Chaz Bono is the latest star to exit 'Dancing'

In this Oct. 24, 2011 image released by ABC, Chaz Bono, right, and his partner Lacey Schwimmer perform on the dancing competition series "Dancing with the Stars," in Los Angeles. Bono and Schwimmer were voted off the show on Tuesday. (AP Photo/ABC, Adam Taylor)

In this Oct. 24, 2011 image released by ABC, Chaz Bono, right, and his partner Lacey Schwimmer perform on the dancing competition series "Dancing with the Stars," in Los Angeles. Bono and Schwimmer were voted off the show on Tuesday. (AP Photo/ABC, Adam Taylor)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Chaz Bono has gotten his walking papers on "Dancing with the Stars."

Tuesday's edition of the hit ABC TV dance competition marked the last dance for Bono. Despite his cheerful, spirited style, he had struggled from the beginning and came in last in the judges' assessment the night before.

When he got the bad news, the transgender activist said he had come on the program "to show America a different kind of man."

"If there was somebody like me on TV when I was growing up, my whole life would have been different," he said.

Soccer star Hope Solo, who also was in jeopardy, avoided being sent home and will stay in contention.

Along with her, five other celebrities remain in the contest: actors David Arquette and J.R. Martinez, reality TV personality Rob Kardashian, and TV hosts Ricki Lake and Nancy Grace. Judges' scores combined with viewer votes determine who is kicked off the show each week.

Monday's episode had included insults, an animal comparison and two nearly perfect performances.

A heated exchange between professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy and head judge Len Goodman stole the spotlight from first-place finishers Lake and Martinez.

Chmerkovskiy and his partner, Solo, landed near the bottom of the judges' leaderboard Monday. With 20 points out of 30, they finished just ahead of Bono, in last place with 19 points.

When Goodman called Solo's rumba "your worst dance of the whole season," Chmerkovskiy suggested the judge get out of the dance business.

Chmerkovskiy told one of the show's hosts that the judges seem to pick on certain contestants, and he kept up the conversation after Monday's episode.

"The judges have their favorites," he said. "They always have."

Bono's professional partner, Lacey Schwimmer, agreed.

"They always have their favorites, and this season it's completely clear who they are. I won't name names, but we are not one of them," she said. "I'm actually proud of what Maks said. A lot of us don't get the chance to stand up for us and our partners."

Schwimmer cried backstage during Monday's episode and was still upset after the show, when she complained about the judges' "rude" remarks about Bono.

"Every week he gets referred to as an animal," she said. "They always comment on his personality, and last I checked, this was a dancing show."

After the couple danced their tango, judge Bruno Tonioli said Bono was like "a cute little penguin trying to be a big menacing bird of prey." Tonioli had also compared Bono to an Ewok from "Star Wars."

Carson Kressley, Chynna Phillips, Kristin Cavallari, Elisabetta Canalis and Ron Artest have already been eliminated this season.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-25-TV-Dancing%20With%20the%20Stars/id-3b7c70bf13f24a0e929e77f430b8f949

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UPS reports higher profit, affirms outlook (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? United Parcel Service reported a higher quarterly profit as margins improved in the face of flat domestic shipping volume dulled by a sluggish economy, and it affirmed its outlook for record 2011 results.

UPS has forecast record earnings per share of $4.15 to $4.40 this year on the back of cost cuts and higher shipping rates in the face of a slowly expanding global economy.

"UPS produced another solid quarter of earnings growth against the backdrop of a deceleration in exports from Asia and a challenging global economic environment," Chief Executive Officer Scott Davis said in a statement.

The company's shares declined 1.4 percent to $69.89 in premarket trading.

Domestic shipping volume averaged 12.74 million packages a day, little changed from 12.73 million a year ago. Operating margins improved on higher yields, or revenue per package, as well as on more efficient networks, the company said.

International shipping volume averaged 2.34 million a day, up from 2.24 million.

Revenue in this segment rose more than 14 percent, twice the rate in the domestic segment, driven by 6.5 percent growth in export volume.

UPS and FedEx Corp are considered economic bellwethers because of the sheer volume of packages they handle.

The value of packages handled by UPS's trucks and planes each year is equivalent to about 6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and 2 percent of global GDP.

The world's largest package delivery company said third-quarter net income rose to $1.04 billion, or $1.06 per share, from $991 million, or 99 cents a share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average were expecting $1.05 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 18 percent to $13.17 billion, matching the analysts' average forecast.

(Reporting by Lynn Adler in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111025/bs_nm/us_ups

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Oil firm agrees to plead guilty in ND bird deaths (AP)

BISMARCK, N.D. ? One of seven oil companies charged with killing migratory birds during drilling operations in North Dakota has agreed to plead guilty and pay $12,000.

Slawson Exploration Co. Inc., of Wichita, Kan., was charged under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with for killing 12 birds that died after allegedly landing in oil waste pits in western North Dakota from May 6 through June 20. Under a plea agreement filed in federal court Monday, Slawson will pay $12,000 ? or $1,000 per bird ? to the nonprofit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The maximum penalty for each misdemeanor charge under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is six months in prison and a $15,000 fine.

U.S. Attorney Timothy Purdon said he could not comment on plea deal because it still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland in Bismarck. Stu Kowalski, an attorney for Slawson, also declined to comment.

Six other oil companies have pleaded not guilty to charges that their oil waste pits killed birds. They were arraigned last month in U.S. District Court in Bismarck and have until Tuesday to file pretrial arguments.

Slawson accounted for the bulk of the 28 dead birds discovered by federal wildlife officials in uncovered waste pits operated by the companies in May and June. Most of the birds were ducks and none were identified as being endangered. Killing endangered species can lead to felony charges that bring fines of up to $250,000.

Companies in North Dakota are required to cover the so-called reserve pits with netting if they are open for more than 90 days after drilling operations. The waste pits, which can contain oil, diesel, drilling muds and chemicals, are about the size of a large swimming pool, and birds sometimes mistake them for a good place to land.

Also charged in the case are ConocoPhillips Co., of Houston; Newfield Production Co., of Houston; Brigham Oil and Gas LP, of Williston; Continental Resources Inc., of Enid, Okla.; Petro Hunt LLC, of Dallas; and Fidelity Exploration & Production Co., of Denver;

Records show all seven companies have previously been fined for violating the Migratory Bird Act. Fidelity, a unit of Bismarck-based MDU Resources Group Inc., had the biggest sanction, a $44,025 penalty after 44 birds were found dead in waste pits near Green River, Utah.

