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Derby winner checks into Pimlico for Preakness

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May.9,2012

Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another reaches for horse therapist Tyler Cerin from a stable at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Monday, May 7, 2012. I’ll Have Another is expected to compete in Baltimore’s Preakness Stakes horse race on May 19. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another reaches for horse therapist Tyler Cerin from a stable at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Monday, May 7, 2012. I’ll Have Another is expected to compete in Baltimore’s Preakness Stakes horse race on May 19. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Horse therapist Tyler Cerin looks after Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another after arriving at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Monday, May 7, 2012. I’ll Have Another is expected to compete in Baltimore’s Preakness Stakes horse race on May 19. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another stands in a stable at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Monday, May 7, 2012. I’ll Have Another is expected to compete in Baltimore’s Preakness Stakes horse race on May 19. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another is led out of a trailer by foreman Benjamin Perez after arriving at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Monday, May 7, 2012. I’ll Have Another is expected to compete in the Preakness Stakes horse race in Baltimore on May 19. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

BALTIMORE (AP) ? Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another evidently loves traveling every bit as much as galloping on the track.

The chestnut colt arrived at Pimlico Race Course on Monday after being taken by charter plane from Kentucky to Baltimore. After the plane touched down, I’ll Have Another and five of his stable mates received a police escort from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to Pimlico, site of the Preakness on May 19.

“He loves to fly. His ears were pricked,” assistant trainer Jack Sisterson said. “We were getting a police escort and there were people in the streets chanting, ‘I’d love another.’ He knows that’s him. His ears were pricked and he’s bobbing his head, going, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’”

I’ll Have Another trainer Doug O’Neill had business in California, so Sisterson accompanied I’ll Have Another from Louisville.

It’s the earliest arrival by a Derby winner since Monarchos was shipped just four days after his 2001 victory.

“We discussed a few plans and we just thought the more time here to get used to the surface, the better for him,” Sisterson said. “Every trainer has a different training style. I suppose it’s better to get the horse used to the surface and things like that. So, he’s here now, and we’re excited to have him here for the two weeks.”

Instead of staying in Stall 40, the traditional Pimlico home of the Derby winner, I’ll Have Another was guided by groom Benjamin Perez into Stall 17 in Barn D ? next to the Preakness Stakes barn. He is positioned between two other horses trained by O’Neill.

For Team O’Neill, serenity was more important than tradition.

“I suppose it’s like a human. You want to try and get your rest,” Sisterson said. “If you’ve got 50 million people outside your bedroom, stopping and peeking every single day, you wouldn’t get much sleep, would you? I suppose being out of the way, getting him to relax and being himself, is better for the horse.”

I’ll Have Another won the Kentucky Derby as a 15-1 shot and became the first horse ever to win the Derby from the 19th post.

Now he’s got a shot at becoming horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

Sisterson said the team began thinking about the Preakness soon after the conclusion of the Derby.

“I suppose when you cross the winning line in first position, you’re, ‘Wow, we’re off to the Preakness now,’” Sisterson said. “Obviously you don’t want to jump ahead of yourself. You want to see how he comes out of the race and things like that. He’s doing fantastic. He’s eating everything.”

Those around I’ll Have Another couldn’t be happier.

“An absolute dream come true,” Sisterson said. “Words can’t describe the feeling. We’re excited about the horse.”

Associated Press

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Insane Rivalry (Great idea, but need some help)

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So my idea was kinda simple. You know all those shows that some of us watch? Anime, cartoons, even movies, and other stuff where the main character must fight an insane or twisted version of themselves? You know how 99% of the time they always win and your all like, “Yup, saw that coming…” Well, my idea is, the only reason those hero’s win is because they get some random power from there friends giving them some super form of final bad ass attack that destroys them all. Well, what would happen if all the bad versions worked together to take down their other selves?

So this is a list of what characters would be in it. I’m more on the anime side so I’m not too keen on evil superman… Ugh.

