Now that the SEC has given companies its blessing to share business data over social media, Bloomberg has begun to pull live Twitter feeds into its market terminals, known as the Bloomberg Professional service. According to the firm, that makes it the first financial information platform to integrate real-time tweets into investment workflows. Within the service, tweets are classified by company, asset class, people and topics, and stock buffs can even search messages, create filters and set alerts to notify them when a certain subject gets a flurry of mentions. The outfit hopes the inclusion of 140-character missives will let financial-minded folks keep their fingers on the market's pulse without switching to another system (read: being distracted by Tweetdeck) to get the big picture. Hit the jump for the full skinny in the press release.
New measurement of crocodilian nerves could help scientists understand ancient animalsPublic release date: 4-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christian Basi BasiC@missouri.edu 573-882-4430 University of Missouri-Columbia
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Crocodilians have nerves on their faces that are so sensitive, they can detect a change in a pond when a single drop hits the water surface several feet away. Alligators and crocodiles use these "invisible whiskers" to detect prey when hunting. Now, a new study from the University of Missouri has measured the nerves responsible for this function, which will help biologists understand how today's animals, as well as dinosaurs and crocodiles that lived millions of years ago, interact with the environment around them.
"The trigeminal nerve is the nerve responsible for detection of sensations of the face," said Casey Holliday, assistant professor of anatomy in the MU School of Medicine. "While we've known about these sensitive nerves in crocodiles, we've never measured the size of the nerve bundle, or ganglion, in their skulls, until now. When compared to humans, this trigeminal nerve in crocodiles is huge."
The key to this measurement is a specific hole in the skull. The trigeminal nerve is rooted inside the skull, but must travel through a large hole before it branches out to reach the crocodile's skin on its face. By examining how the skull size, brain size and ganglion size relate to each other, scientists can estimate how sensitive the face is. Eventually, Holliday hopes to measure this nerve in other ancient and contemporary species to learn more about animal behavior.
"Currently, we rely on alligators, crocodiles and birds to provide us with information about how ancient reptiles, such as pre-historic crocodiles and dinosaurs, functioned," said Holliday, who co-authored the study with doctoral student Ian George. "However, the first thing we have to do is to understand how the living animals function."
When comparing the size of the hole for the trigeminal nerve found in alligators to that of certain dinosaurs, George says that the hole in the much-larger dinosaur skull is very similar in size or even smaller, which could give scientists more information about how well dinosaurs could detect small sensations on the face. From there, the scientists can start to trace the evolution of this nerve and the mechanism used by crocodiles.
"Some species of ancient crocodiles lived on land and they probably wouldn't have a use for a sensitive face that can detect disturbances in the water," George said. "So our next step is to trace back and determine when the nerve got bigger and see how that might have paralleled the animals' ecology."
Holliday says that this information will aid future research, including when his team will examine skulls of ancient crocodiles. Understanding this nerve and its functions could also lead to better understanding of the anatomical basis for behavior in many living animals, including fish, electric eels, platypi and humans.
"The same way that we would look at the size of the visual cortex in the brain to understand how well an animal might see, we can now look at the trigeminal nerve in animals to determine how sensitive their skin on their faces is," Holliday said.
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The study is being published in The Anatomical Record this month.
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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.
New measurement of crocodilian nerves could help scientists understand ancient animalsPublic release date: 4-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christian Basi BasiC@missouri.edu 573-882-4430 University of Missouri-Columbia
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Crocodilians have nerves on their faces that are so sensitive, they can detect a change in a pond when a single drop hits the water surface several feet away. Alligators and crocodiles use these "invisible whiskers" to detect prey when hunting. Now, a new study from the University of Missouri has measured the nerves responsible for this function, which will help biologists understand how today's animals, as well as dinosaurs and crocodiles that lived millions of years ago, interact with the environment around them.
"The trigeminal nerve is the nerve responsible for detection of sensations of the face," said Casey Holliday, assistant professor of anatomy in the MU School of Medicine. "While we've known about these sensitive nerves in crocodiles, we've never measured the size of the nerve bundle, or ganglion, in their skulls, until now. When compared to humans, this trigeminal nerve in crocodiles is huge."
The key to this measurement is a specific hole in the skull. The trigeminal nerve is rooted inside the skull, but must travel through a large hole before it branches out to reach the crocodile's skin on its face. By examining how the skull size, brain size and ganglion size relate to each other, scientists can estimate how sensitive the face is. Eventually, Holliday hopes to measure this nerve in other ancient and contemporary species to learn more about animal behavior.