North Dakota regulators are considering banning the oil waste pits and requiring companies to recycle liquid drilling waste amid a spate of toxic discharges and an increasing number of migrating birds that have died by mistaking the polluted ponds for fresh water. State officials have said companies have sometimes foregone netting because fines can be cheaper than installing and maintaining netting.

North Dakota, the nation's fourth-largest oil state, produces about 450,000 barrels of oil daily from about 6,000 wells.

State regulators in June levied $3 million in fines against 20 companies that failed to protect oilfield waste pits from spring flooding. About 10 percent of the state's 500 waste ponds were swamped by meltwater after one of the state's snowiest winters on record. The waste pit breaches came despite regulators' warnings that they could happen.

State health officials have said other fines are pending in the swamped waste pit incidents.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_re_us/us_oiled_birds_plea

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Click.to

One of the more interesting consequences of the touchcreen revolution is the way that developments in smartphones and tablets are bleeding over into more traditional hardware and software. Click.to is a program designed to mimic in standard PCs (and Macs) the ease with which people can share content from a touch screen. In practically any app for smartphones and tablets, you can press a single button to share something on Facebook, or email a photo, or otherwise copy and paste content from one application to another. Why shouldn't we have this functionality on our plain old laptops and desktops?

Time-Saving Shortcut
Click.to is a small downloadable program that works on both Windows (XP, Vistas, 7) and Mac computers. After you install and launch it, Click.to will work in any application the moment you try to use the "copy function," whether you press Ctrl+C, Apple-command+C, or right-click and select "copy." A string of icons appears near the text. Select whichever one you want, and Click.to launches the program and pastes the content in the applicable spot. For example, if you select the button for Outlook, Click.to creates a new message and pastes the copied content into the body of the email.

You can customize which icons appear from an Options menu, and, if Click.to doesn't support an application you want to use, you can add it, although the process might seem slightly complicated for less technical people. To add a new program, you have to be able to identify the executable file for the program on your hard drive.

Numerous applications are already supported from the get-go: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Outlook, Word, Excel, Wikipedia, Gmail, Evernote, Flickr, PDF, Blogger, WolframAlpha, Bing Translate, Amazon, YouTube, and many more. Depending on what application you paste into, Click.to will automatically fill in other appropriate information, such as the subject line of an email (it will use the file name from which the text or image is pulled). Paste into a Word doc, and the source of the pasted info will be listed at the top of the file.

One of my favorite features is how the Wikipedia icon works. Rather than pasting your copied text directly into Wikipedia's search bar, Click.to pulls the most concise definition Wikipedia has for the selected text and displays it in a bubble right on screen, so you never have to leave the first application.

When Click.to Isn't So Time-Savey
The number of clicks that Click.to saves you depends on what kind of copying and pasting you normally do. For sharing to social networks and drafting emails, it's pretty handy, and the Wikipedia tie-in is brilliant. But when it came time for me to get some actual work done, I occasionally found Click.to distracting because it was offering its services at times when it they wouldn't work for me. One example: I was copying and pasting information from multiple sources into one existing Notepad document. I didn't want to start a new file every time I copied more text. I just wanted to continue pasting into the file that was already open, and I couldn't find a way to do that with Click.to. However,?I later learned that there is an action that could have helped me, but it wasn't apparent enough for me to find on my own. It's called back-action, and to use it, you have to add the "browse to" button (a red icon with two white arrows) to your Click.to commands list.

To use the back action, you first have to create a new document using Click.to with the first "paste." Then, the next time you use Click.to, you can select the "browse to" icon, and the program will bring you to the file you pasted into last. You then have to use a command for paste (Ctrl+V or Apple command+V, or right-click and select "paste"), as the Click.to function in this case only returns you to the right file and doesn't do the pasting part.

If Click.to is still distracting for certain applications or tasks, you can always it off. And you can turn it off only for certain applications, which is a nice touch.

Fewer Clicks With Click.to
Productivity and efficiency experts have long studied the number of clicks and keystrokes the average office worker completes in a day. Click.to tries to decrease that total by removing several steps in the copy-and-paste process, which is usually more like: select text or item, copy, find and launch other application, open new document or navigate to appropriate spot, paste. The free product is worth downloading if you tend to use copy-paste workflows often.

More Productivity Reviews:?

??? Google Gmail (Fall 2011)
??? SoMud 1.3.3
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??? Adobe InDesign CS5.5
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/1H4_pfLKXjQ/0,2817,2395207,00.asp

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Netflix Q3 Revenue Up 49 Percent To $822M; Will Double Content Spending In 2012

Streaming movie and TV show platform Netflix reported third quarter earnings today. Revenue came in at 822 million up 49 percent from 2010. Earnings per share for the quarter was $1.16, which is up 66 percent from the same quarter 2010. Analysts expected earnings of $0.96 cents per share. Net Income was $62 million for the quarter, up 63 percent from 2010. Netflix now has 23.8 million subscribers. Of those subscribers, 21.5 million are using the streaming service and 13.9 million are using the DVD service. Netflix actually lost around 800,000 subscribers from last quarter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8BIeRBHK7fo/

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5 Halloween Costume Ideas for Lindsay Lohan (omg!)

[unable to retrieve full-text content]omg! - 5 Halloween Costume Ideas for Lindsay Lohan

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Elaborate plumage due to testosterone?

Friday, October 21, 2011

In many bird species males have a more elaborate plumage than females. This elaborate plumage is often used to signal body condition, to intimidate rivals or to attract potential mates. In many cases plumage colouration also depends on the hormone testosterone. Christina Muck and Wolfgang Goymann from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen have now investigated whether this also holds true for sex role reversed bird species. In barred buttonquails that live in Southeast Asia, females are polygamous and pair with several males that incubate the eggs and raise the young. However, not only the behaviour, but also secondary sexual ornaments that depend on the male hormone testosterone are reversed between sexes.

Women who use typical male strategies to promote their careers are often not successful. Recent findings suggest that this strategy often leads to the opposite effect. Apparently certain behaviours are considered to be typical male, such as being offensive in business matters. Also in birds one can find clearly defined roles: The male defends a territory, courts a female and on top of has the better looks due to his elaborate plumage.