-Black Rock shooter – Insane Black Rock Shooter

-Bleach characters… Lol

-Naruto? – Nine tail version?

This is all I can come up with… But I really like my idea I just need more characters from random anime or something. So if you could list out some ideas down below that would great, hey, maybe even help me out as a GM when this pops up yes? Just a thought.

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Not all tumor cells are equal: Study reveals huge genetic diversity in cells shed by tumors

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Not all tumor cells are equal: Study reveals huge genetic diversity in cells shed by tumors

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The cells that slough off from a cancerous tumor into the bloodstream are a genetically diverse bunch, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have found. Some have genes turned on that give them the potential to lodge themselves in new places, helping a cancer spread between organs. Others have completely different patterns of gene expression and might be more benign, or less likely to survive in a new tissue. Some cells may even express genes that could predict their response to a specific therapy. Even within one patient, the tumor cells that make it into circulating blood vary drastically.

The finding underscores how multiple types of treatment may be required to cure what appears outwardly as a single type of cancer, the researchers say. And it hints that the current cell-line models of human cancers, which showed patterns that differed from the tumor cells shed from human patients, need to be improved upon.

The new study, which will be published online May 7 in PLoS ONE, is the first to look at so-called circulating tumor cells one by one, rather than taking the average of many of the cells. And it’s the first to show the extent of the genetic differences between such cells.

“Within a single blood draw from a single patient, we’re seeing heterogeneous populations of circulating tumor cells,” said senior study author Stefanie Jeffrey, MD, professor of surgery and chief of surgical oncology research.

For over a century, scientists have known that circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, are shed from tumors and move through the bloodstreams of cancer patients. And over the past five years, there’s been a growing sense among many cancer researchers that these cells ? accessible by a quick blood draw ? could be the key to tracking tumors non-invasively. But separating CTCs from blood cells is hard; there can be as few as one or two CTCs in every milliliter of a person’s blood, mixed among billions of other blood cells.

To make their latest discovery, Jeffrey, along with an interdisciplinary team of engineers, quantitative biologists, genome scientists and clinicians, relied on a technology they developed in 2008. Called the MagSweeper, it’s a device that lets them isolate live CTCs with very high purity from patient blood samples, based on the presence of a particular protein ? EpCAM ? that’s on the surface of cancer cells but not healthy blood cells.

With the goal of studying CTCs from breast cancer patients, the team first tested whether they could accurately detect the expression levels of 95 different genes in single cells from seven different cell-line models of breast cancer ? a proof of principle since they already knew the genetics of these tumors. These included four cell lines generally used by breast cancer researchers and pharmaceutical scientists worldwide and three cell lines specially generated from patients’ primary tumors.

“Most researchers look at just a few genes or proteins at a time in CTCs, usually by adding fluorescent antibodies to their samples consisting of many cells,” said Jeffrey. “We wanted to measure the expression of 95 genes at once and didn’t want to pool our cells together, so that we could detect differences between individual tumor cells.”

So once Jeffrey and her collaborators isolated CTCs using the MagSweeper, they turned to a different kind of technology: real-time PCR microfluidic chips, invented by a Stanford collaborator, Stephen Quake, PhD, professor of bioengineering. They purified genetic material from each CTC and used the high-throughput technology to measure the levels of all 95 genes at once. The results on the cell-line-derived cells were a success; the genes in the CTCs reflected the known properties of the mouse cell-line models. So the team moved on to testing the 95 genes in CTCs from 50 human breast cancer patients ? 30 with cancer that had spread to other organs, 20 with only primary breast tumors.

“In the patients, we ended up with 32 of the genes that were most dominantly expressed,” said Jeffrey. “And by looking at levels of those genes, we could see at least two distinct groups of circulating tumors cells.” Depending on which genes they used to divide the CTCs into groups, there were as many as five groups, she said, each with different combinations of genes turned on and off. And if they’d chosen genes other than the 95 they’d picked, they likely would have seen different patterns of grouping. However, because the same individual CTCs tended to group together in multiple different analyses, these cells likely represent different types of spreading cancer cells.