"Currently, we rely on alligators, crocodiles and birds to provide us with information about how ancient reptiles, such as pre-historic crocodiles and dinosaurs, functioned," said Holliday, who co-authored the study with doctoral student Ian George. "However, the first thing we have to do is to understand how the living animals function."
When comparing the size of the hole for the trigeminal nerve found in alligators to that of certain dinosaurs, George says that the hole in the much-larger dinosaur skull is very similar in size or even smaller, which could give scientists more information about how well dinosaurs could detect small sensations on the face. From there, the scientists can start to trace the evolution of this nerve and the mechanism used by crocodiles.
"Some species of ancient crocodiles lived on land and they probably wouldn't have a use for a sensitive face that can detect disturbances in the water," George said. "So our next step is to trace back and determine when the nerve got bigger and see how that might have paralleled the animals' ecology."
Holliday says that this information will aid future research, including when his team will examine skulls of ancient crocodiles. Understanding this nerve and its functions could also lead to better understanding of the anatomical basis for behavior in many living animals, including fish, electric eels, platypi and humans.
"The same way that we would look at the size of the visual cortex in the brain to understand how well an animal might see, we can now look at the trigeminal nerve in animals to determine how sensitive their skin on their faces is," Holliday said.
###
The study is being published in The Anatomical Record this month.
[ | 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.
There?s a ton of information floating around about social media, and it can be a bit overwhelming to someone who has run their business without it and is looking to dive in. What is it? how do I use it? Is it technical? Will it waste my time? Can I measure it?s effectiveness? What do I talk about?
We?ve gathered a collection of articles, guides, books and service providers that can really help alleviate some of the fear and doubt involved. I?ve specifically chosen these resources because I believe they will help any REALTOR in any point of their business, from total newbies to seasoned vets.
Social Media Books
By far, the best book on the subject is written by fellow Canadian Scott Stratten. His book is called UNMarketing, and it shows you how to stop marketing (in the traditional sense) and start engaging with your audience. In the business of real estate, relationships are absolutely EVERYTHING. Social media is just another tool in your toolbox to foster relationships and build trust. We had a chance to sit down with Scott over dinner, last time he was in Vancouver giving a presentation, and one word of advice he gave to real estate agents was to stop using social media as a broadcasting system.
You wouldn?t go to a cocktail party, stand on a chair and yell ?OPEN HOUSE! THIS SUNDAY! FREE COOKIES!?. Twitter is the modern-day cocktail party? and it?s not meant to be a broadcasting system.
I couldn?t agree more. I think the main point is to not only use it for this purpose. It?s okay to sprinkle in that type of message, as long as it?s not all you do, and try engaging your audience with a question. How would you tell a friend about your upcoming open house in person if you were sitting across from them at a dinner table?
Another gem is Content Rules, by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.
Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other online platforms are giving organizations like yours an enormous opportunity to engage directly with your customers. That?s a lucky thing: because instead of creating awareness about your company or your brand solely the old-school way (through annoying people with advertising, or bugging them with direct mail, or interrupting them with whatever), you now have an unprecedented and enormous opportunity.
Produce great stuff, and your customers will come to you. Produce great stuff, and your customers will share your story for you. More than ever before: Content is king! Content rules!
Social Media Guides & Articles
5 Social Media Management Tips for the Real Estate Industry ? written by Vancouver?s own Hootsuite Real Estate and Social Media: A Match Made in Web Heaven? ? written by BCBusiness Twitter For Business ? written by Twitter themselves Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on YouTube ? Easy to follow video tutorials on everything Twitter, a great place to start
Hire An Expert
Don?t have time to do it yourself? maybe it?s time to hire an expert.
SocialBaz Marketing Co. ? Vancouver based Limelight Marketing ? Vancouver based
With waning shareholder support, Ray Lane has stepped down as HP’s chairman of the board. Board member Ralph Whitworth will take Lane’s seat as chairman. Whitworth is chairman of Relational Investors. Also resigning are two other HP directors,?John Hammergren?and G. Kennedy Thompson. Lane, a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has been under pressure to resign. In March, the effort took a new turn when some of the larger shareholders sought to block the re-election of Lane and the other board members due to their lack of scrutiny over acquisitions. In particular, the discontent stems from the acquisition of Autonomy, which HP acquired in 20011 for $11 billion. A year later, the company wrote off $8.8 billion from the acquisition. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lane decided to resign after getting re-elected to the board with only 58.9 percent of the vote. Whitworth said Lane did not feel he had a mandate from the shareholders to remain on the board. HP has ?seen tremendous turmoil. In 2006, Patricia Dunn resigned over a spying scandal. In 2010, the board ousted Mark Hurd and hired L?o Apotheker, who led the Autonomy acquisition. He was fired last year and replaced by Meg Whitman, the current CEO.