Colourful plumage and long feathers allow a male to express its quality and/or condition without further physical demonstration of its strength. With such features they may be able to avoid physical fights which are costly with respect to energy expenditure and the risk of injuries. The size and intensity of some parts of the plumage, for example the so-called black bib in house sparrows, depends on the male sex hormone testosterone; males with high testosterone levels also possess a larger and more intensely coloured bib.

There is hardly anything known regarding function and regulation of plumage colouration in female birds: females mostly have a dull plumage with almost no variation between individuals. However, in a few bird species sex roles are reversed: here, the females aggressively defend territories and court males. The latter incubate the eggs and care for the young without any help from the females. Only very few species are known to show such sex role reversal in behaviour and the evolutionary background is still unsolved.

Christina Muck and Wolfgang Goymann now found a relationship between plumage colouration, body weight and testosterone concentrations in female barred buttonquail, a bird species that lives in Southeast Asia. The researchers kept the birds in pairs for one year in large breeding boxes and regularly took blood samples to monitor the time course of testosterone levels. In addition they weighed the birds and took photographs of the black throat patch of females to determine its size and colour intensity on the computer. Males of this species are smaller than females and do not possess such a patch.

The researchers could first show that testosterone levels were similar in males and females and did not exhibit large seasonal changes. Moreover, testosterone levels were rather low which is common is species that do not show a pronounced seasonality. Nevertheless they found a strong relationship between the size and the intensity of the black throat patch and the testosterone levels in females. Moreover, in females there was a correlation between testosterone levels and female body condition. No such correlations existed in males.

"It is really remarkable", states Christina Muck, "that the sex role reversal in behaviours is accompanied by a reversed hormone dependency in the expression of secondary sexual characters". Thus, female button quails succeed when they not only adopt male behavioural strategies but also use the underlying physiological mechanisms.

###

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: http://www.mpg.de

Thanks to Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 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.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114528/Elaborate_plumage_due_to_testosterone_

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Ancient images of a mother giving birth found

An international team of archaeologists has unearthed what might be the earliest representation of childbirth in western art, they announced Wednesday.

Consisting of two images of a woman giving birth to a child, the intimate scene was found on a small fragment from a ceramic vessel that is more than 2,600 years old.

It was excavated by William Nutt, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Texas at Arlington who is legally blind.

About 1-3/4 x 1-1/4 inches (4 x 3 cm), the fragment was part of a vessel made of bucchero, a typically Etruscan black pottery.

The image show the head and shoulders of a baby emerging from a mother. Portrayed with her face in profile and a long ponytail running down her back, the woman has her knees and one arm raised.

The image could be the earliest representation of childbirth in western art, according to Phil Perkins, professor of archaeology at the Open University, in Milton Keynes, England.

"Such images are rare in ancient and classical art. A few, much later Greek and Roman images are known, but this one dates to about 600 B.C.," Perkins, who first identified the scene, told Discovery News.

A fun loving and eclectic people who among other things taught the French how to make wine, the Romans how to build roads, and introduced the art of writing into Europe, the Etruscans began to flourish around 900 B.C., and dominated much of Italy for five centuries.

Known for their art, agriculture, fine metalworking and commerce, they begun to decline during the fifth century B.C., as the Romans grew in power. By 300-100 B.C., they eventually became absorbed into the Roman empire.

Since their puzzling, non-Indo-European language was virtually extinguished (they left no literature to document their society),the Etruscans have long been considered one of antiquity?s great enigmas.

Indeed, much of what we know about them comes from their cemeteries: only the richly decorated tombs they left behind have provided clues to fully reconstruct their history.

Poggio Colla is one of the few sites offering insight of the Etruscan life in a non-funerary context. It spans most of Etruscan history, being occupied from the seventh to the second century B.C.

Centering on the acropolis, a roughly rectangular plateau, the site was also home to a sanctuary: numerous votive deposits indicate that for some part of its history, it was a sacred spot to a divinity or divinities.

The abundance of weaving tools and a stunning deposit of gold jewelry discovered in previous excavations, have suggested that the patron divinity may have been female.

In this view, the ancient depiction of childbirth becomes even more interesting, according to Greg Warden, professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU and a director of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project.

PHOTOS: Etruscan Site Reveals Domestic Treasures

"Might it have some connection to the cult, to the kind of worship that went on at the hilltop sanctuary?," Warden wondered.

Perkins speculated that the woman giving birth could be a representation of an Etruscan goddess, suggesting that Poggio Colla was the location of a cult-site for an Etruscan fertility goddess.

"She would represent a new Etruscan myth, as we know of no Etruscan goddess who gives birth in Etruscan mythology," Perkins said.

The finding, which will be detailed at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Philadelphia in January, is ?a most exciting discovery? according to Larissa Bonfante, a world-renowned expert on the Etruscan civilization.

?She could be a goddess, probably apotropaic [protective],? Bonfante told Discovery News.

? 2011 Discovery Channel

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44975336/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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NASA Sets Guidelines to Preserve Apollo Moon Landing Sites (SPACE.com)

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico ? NASA has begun drafting guidelines to protect the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 landing sites, listing them as off-limits, and including ground-travel buffers and no-fly zones to avoid spraying rocket exhaust or dust onto aging, but historic, equipment.

Robert Kelso, NASA?s director of lunar commercial services at Johnson Space Center in Houston, has taken a hard look at future revisits to the Apollo sites and how to protect U.S. government artifacts on the moon.

Kelso has carved out a set of guidelines intended to safeguard the historic and scientific value of more than three dozen "heritage sites" on the lunar surface.?

The report, which was released on July 20, is titled "NASA?s Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities: How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Lunar Artifacts."?[Photos: NASA's Apollo Moon Missions]

A greater urgency for guidelines has been sparked by the Google Lunar X Prize?s offer of $20 million to any private team that lands a robotic rover on the moon?s surface. An additional $4 million has been offered for any team that snaps pictures of artifacts near or at the Apollo landing sites.

Key question

For Kelso, a key question is: "As the small commercial landers make preparations for possible visits to these historic sites, how do we protect these culturally significant sites from damage so that we can inspect them historically and scientifically?"

The recommendations listed by NASA are intended to apply to U.S. government artifacts on the lunar surface, such as:

• Apollo lunar surface landing and roving hardware;
• Unmanned lunar surface landing sites (e.g., Surveyor robotic landing sites) and impact sites, such as those of NASA's Ranger spacecraft, as well as the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) that slammed into the moon in October 2009;
• U.S. government experiments left on the lunar surface, tools, equipment, miscellaneous moonwalking gear; and
• Specific indicators of U.S. human, human-robotic lunar presence, including footprints and rover tracks.

