with pictures of Saturday night's supermoon making an appearance from Facebook to Instagram.
The show is the product of a cosmic quirk. Since planets and moons orbit in ellipses, not circles, there are times when they are closer to what they're orbiting and times when they're farther away. For moons, the point when they're closest to their planet is called perigee, the point farthest away is called apogee.
For Earth and the moon, perigee and apogee happen once each month, since the moon orbits the Earth once every 27 days. But because of small inconsistencies in the orbits, the moon's closest approach and its farthest distance are always slightly different.
The moon hit its monthly perigee Sunday morning, but what makes it worthy of the name "supermoon" was that it was the closest perigee of 2013. Moreover, since it coincided almost perfectly with a full moon, the effect was enhanced.
The moon's farthest apogee this year has already happened and is set to repeat itself next year during the Jan. 15, 2014, full moon. To see the visual difference in size between a perigee and apogee moon, click here.?
But what makes the moon so special? If everything in the solar system orbits in an ellipsis, shouldn't we have a "supersun," too.
In fact, we do. Since we orbit the sun once a year, supersuns only happen once a year. Our closest swing to the sun, called perihelion, also already happened this year, and will happen again on Jan. 4, 2014. (An "un-supersun," when the sun seems smallest at aphelion, is just around the corner: July 5.)
But will there be this much buzz next January with sungazers filling Twitter with pictures of a gigantic sun? Don't count on it.
The reason? the sun is obviously much farther away from Earth than is the moon, so the effect is not so noticeable. For Earth, the distance between aphelion and perihelion is about 3 million miles. But even at perihelion, the Earth is still 91 million miles from the sun.?
In addition, Earth's orbit around the sun is more nearly circular than is the moon's orbit around us, with only Venus and Neptune having more circular orbits than Earth. Mercury has the most eccentric orbit ? ranging from a perihelion of 29 million miles to an aphelion of 43 million miles ? meaning it has a truly dramatic supersun (if you can stand the 800 degree Fahrenheit temperatures on the sun-side surface).
By contrast, the moon's orbit around Earth is the most elliptical orbit of any major moon in the solar system. Combine that with the fact that the moon is comparatively close to Earth, so it looks large in our skies, and supermoon earns its name.
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Bacterial DNA may integrate into human genome more readily in tumor tissuePublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Cheryl Dybas cdybas@nsf.gov 703-292-7734 National Science Foundation
Gene transfer may play role in cancer, other diseases linked with DNA damage
Bacterial DNA may integrate into the human genome more readily in tumors than in normal human tissue, scientists have found.
The researchers, affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences, analyzed genomic sequencing data available from the Human Genome Project, the 1,000 Genomes Project and The Cancer Genome Atlas.
They considered the phenomenon of lateral gene transfer (LGT), the transmission of genetic material between organisms in a manner other than than traditional reproduction.
Scientists have already shown that bacteria can transfer DNA to the genome of an animal.
The researchers found evidence that lateral gene transfer is possible from bacteria to the cells of the human body, known as human somatic cells.
They found that bacterial DNA was more likely to integrate in the genome in tumor samples than in normal, healthy somatic cells. The phenomenon might play a role in cancer and other diseases associated with DNA damage.
"Advances in genomic and computational sciences are revealing the vast ways in which humans interact with an ever-present and endlessly diverse planet of microbes," says Matt Kane, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology in its Directorate for Biological Sciences, which funded the research.
"This discovery underscores the benefits that can result from a shift in our understanding of how this vast diversity of microbes and their genes may affect our health."
The results may lead to advances in personalized medicine, scientists say, in which doctors use each patient's genomic make-up to determine care and preventive measures.
A paper reporting the results is published today in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.
"LGT from bacteria to animals was only described recently, and it is exciting to find that such transfers can be found in the genome of human somatic cells and particularly in cancer genomes," says Julie Dunning Hotopp of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and lead author of the paper.
Hotopp also is a research scientist at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center.
"Studies applying this approach to additional cancer genome projects could be fruitful, leading us to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer."
The researchers found that while only 63.5 percent of TCGA samples analyzed were from tumors, the tumor samples contained 99.9 percent of reads supporting bacterial integration.
The data present a compelling case that LGT occurs in the human somatic genome, and that it could have an important role in cancer and other human diseases associated with mutations.
It's possible that LGT mutations play a role in carcinogenesis, the scientists say, yet it's also possible that they could simply be "passenger mutations."
The investigators suggest several competing ideas to explain the results, though more research is needed for definitive answers.
One possibility is that the mutations are part of carcinogenesis, the process by which normal cells turn into cancer cells.
Alternatively, tumor cells are very rapidly proliferating, so much so that they may be more permissive to lateral gene transfer.
It's also possible that bacteria are causing these mutations because they benefit the bacteria themselves.
###
The study was also funded by the National Institutes of Health.
[ | 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.
Bacterial DNA may integrate into human genome more readily in tumor tissuePublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Cheryl Dybas cdybas@nsf.gov 703-292-7734 National Science Foundation
Gene transfer may play role in cancer, other diseases linked with DNA damage
Bacterial DNA may integrate into the human genome more readily in tumors than in normal human tissue, scientists have found.
The researchers, affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences, analyzed genomic sequencing data available from the Human Genome Project, the 1,000 Genomes Project and The Cancer Genome Atlas.
They considered the phenomenon of lateral gene transfer (LGT), the transmission of genetic material between organisms in a manner other than than traditional reproduction.
Scientists have already shown that bacteria can transfer DNA to the genome of an animal.
The researchers found evidence that lateral gene transfer is possible from bacteria to the cells of the human body, known as human somatic cells.
They found that bacterial DNA was more likely to integrate in the genome in tumor samples than in normal, healthy somatic cells. The phenomenon might play a role in cancer and other diseases associated with DNA damage.
"Advances in genomic and computational sciences are revealing the vast ways in which humans interact with an ever-present and endlessly diverse planet of microbes," says Matt Kane, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology in its Directorate for Biological Sciences, which funded the research.
"This discovery underscores the benefits that can result from a shift in our understanding of how this vast diversity of microbes and their genes may affect our health."
The results may lead to advances in personalized medicine, scientists say, in which doctors use each patient's genomic make-up to determine care and preventive measures.
A paper reporting the results is published today in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.
"LGT from bacteria to animals was only described recently, and it is exciting to find that such transfers can be found in the genome of human somatic cells and particularly in cancer genomes," says Julie Dunning Hotopp of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and lead author of the paper.
Hotopp also is a research scientist at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center.
"Studies applying this approach to additional cancer genome projects could be fruitful, leading us to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer."
The researchers found that while only 63.5 percent of TCGA samples analyzed were from tumors, the tumor samples contained 99.9 percent of reads supporting bacterial integration.
The data present a compelling case that LGT occurs in the human somatic genome, and that it could have an important role in cancer and other human diseases associated with mutations.
It's possible that LGT mutations play a role in carcinogenesis, the scientists say, yet it's also possible that they could simply be "passenger mutations."
The investigators suggest several competing ideas to explain the results, though more research is needed for definitive answers.
One possibility is that the mutations are part of carcinogenesis, the process by which normal cells turn into cancer cells.
Alternatively, tumor cells are very rapidly proliferating, so much so that they may be more permissive to lateral gene transfer.
It's also possible that bacteria are causing these mutations because they benefit the bacteria themselves.
###
The study was also funded by the National Institutes of Health.
[ | 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.