Scientists identify first potentially effective therapy for human prion diseasePublic release date: 3-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Eric Sauter esauter@scripps.edu 267-337-3859 Scripps Research Institute
JUPITER, FL, April 3, 2013 Human diseases caused by misfolded proteins known as prions are some of most rare yet terrifying on the planetincurable with disturbing symptoms that include dementia, personality shifts, hallucinations and coordination problems. The most well-known of these is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which can be described as the naturally occurring human equivalent of mad cow disease.
Now, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have for the first time identified a pair of drugs already approved for human use that show anti-prion activity and, for one of them, great promise in treating these universally fatal disorders.
The study, led by TSRI Professor Corinne Lasmzas and performed in collaboration with TSRI Professor Emeritus Charles Weissmann and Director of Lead Identification Peter Hodder, was published this week online ahead of print by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The new study used an innovative high-throughput screening technique to uncover compounds that decrease the amount of the normal form of the prion protein (PrP, which becomes distorted by the disease) at the cell surface. The scientists found two compounds that reduced PrP on cell surfaces by approximately 70 percent in the screening and follow up tests.
The two compounds are already marketed as the drugs tacrolimus and astemizole.
Tacrolimus is an immune suppressant widely used in organ transplantation. Tacrolimus could prove problematic as an anti-prion drug, however, because of issues including possible neurotoxicity.
However, astemizole is an antihistamine that has potential for use as an anti-prion drug. While withdrawn voluntarily from the U.S. over-the-counter market in 1999 because of rare cardiac arrhythmias when used in high doses, it has been available in generic form in more than 30 countries and has a well-established safety profile. Astemizole not only crosses the blood-brain barrier, but works effectively at a relatively low concentration.
Lasmzas noted that astemizole appears to stimulate autophagy, the process by which cells eliminate unwanted components. "Autophagy is involved in several protein misfolding neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases," she said. "So future studies on the mode of action of astemizole may uncover potentially new therapeutic targets for prion diseases and similar disorders."
The study noted that eliminating cell surface PrP expression could also be a potentially new approach to treat Alzheimer's disease, which is characterized by the build-up of amyloid ? plaque in the brain. PrP is a cell surface receptor for A? peptides and helps mediate a number of critical deleterious processes in animal models of the disease.
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The first author of the study, "Unique Drug Screening Approach for Prion Diseases Identifies Tacrolimus and Astemizole as Antiprion Agents," is Yervand Eduard Karapetyan of The Scripps Research Institute. Other authors include Gian Franco Sferrazza, Minghai Zhou, Gregory Ottenberg, Timothy Spicer, Peter Chase, Mohammad Fallahi, Peter Hodder and Charles Weissmann of The Scripps Research Institute. For more information on the study, see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/29/1303510110.abstract
The research was supported by The Scripps Research Institute, the Alafi Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (Grant MH084512).
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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.
Scientists identify first potentially effective therapy for human prion diseasePublic release date: 3-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Eric Sauter esauter@scripps.edu 267-337-3859 Scripps Research Institute
JUPITER, FL, April 3, 2013 Human diseases caused by misfolded proteins known as prions are some of most rare yet terrifying on the planetincurable with disturbing symptoms that include dementia, personality shifts, hallucinations and coordination problems. The most well-known of these is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which can be described as the naturally occurring human equivalent of mad cow disease.
Now, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have for the first time identified a pair of drugs already approved for human use that show anti-prion activity and, for one of them, great promise in treating these universally fatal disorders.
The study, led by TSRI Professor Corinne Lasmzas and performed in collaboration with TSRI Professor Emeritus Charles Weissmann and Director of Lead Identification Peter Hodder, was published this week online ahead of print by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The new study used an innovative high-throughput screening technique to uncover compounds that decrease the amount of the normal form of the prion protein (PrP, which becomes distorted by the disease) at the cell surface. The scientists found two compounds that reduced PrP on cell surfaces by approximately 70 percent in the screening and follow up tests.