Archaeological input

A recognized leader in the emerging field of space heritage and archaeology is Beth O?Leary, an anthropology professor here at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

O?Leary has spent more than a decade working with historians and archaeologists researching how to study and curate human artifacts on the moon. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]

Given a small grant from NASA and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, O?Leary spearheaded work through a Lunar Legacy Project that investigated protection of the Apollo 11 landing site.

?There is a need for more archaeological input into the process of protecting what is certainly humanity?s most extraordinary series of events that led us off the Earth and onto the Moon,? O?Leary told SPACE.com.

The recent capacities of NASA?s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) ? now circling the moon ? has? demonstrated that the probe could be used by archaeologists as an important remote sensing tool for identifying and mapping historic lunar sites.?

Keep-out zones

O?Leary said that the NASA guidelines create a series of keep-out zones and boundaries around the historic artifacts and features at all Apollo sites. Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 are acknowledged as having special historical and cultural significance, she said.

Those two locales are treated as unique by prohibiting visits to any part of these sites, and all future visiting vehicles would remain beyond the "artifact boundaries" of each entire site.

"This provides a robust zone of protection around these two sites," O?Leary said.

In the NASA study ? for hopper configuration landers that are able to perform "low-altitude"/tangential fly-bys of identified sites ? special guidelines have been written to ensure negligible plume interactions at the surface.

High heritage value

"For me, the NASA document represents a giant leap for lunar historic preservation," O?Leary explained. "NASA references its ownership of its lunar hardware and the need for protecting what it calls 'witness plates' or 'lunar assets' ? those significant artifacts it created in the past that are now on the moon. This is a critical first step and many more have to follow, but for the first time NASA formally recognizes the heritage value of Apollo 11 and other extraordinary lunar sites."

The NASA report also recognizes there have been no human impacts to the sites, which are in pristine, undisturbed condition except for the effects of the space environment.??

"Importantly, it recognizes that future missions can disturb or change the earlier lunar sites in ways that scientific and historic information can be lost," O?Leary said. Also, some of the sites are still active and continue to provide data ? such as Apollo retro-reflectors used to measure the distance between the Earth and moon via laser ranging.

"It was time for a preservation strategy," O?Leary said.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111021/sc_space/nasasetsguidelinestopreserveapollomoonlandingsites

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ASUS' Jonney Shih unveils Transformer Prime Android tablet: 10-inch, 8.3mm, quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3

Whoa, Nelly! ASUS head honcho Jonney Shih just revealed the "next-generation Transformer tablet" here at AsiaD! It's the same one that we saw teased just yesterday, and Jonney affirmed that it'll ship with a quad-core NVIDIA chip, 10-inch display, mini-HDMI port, a 14.5-hour battery, an SD card slot and a top lid that looks precisely like its Zenbook line. Oh, and it's 8.3mm thick, though Jonney didn't specify as to whether that was docked or undocked (we're guessing the former!). Naturally, it'll ship with Android, and we're assuming it'll be Honeycomb to start. That said, Shih did affirm to Walt Mossberg that he expects Ice Cream Sandwich to hit tablets by the end of the year -- "perhaps earlier." Finally, we were informed that it'll be called the Transformer Prime, and while a final ship date wasn't given, we're told to expect more news on that front during the November 9th "official reveal."

Gallery: ASUS' Jonney Shih unveils Transformer Prime Android tablet at AsiaD

ASUS' Jonney Shih unveils Transformer Prime Android tablet: 10-inch, 8.3mm, quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/19/asus-jonney-shih-unveils-transformer-2-at-asiad/

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Boston Scientific reports 25 pct fall in 3Q profit (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp. reported Thursday that its third-quarter profit fell 25 percent on a combination of lower product sales and thinner profit margins.

Revenue fell to $1.87 billion from $1.92 billion, mainly because of falling demand for implantable heart defibrillators. Sales of the devices declined to $503 million from $550 million in the most recent period.

The company's stock slid 25 cents, or 4.4 percent, to close at $5.39 Thursday.

Like other medical device makers, Boston Scientific has struggled in recent years to make up for lower sales of those products like defibrillators and heart stents, amid cost-cutting efforts by hospitals and medical studies suggesting the implants are overused. Company executives said sales were further pressured by seasonal factors, including summer vacations when hospitals perform fewer procedures.

"We are optimistic that a modest recovery will emerge as built-up demand for elective procedures begins down the line," said acting CEO Hank Kucheman, the company's president for cardiology, on a call with investors and analysts.

The company reported third-quarter net income of $142 million, or 9 cents per share, down from $190 million, or 12 cents per share, in the same period last year. The latest quarter's results were weighed down by $81 million in one-time expenses, including costs from the company's restructuring efforts and debt payments.

Excluding one-time costs, the company would have earned $223 million, or 15 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected 9 cents per share on revenue of $1.91 billion, though that estimate included certain one-time expenses.

Revenue from the company's interventional cardiology business, including drug-coated stents, was flat for the period. Stents are mesh-wire tubes used to prop open arteries after they have been cleared of fatty plaque.

Boston Scientific's share of the global drug-eluting stent market slipped a percentage point to 36 percent amid increased pricing competition among the four companies that market the devices. In June, Johnson & Johnson announced it would phase out its drug-coated stent program after steadily losing market share for years. Although J&J pioneered the devices, its Cypher stents have fallen behind newer offerings from Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic.

The Natick, Mass.-based company announced last month it had hired Michael Mahoney, J&J's chairman for medical devices, to become its next CEO. Because of a non-compete agreement with J&J, Mahoney will not formally become CEO until Nov. 1, 2012. Until then he will serve as a company president. He faces the challenge of increasing the company's sales when the market for its best-selling products is shrinking. The market for implantable defibrillators is expected to decline 2 percent worldwide next year, driven by a 7 percent decline in the U.S., according to estimates by Cowen and Co. analyst Josh Jennings.

"I have made a very long-term commitment to Boston Scientific, I'm excited by this opportunity and I intend to make the most of it," Mahoney told analysts on a teleconference Thursday morning. Mahoney formally joined the company on Monday.

Boston Scientific and other device makers have seen profits squeezed by a downturn in elective procedures, as patients delay surgery due to economic hardship. Company executives said procedures appeared to pick up in September after a seasonal slump during the summer, but long-term gains remain to be seen.