The diversity, Jeffrey said, means that tumors may contain multiple types of cancer cells that may get into the bloodstream, and a single biopsy from a patient’s tumor doesn’t necessarily reflect all the molecular changes that are driving a cancer forward and helping it spread. Moreover, different cells may require different therapies. One breast cancer patient studied, for example, had some CTCs positive for the marker HER2 and others lacked the marker. When the patient was treated with a drug designed to target HER2-positive cancers, the CTCs lacking the molecule remained in her bloodstream.

When the team went on to compare the diverse genetic profiles of the breast cancer patients’ CTCs with the cells they’d studied from the cell lines, they were in for another surprise: None of the human CTCs had the same gene patterns as any of the cell-line models.

“These models are what people are using for drug discovery and initial drug testing,” said Jeffrey, “but our finding suggests that perhaps they’re not that helpful as models of spreading cancers.” While the human cell-line cells did show diversity between each of the seven cell lines, they didn’t fall into any of the same genetic profiles as the CTCs from human blood samples.

These results don’t have immediate impacts for cancer patients in the clinic because more work is needed to discover whether different types of CTCs respond to different therapies and whether that will be clinically useful for guiding treatment decisions. But the finding is a step forward in understanding the basic science behind the bits of tumors that circulate in the blood. It’s the first time that scientists have used high-throughput gene analysis to study individual CTCs, and opens the door for future experiments that delve even more into the cell diversity. The Stanford team is now working on different methods of using CTCs for drug testing as well as studying the relationship between CTC genetic profiles and cancer treatment outcomes. They’ve also expanded their work to include primary lung and pancreatic cancers as well as breast tumors.

###

Stanford University Medical Center: http://med-www.stanford.edu/MedCenter/MedSchool

Thanks to Stanford University Medical Center 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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Apple Might Replace Your Broken iPhone 4 with an iPhone 4S [Apple]

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May.8,2012

If you bring your broken black iPhone 4 to the Apple Store, you might get a fresh iPhone 4S as your replacement phone. What?! Yep, because of supply constraints, many Apple Stores don’t have any black iPhone 4 units (16GB/32GB) in stock so they have been instructed by Apple to give customers an iPhone 4S instead. More »


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Aromatherapy, Therapy For The Senses | Health and Fitness

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Aromatherapy is a term used to describe the practice of employing essential plant oils to promote healing and balance in the mind and body. It is used in its traditional sense in spas and day spas across the world in order to promote balance and well-being. And in doing so help the person achieve a glowing complexion. How? Stress affects your skin negatively and relaxing melts away the aged look a person gets when he is being overwhelmed by life circumstances.

These essential oils stimulate your olfactory nerves, as the various smells of the oils enter your body, affecting the part of the brain that controls moods and emotions.

There is an array of scents used in aromatherapy, each with healing properties concentrated towards specific physical and psychological aliments. For example, lavender promotes relaxation and help to relieve tension and stress. Lemon refreshes and lowers stress levels by increasing serotonin, a feel good hormone directly linked with our moods. Peppermint and jasmine invigorates the senses, encouraging alertness.

Aromatherapy and essential oils can be used in a variety of settings, such as in the bath and during a massage. This is especially beneficial since the oils are not only absorbed through the nose, but through the skin. Therapeutic massage coupled with fragrant oils such as chamomile aid in increasing circulation and blood flow. Candles and diffusers distribute the scents throughout the day, and you can even sniff the oils directly by adding a drop to a scarf.

These healing oils are also useful as part of your daily skin care regime and can be found in some of the skincare products that you use. A toner, with Eucalyptus, for example can not only help your skin but the smell can dispel and balance your thoughts. Eucalyptus has numerous antiseptic properties and It also helps to increase circulation in the skin.