The two compounds are already marketed as the drugs tacrolimus and astemizole.
Tacrolimus is an immune suppressant widely used in organ transplantation. Tacrolimus could prove problematic as an anti-prion drug, however, because of issues including possible neurotoxicity.
However, astemizole is an antihistamine that has potential for use as an anti-prion drug. While withdrawn voluntarily from the U.S. over-the-counter market in 1999 because of rare cardiac arrhythmias when used in high doses, it has been available in generic form in more than 30 countries and has a well-established safety profile. Astemizole not only crosses the blood-brain barrier, but works effectively at a relatively low concentration.
Lasmzas noted that astemizole appears to stimulate autophagy, the process by which cells eliminate unwanted components. "Autophagy is involved in several protein misfolding neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases," she said. "So future studies on the mode of action of astemizole may uncover potentially new therapeutic targets for prion diseases and similar disorders."
The study noted that eliminating cell surface PrP expression could also be a potentially new approach to treat Alzheimer's disease, which is characterized by the build-up of amyloid ? plaque in the brain. PrP is a cell surface receptor for A? peptides and helps mediate a number of critical deleterious processes in animal models of the disease.
###
The first author of the study, "Unique Drug Screening Approach for Prion Diseases Identifies Tacrolimus and Astemizole as Antiprion Agents," is Yervand Eduard Karapetyan of The Scripps Research Institute. Other authors include Gian Franco Sferrazza, Minghai Zhou, Gregory Ottenberg, Timothy Spicer, Peter Chase, Mohammad Fallahi, Peter Hodder and Charles Weissmann of The Scripps Research Institute. For more information on the study, see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/29/1303510110.abstract
The research was supported by The Scripps Research Institute, the Alafi Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (Grant MH084512).
[ | 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.
Larky, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based startup focused on helping users take better advantage of discounts and benefits from various clubs or members-only organizations like AAA, AARP, as well as health insurance providers, credit card companies, and more, is today announcing a seed round of $650,000. The round, which officially closed in late 2012, was led by North Coast Technology Investors, and included participation from First Step Fund and the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, which gives the state of Michigan an equity stake in the new company.
Dangling WiFi-carrot meet your BlackBerry-made stick: the Z10. Perhaps because its user base has traditionally courted strong enterprise support -- a lot that typically overlaps with the jet set -- BlackBerry's offering an incentive to adopters of its BB 10 pearl, granting gratisGogo-powered internet access for all domestic Delta flights. The best part? Latching onto that free WiFi is as simple as logging in and firing up the browser on your Z10 when it's "safe to use your electronic devices." Will this tip your hand and get you to switch to BB 10? Probably not, but it's the sort of pot sweetening that should keep BlackBerry's (moneyed) customers around for the long-haul.
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Public release date: 4-Apr-2013
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By far, the best book on the subject is written by fellow Canadian Scott Stratten. His book is called UNMarketing, and it shows you how to stop marketing (in the traditional sense) and start engaging with your audience. In the business of real estate, relationships are absolutely EVERYTHING. Social media is just another tool in your toolbox to foster relationships and build trust. We had a chance to sit down with Scott over dinner, last time he was in Vancouver giving a presentation, and one word of advice he gave to real estate agents was to stop using social media as a broadcasting system.
Another gem is Content Rules, by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.
With waning shareholder support, Ray Lane has stepped down as HP’s chairman of the board. Board member Ralph Whitworth will take Lane’s seat as chairman. Whitworth is chairman of Relational Investors. Also resigning are two other HP directors,?John Hammergren?and G. Kennedy Thompson. Lane, a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has been under pressure to resign. In March, the effort took a new turn when some of the larger shareholders sought to block the re-election of Lane and the other board members due to their lack of scrutiny over acquisitions. In particular, the discontent stems from the acquisition of Autonomy, which HP acquired in 20011 for $11 billion. A year later, the company wrote off $8.8 billion from the acquisition. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lane decided to resign after getting re-elected to the board with only 58.9 percent of the vote. Whitworth said Lane did not feel he had a mandate from the shareholders to remain on the board. HP has ?seen tremendous turmoil. In 2006, Patricia Dunn resigned over a spying scandal. In 2010, the board ousted Mark Hurd and hired L?o Apotheker, who led the Autonomy acquisition. He was fired last year and replaced by Meg Whitman, the current CEO.