"Despite continued pressure on global health care cost, the opportunity in this industry continues to be significant," Kucheman said. "Economic realities dictate that companies like Boston Scientific not only continue to develop technology that improves health care, but do so in ways that contribute to reducing the overall episode of treatment cost."

For full-year 2011, the company estimates sales between $7.62 to $7.72 billion and earnings in the range of 27 to 33 cents per share, or a range of 67 cents to 70 cents per share excluding items. Analysts expect full-year earnings per share of 45 cents and sales of $7.76 billon, on average.

Boston Scientific has not recorded a net annual profit since 2005, before its $27 billion dollar purchase of defibrillator maker Guidant.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111020/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_boston_scientific

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Apple loses round in Wall St.'s expectations game

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Call it the curse of great expectations.

Apple did just about everything right in its latest quarter. The company increased its profit by more than 50 percent and boosted revenue by nearly 40 percent over the same quarter last year.

It was the second best three-month period ever posted by the revered maker of the iPhone, iPad and iPod. Even more impressively, Apple pulled it off against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and fears of another recession. But by the sometimes absurd logic of Wall Street, it was a disaster.

Apple Inc.'s shareholders awoke on Wednesday morning to headlines like "Apple Loses Some of Its Shine", and then proceeded to lose about $22 billion on paper, as their stock dropped by more than 5 percent ?all because Apple failed to manage the analyst expectations that can make or break a stock.

Apple's numbers didn't surpass the high bar set by roughly 50 securities analysts who follow the company's stock. It's another reminder of how difficult it can be for even the most prosperous companies to please Wall Street quarter after quarter.

"It's a rough game," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. "Apple has been so well for so long that it has gotten itself into a position where it has to set a new (earnings) record every quarter. Now, some of the momentum has been broken."

The backlash to Apple's fiscal fourth-quarter report, released late Tuesday, could very well turn out to be a gross overreaction. If so, this is a prime buying opportunity for investors willing to go against grain.

Apple suggested as much as by issuing a jolly outlook for the current quarter, which includes the holiday shopping season. The projections call for earnings and revenue above analyst estimates, an anomaly for a company that makes a habit of lowballing its quarterly predictions. Analysts have caught on to Apple's tactics, so they deliberately set their estimates above the company's forecast. Gillis' rule of thumb, for instance, is to expect Apple's quarterly revenue to be about 20 percent above the company's publicly-stated target and for earnings to be about 40 percent higher.

The Oct. 5 death of Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs throws a new twist into the equation.

Now that Tim Cook is chief executive, analysts must now figure out whether the rules of Apple's expectations game have changed. ISI analyst Brian Marshall thinks that's unlikely because Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer for the past seven years, remains in charge of the numbers. What's more, Cook has promised not to mess with the "magic" that has increased Apple's market value by nearly $300 billion during the past decade and established it as technology's most valuable company.

Trying to figure out how much money a company is going to make every three months is a little like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Most major companies provide some guidance to help analysts because it helps keep their stock prices relatively stable. Big drops, in particular, are unwelcome because they can raise anxiety among customers and business partners. For technology companies that offer employees stock in lieu of lavish salaries, those dips can affect morale.

Some companies, though, refuse to dance to Wall Street's tune. Internet search leader Google Inc., for instance, has never provided guidance during any of its 29 quarters as a publicly-held company because founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin don't want business decisions to be influenced by a short-sighted number determined by a group of outsiders.

This refusal has been a bit of a double-edged sword for Google. The company has exceeded analyst estimates in most quarters, helping to boost its stock price after the quarterly numbers, but there have been a handful of letdowns that might have been avoided if management had been more transparent.

Apple's big mistake in its latest quarter centered on the impact the Phone 4S ? already a hit in the current quarter? would have on its revenue in the just-completed quarter. As word got out that the next generation of the iPhone would be hitting the market in the fall, more shoppers decided to hold off on buying the version already in the stores during the summer.

The result: Apple sold 17.1 million iPhones from July through September, below the 20 million units that analysts had factored into their projections. That left the company, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., with earnings per share of $7.07 on revenue of $28.3 billion instead of the earnings per share of $7.28 per share on revenue of $29.4 billion projected by analysts.

Missing the mark inevitably led to some second guessing, particularly now that Jobs is no longer around. Cook had been running Apple since Jobs went on medical leave in January, but he didn't take the CEO job until Aug. 24 with about five weeks left in the company's fiscal fourth quarter.

Apple could have avoided the problem that caused the quarterly earnings miss by releasing the iPhone 4 in the middle of the reporting period, Gillis said. That's a strategy that Jobs had sometimes adopted when Apple was preparing to release a hotly anticipated device that threatened to cannibalize sale of an earlier product.

If the iPhone 4S had been in stores just during the final week of September, the sales would have been enough for Apple to meet analyst expectations. That's based on Apple's sales of 4 million units of the iPhone 4S since its Oct. 14 release.

"The lesson to be learned here is to be careful when you have a new product coming out," Marshall said. "Even in a tough economy, people still want the latest and greatest device and they are willing to keep some money in their back pocket to buy it."

Marshall, by the way, expects Apple to more than make up for its shortfall in the latest quarter: he foresees nearly 27 million iPhones being sold in the current quarter and expects the company's stock price to hit $500 within the next year. Apple shares fell $23.62 Wednesday to close at $398.62.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-19-Apple-Great%20Expectations/id-cfbfed00a8d3444099a975d32b36a847

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Citi posts higher earnings but warns on growth (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Citigroup Inc reported higher quarterly earnings, helped by an accounting gain, but warned that developed markets could face weak growth for years, and the bank's shares fell.

The results were better than expected, but the bank's shares shrugged off early strength and ended the day lower amid broader concerns about the industry's future profitability. Wells Fargo & Co posted a steep drop in lending margins on Monday.

"When you look at the (accounting gain) and the loan loss reserve releases, those stick out like sore thumbs," said Matt McCormick, portfolio manager with Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel. "Investors are saying they like banks to beat expectations, just they don't like how Citi did it."

Like its rivals, Citigroup was hit by the European debt crisis and the sluggish U.S. economy. Investment banking fees dropped and its loan book fell 2 percent. Operating expenses rose, in part because of investments made to boost its business.

Chief Executive Vikram Pandit is trying to turn the bank around after the financial crisis by focusing on emerging markets, where economies are still growing relatively quickly. The weak U.S. economy also weighed on results at JPMorgan Chase & Co last week.

"In the developed markets, growth is likely to be slow for years," Pandit said in a conference call with analysts.

He also said the U.S. housing market remains the "greatest risk" that domestic banks face.

Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach said the bank's net interest margin is expected to decline by a few hundredths of a percentage point every quarter for the next few quarters, if the bank does not make a significant portfolio sale.

Growth in the developed markets is weak, but the emerging markets, which have fueled much of Citigroup's profit gains in recent quarters, showed early signs of sputtering. For example, retail loan volume in Latin America dropped 7 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter.

Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, reported net income of $3.77 billion, or $1.23 per share, up from $2.17 billion or 72 cents per share a year earlier.

The latest results included a pretax gain of $1.9 billion, or 39 cents per share after taxes, due to the bank's widening credit spreads during the quarter. When a bank's debt weakens relative to U.S. Treasuries, it can record an accounting gain because it could theoretically profit from buying back debt.

Excluding that gain, Citi earned $2.6 billion, or 84 cents per share.

Analysts' average forecast was 81 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

After rising by as much as 3.8 percent in the morning, Citi shares changed course and ended 1.7 percent lower on the day at $27.93.

The bank's share price has fallen about 40 percent this year, in line with declines for other large banks.

IMPROVING CREDIT

Citi, which received three U.S. government rescues at the height of the financial crisis, is seeing its problem loan portfolio shrink.

Nonaccrual loans fell to $7.95 billion in the third quarter from $12.46 billion a year earlier.

As part of the improving credit picture, Citi also announced plans to move its retail partner card business from Citi Holdings, the unit where the bank keeps assets and operations it is shedding, into Citicorp, where it houses its main continuing businesses.

Citigroup had been looking to sell the unit -- which includes $42 billion in credit card loans -- after forming Citi Holdings in 2009.

But CFO Gerspach said the business now makes sense with Citigroup's on-going business, as the portfolio is now "markedly different" than in 2008 and 2009 at the height of the financial crisis.

"We figured out how retail partner cards fit the broader payment strategy" for U.S. consumer, Gerspach said. The bank has no plans to take its OneMain Financial business into its Citicorp unit, he added, because it is not as good a strategic fit.

OneMain makes consumer loans, typically to less-wealthy borrowers, while Citigroup is focusing its retail businesses on higher-income consumers globally.

A tough dealmaking market may also be contributing to the card unit's move.

Gerspach said the current market environment is "a bit daunting" for selling large loan portfolios.

INVESTMENT BANKING HIT

Like JPMorgan, Citigroup's investment banking business was hurt when European market turmoil made companies reluctant to buy competitors or issue securities.

Revenue at Citi's continuing securities and banking business fell 12 percent excluding the debt value adjustment, to $4.84 billion.

Overall operating expenses rose 8 percent from a year earlier. Operating expenses were $12.46 billion and have been hovering around that level since the fourth quarter of 2010. From the beginning of 2009 through the third quarter of 2010, quarterly operating expenses were typically closer to $11.9 billion.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch in Charlotte, N.C.; editing by Gerald E. McCormick, John Wallace and Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111017/bs_nm/us_citigroup

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Report: US, Euro arms used against Arab protesters (Providence Journal)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/150006797?client_source=feed&format=rss

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FAA halts flights near home of missing Mo. baby

KANSAS CITY, Mo.?? Police are searching a heavily wooded area blocks away from the home of missing Missouri baby, and the FAA announced on Tuesday a temporary flight restriction for the area, NBC News reported

The flight restrictions are near the home of 10-month-old Lisa Irwin, whose parents say vanished from her crib early on Oct 4.

The flight restrictions are "to provide a safe environment for law enforcement," NBC News reported.

The flight ceiling is 1500 feet and 2 nautical miles around the site.

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Story: Attorney: Baby Lisa's mother will 'absolutely not' be arrested

More than a dozen FBI and local law enforcement police vehicles have gathered for the search. It is the fourth time investigators have searched this specific location.

The attorney for Lisa Irwin's parents on Monday said the family "have nothing to hide."

Deborah Bradley, Lisa's mother, told television audiences Monday that she may have blacked out in the hours before she and Jeremy Irwin reported their daughter was missing from their Kansas City. Bradley also now says she last saw her daughter hours earlier than she originally told police.

"I don't recall in recent history anyone under this umbrella of suspicion be so open and forthright, warts and all, regarding the events. Because they have nothing to hide," said attorney Joe Tacopina, who held a press conference Monday to announce he had been hired to represent the couple.

Story: Baby Lisa?s mom: I was drunk when she vanished

The parents reported their daughter missing after Irwin returned home from working a night shift and found the front door unlocked, the house lights on, a window tampered with and the baby gone. Bradley and their two sons were asleep elsewhere in the house.

Police have said they have no suspects in the case and no major leads. On Monday, the parents allowed the FBI to bring tracking dogs through their home. The FBI also searched a neighbor's house with the dogs, as well as the yard of the home where Bradley and Irwin have been staying with their two sons.

Bradley had said in previous days that she checked on Lisa at 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 3, but on Monday told NBC's "Today" show that she actually last saw Lisa when she put her to bed at 6:40 p.m. She did not explain why she changed her story.

Bradley told Fox News that she got drunk after she put her daughter to bed that night and may have blacked out. She said she "probably" drank more than five glasses of wine, and said she frequently drank at home after her children were safely in bed. She also said she had taken a dose of anti-anxiety medication that day.

Bradley told NBC that police accused her of killing Lisa, but she insisted again that she had not harmed her daughter.

"No, no. ... I don't think alcohol changes a person enough to do something like that," she said.

Tacopina, who also defended Joran Van der Sloot, the Dutch man suspected in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, said Bradley detailing her drinking the night Lisa went missing "goes to her credibility."

"That's something she was willing to tell the truth about even if it didn't make her look good because she's got nothing to hide," said Tacopina, who refused to say who was paying him and would only say that he had been hired to counsel the parents through the investigation.

Sean O'Brien, associate professor of law at University of Missouri-Kansas City, said it was difficult to read anything into Bradley's remarks about her drinking or about what police told her. But he said it was wise for the parents to hire a lawyer, and they likely should have done so earlier given what Bradley has said about police accusing her of being involved in the baby's disappearance.

"When the questioning becomes accusatory ... it's time to shut up and lawyer up," O'Brien said.

But he noted that police remain the family's "best hope" of finding the baby, so Bradley would want to continue cooperating.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44950352/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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Nano funnel used to generate extreme ultraviolet light pulses

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011) ? If you want to avoid spilling when you are pouring liquids in the kitchen you may appreciate a funnel. Funnels are not only useful tools in the kitchen. Light can also be efficiently concentrated with funnels. In this case, the funnels have to be about 10.000-times smaller.

An international team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon (South Korea), the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching (Germany), and the Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta (USA) has now managed to concentrate the energy of infrared light pulses with a nano funnel and use the concentrated energy to generate extreme ultraviolet light flashes. These flashes, which repeated 75 million times per second, lasted only a few femtoseconds. The new technology can help in the future to measure the movement of electrons with the highest spatial and temporal resolution.

Light is convertible. The wavelengths composing the light can change through interactions with matter, where both the type of material and shape of the material are important for the frequency conversion. An international team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ), and the Georgia State University (GSU) has now modified light waves with a nano funnel made out of silver. The scientists converted femtosecond laser pulses in the infrared spectral range to femtosecond light flashes in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV). Ultrashort, pulsed EUV light is used in laser physics to explore the inside of atoms and molecules. A femtosecond lasts only a millionth of a billionth of a second.

Light in the infrared (IR) can be converted to the EUV by a process known as high-harmonic generation, whereby the atoms are exposed to a strong electric field from the IR laser pulses. These fields have to be as strong as the fields holding the atom together. With these fields electrons can be extracted from the atoms and accelerated with full force back onto the atoms. Upon impact highly energetic radiation in the EUV is generated.

To reach the necessary strong electric fields for the production of EUV light, the team of scientists has now combined this scheme with a nano funnel in order to concentrate the electric field of the light. With their new technology, they were able to create a powerful EUV light source with wavelengths down to 20 nanometers. The light source exhibits a so far unreached high repetition rate: the few femtoseconds lasting EUV light flashes are repeated 75 million times per second.

The core of the experiment was a small, only a few micrometers long, slightly elliptical funnel made out of silver and filled with xenon gas. The tip of the funnel was only ca. 100 nanometers wide. The infrared light pulses were sent into the funnel entrance where they travel through towards the small exit. The electromagnetic forces of the light result in density fluctuations of the electrons on the inside of the funnel. Here, a small patch of the metal surface was positively charged, the next one negative and so on, resulting in new electromagnetic fields on the inside of the funnel, which are called surface plasmon polaritons. The surface plasmon polaritons travel towards the tip of the funnel, where the conical shape of the funnel results in a concentration of their fields. ?The field on the inside of the funnel can become a few hundred times stronger than the field of the incident infrared light. This enhanced field results in the generation of EUV light in the Xe gas.?, explains Prof. Mark Stockman from GSU.

The nano funnel has yet another function. Its small opening at the exit acts as ?doorman? for light wavelengths. Not every opening is passable for light. If the opening is smaller than half of a wavelength, the other side remains dark. The 100 nanometer large opening of the funnel did not allow the infrared light at 800 nm to pass. The generated EUV pulses with wavelengths down to 20 nanometers passed, however, without problems. ?The funnel acts as an efficient wavelength filter: at the small opening only EUV light comes out.?, explains Prof. Seung-Woo Kim from KAIST, where the experiments were conducted.

?Due to their short wavelength and potentially short pulse duration reaching into the attosecond domain, extreme ultraviolet light pulses are an important tool for the exploration of electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and solids?, explains Seung-Woo Kim. Electrons are extremely fast, moving on attosecond timescales (an attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second). In order to capture a moving electron, light flashes are needed, which are shorter than the timescale of the motion. Attosecond light flashes have become a familiar tool in the exploration of electron motion. With the conventional techniques, they can only be repeated a few thousand times per second. This can change with the nano funnel. ?We assume that the few femtosecond light flashes consist of trains of attosecond pulses?, argues Matthias Kling, group leader at MPQ. ?With such pulse trains, we should be able to conduct experiments with attosecond time resolution at very high repetition rate.?

The repetition rate is important for e.g. the application of EUV pulses in electron spectroscopy on surfaces. Electrons repel each other by Coulomb forces. Therefore, it may be necessary to restrict the experimental conditions such that only a single electron is generated per laser shot. With low repetition rates, long data acquisition times would be required in order to achieve sufficient experimental resolution. ?In order to conduct experiments with high spatial and temporal resolution within a sufficiently short time, a high repetition rate EUV source is needed?, explains Kling. The novel combination of laser technology and nanotechnology can help in the future to record movies of ultrafast electron motion on surfaces with so far unreached temporal and spatial resolution in the attosecond-nanometer domain.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics.

---

Journal Reference:

1. In-Yong Park, Seungchul Kim, Joonhee Choi, Dong-Hyub Lee, Young-Jin Kim, Matthias F. Kling, Mark I. Stockman, Seung-Woo Kim. Plasmonic generation of ultrashort extreme-ultraviolet light pulses. Nature Photonics, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2011.258

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017092344.htm

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Swiss chocolatiers stress quality over quantity (AP)

GENEVA ? Switzerland's leading chocolate makers are trying to convince their countrymen to embrace quality over quantity.

The chocolatiers from around the Alpine nation have gathered in Geneva to show off their finest wares to consumers already spoiled for chocolate choice.

On Sunday, thousands lined up outside the venue in a converted hydropower station to get a taste.

Tibor Luka, one of the organizers of Switzerland's first chocolate salon, says 24 master chocolatiers have been invited to explain the fine points of cocoa quality and flavoring.

The aim is to teach visitors to think about chocolate the way they would about wine.

Switzerland has the highest per capita consumption of chocolate in the world, with about 26.5 pounds (12 kilograms) per person each year.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111016/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_switzerland_chocolate

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Fight in Matamoros prison leaves 20 inmates dead

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? A bloody, hours-long fight in a prison in the Mexican border city of Matamoros on Saturday left 20 inmates dead and 12 injured, state officials said.

The fight apparently started with a dispute between two inmates and other prisoners joined in, creating a melee that lasted until authorities retook control of the facility in Matamoros, which sits across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

A statement from state public security department in Tamaulipas, where Matamoros is located, said officials were notifying the families of those killed and injured. It said there would be an investigation.

The violence lasted from about 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. local time before soldiers and marines took control, according to a state official who was not authorized to comment.

The violence comes as Mexican prison conditions have been under increased scrutiny because of violence and escapes.

On Thursday, a fight between gang members at a prison outside Monterrey left seven inmates dead. In July, a riot in a prison in the border city of Juarez killed 17 inmates.

Gangs and drug cartels often dispute for control of prisons in Mexico, which also suffer a high level of corruption.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-15-LT-Mexico-Prison-Violence/id-fc5fc2f57617479b9239104d6fd5af7a

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PFT: Steelers' Ward vows not to 'do a Brett Favre'

Getty Images

After months of speculation, the time has come to find out whether Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow can thrive at the NFL level.

But since the Broncos are on their bye, let?s consider more speculation before Tebow gets his first start in a meaningful game.

Former Florida coach Urban Meyer recently explained on WDAE in Tampa that Meyer believes Tebow will succeed.? Asked why Meyer feels that way, Meyer elaborated.? ?Same reason he was in high school and won the state championship and the national championship in college,? Meyer said, via SportsRadioInterviews.com.? ?Football is still football, whether it?s the spread offense, whether it?s the West Coast or I-formation.? Competitors usually find ways to win games.? Tim?s going to be successful, no doubt.? I just hope that the Denver Broncos have enough firepower and they just get better as a team.? I?m a Broncos fan now and I want to see those guys do well and one guy doesn?t change a team.? Tim Tebow had a lot of success at Florida because he had Aaron Hernandez and Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy and the Pounceys.? He had really good players that played well around him and an excellent defense.?

In other words, Tim will succeed and, if he doesn?t, it won?t be his fault.

Meyer also was asked to address whether Tebow will overcome perceived deficiencies with his mechanics.? You know, that long, loopy throwing motion that Meyer either didn?t try or wasn?t able to tighten up.

?It?s a question if the team will,? Meyer said.? ?I think Tim will.? This whole thing that one guy in one phase of the game is all of the sudden is going to put the Denver Broncos in the playoffs, it?s always going to be this way that the quarterback gets far too much criticism and too much glory when they win.? He?ll manage whatever deficiency he has in throwing the ball, it?s just a matter of if the Broncos can improve their play enough to win.?

Again, in other words, Tim will succeed and, if he doesn?t, it won?t be his fault.

We hope Tebow succeeds.? But he needs to be fairly evaluated based on his performance, getting credit if he succeeds and blame if he doesn?t.? Meyer?s remarks could be the blueprint for those out there (and you know who you are) who will never find fault with Tebow, under any circumstances.? They?ll expect Tim to succeed and, if he doesn?t, they?ll find something to blame other than Tebow.

Even if Tebow deserves part or all of the blame.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/13/hines-ward-talks-retirement-vows-not-to-do-a-brett-favre/related/

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Know About Breast Cancer | breast cancer awareness

[unable to retrieve full-text content]These are obesity, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, diabetes, congestive heart failure etc. Nowadays, breast cancer is one of the horrible diseases ... By: Anthony Fernandol Health> Diseases and Conditionsl Jul 12, 2011 Disease Management versus Cure, Part 1. "It's just too expensive to be sick. I'll see one of ... By: Anthony Fernandol Sports and Fitness> Footballl Jul 21, 2011 Puppies for Sale and Its Various Aspects. If you are truly seeking for a puppy for sale, you ...

Source: http://breastcanceraware.net/2011/10/know-about-breast-cancer/

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Apple Wins Australian Ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 [Samsung]

News from the Australian front in the Apple/Samsung war has arrived, and it's bad for Samsung—its Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been banned from sale in Oz, thanks to a judge putting an interim injunction in place. [BBC via Gizmodo UK] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/v4dvni_eK8w/apple-wins-australian-ban-on-samsung-galaxy-tab-101

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Real Points ? Blog Archive ? Lisa Gardner: Ketchup and Real Estate

Lisa Gardner

There is an electrifying synergy between consumer product companies and corporate real estate services. As consumer product companies expand their portfolios through global acquisitions to meet revenue objectives, real estate professionals can play a huge part in their growth strategies?if we broaden our ideas and sharpen our focus.

According to an article in the most recent Harvard Business Review, ?This year more than 20 percent of Heinz?s revenue will come from emerging markets such as China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil, versus less than 5 percent a few years ago.? Heinz, the ketchup my kids love dearly, is taking advantage of the opportunity to build a competitive strategy around developing economies.

So what does this mean for corporate real estate services and transactional management? It means a huge opportunity to guide consumer product companies through consolidation and cost-saving strategies relating to real estate, and allowing real estate to play a significant part in revenue growth. In other words, help them see how to ?let real estate work for you.?

Heinz has acquired products worldwide since 1999 and has plans to continue with an acquisition strategy through the next decade. According to the HBR, the CEO of Heinz, Bill Johnson, developed a long-term emerging market strategy, with an emphasis on what he calls the Three A?s. These relate to what the strategic focus should be for their corporate real estate initiatives as well.

??The first A stands for applicability. For Heinz, it makes sure the product suits the local culture. For corporate real estate services, we would analyze market rate structures, the most obvious, but also analyze the physical and socio-economic conditions for facility adaptability/flexibility and employee retention. We would also analyze current facilities, which do not service a direct competitive product, for a shared work space, a very popular transactional strategy internationally. The cost savings are realized more immediately.

? The second A stands for availability. Heinz ensures selling channels are relevant to the local population. While Americans shop in grocery stores, Indonesians shop primarily in tiny corner stores or open-air markets. How can we create these channels for Heinz if they are not readily available locally? Does Heinz fund the ?tiny corner store or open air market facility? to meet shopping tradition?

??The third A stands for affordability. Heinz has realized condiments are a luxury buy in some emerging markets and not a necessity. How does the company change its packaging, ingredients, and delivered product to meet needed value? Pre-mix recipes, size and packaging have been analyzed and priced to fit consumer economic conditions.

Corporate real estate services continue to play a huge part in participating in cost reduction discussions and consolidations. As a real estate professional sits down with the executive team, the cost-reduction strategy relates to more than the real estate silo, but the reduction in cost translates to product innovation and affordable packaging.

With Heinz?s experience in mind, let?s think ?broad and wide? as we continue to create and implement new real estate strategies and solutions for our clients, both nationally and abroad.

Lisa Gardner, a former executive with both PepsiCo and J.C. Penney, heads up consulting and strategy development for OMS Strategic Advisors. Contact her at lisa.gardner@omsstrategicadvisors.com.

Source: http://realpoints.dmagazine.com/2011/10/lisa-gardner-ketchup-and-real-estate/

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