Some people use aromatherapy oils also as a way to balance and align their chakras. The word ?chakra? refers to the seven ?energy centers? ranging from the base of the spiritual column to the area above your skull. Many essential oil blends are formulated for the specific areas and energy centers in need of restoration. Aromatherapy sprays are great to mist around your head and body when you need a clear and refreshed mind.

With a balanced mind and relaxed sense of being, you are able to face the day with a clean slate and a restored sense of being.

Article source: http://ezinearticles.com/6654496

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Diabetes shrinks elderly brain

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ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) ? Elderly people with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes suffer from an accelerated decline in brain size and mental capacity in as little as two years according to new research presented at the joint International Congress of Endocrinology/European Congress of Endocrinology in Florence, Italy.

An Australian research team led by Associate Professor Katherine Samaras (Garvan Institute of Medical Research) found that the aging brain is vulnerable to worsening blood sugar levels even before type 2 diabetes is diagnosable.

While some brain volume loss is a normal part of aging, the researchers found that elderly people with blood sugar levels in flux, as well as type 2 diabetes, lost almost two and a half times more brain volume than their peers over two years. The reduction in size of the frontal lobe — associated with higher mental functions like decision-making, emotional control, and long term memory — has a significant impact on cognitive function and quality of life.

Diabetes is a very common disorder caused by high levels of sugar in the bloodstream. It affects 6.4% (285 million) of the worldwide population and is associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke and damage to the eyes, feet and kidneys. In type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90% of all cases, insulin — a hormone that allows cells to take sugar from the bloodstream and store it as energy — does not work properly. 344 million people also have pre-diabetes, a condition with mildly elevated blood sugar levels that gives them a 50% risk of developing the disease over ten years.

This research — a follow-up of 312 participants from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study — compared MRI scans taken from the beginning and end of a two-year period. The participants were elderly community-dwelling Australians aged between 70 and 90 years old (average age 78, 54% male) and free from dementia. At the start of the study 41% had pre-diabetes and 13% had type 2 diabetes.

At the end of the study the participants were divided into four groups: (1) those with normal, stable glucose levels (102 people); (2) those with stable pre-diabetes (120 people); (3) those whose glucose levels had worsened (57 people); and finally, (4) those with type 2 diabetes from the start (33 people).

The MRI scans showed that the normal group lost an average of 18.4 cm3 total brain volume over two years. In comparison, the stable pre-diabetic group lost 1.4 times more brain volume (26.6 cm3). Both the third group (worsening glucose levels) and fourth group (type 2 diabetes) lost 2.3 times the stable group’s brain volume loss (41.7 cm3 and 42.3 cm3, respectively).

The researchers — using statistical models that accounted for other variables — concluded that a person’s blood sugar status after two years can significantly predict their decline in brain volume.

Associate Professor Katherine Samaras, from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, said:

“These findings highlight the importance of prevention of diabetes. They also emphasise that, in the elderly, clinicians and allied health professionals need to understand that the complexity of diabetes care needs to accommodate expected declines in cognitive function.

“We need to understand why these changes in cognition and brain size occur. Is it due merely to higher blood sugars? Is the brain subject to the toxic effects of glucose, just as peripheral nerves are? To what extent do other factors associated with diabetes also contribute to the decline in brain size and function, for example inflammation or blood fat levels?

“We also need to learn how we can prevent or deter the negative effects of diabetes on the brain.”

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by European Society of Endocrinology, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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‘Avengers’ smashes opening-weekend record

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By Joal Ryan, E! Online

“The Avengers” is the new king of the opening weekend. The superhero movie grossed a unprecendented $200.3 million in its Friday-Sunday box-office debut, its studio estimated.

The film is the first to break $200 million in three days. It destroyed the mark held by the previous weekend record-holder, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”

MOVIE REVIEW: The Avengers Is Simply Super

“The Avengers” started out big–taking in $18.7 million in midnight screenings?– and got bigger: $80.5 million?for all of Friday; $69.7 million on Saturday, a new record for that day; and, a projected $50.1 million on Sunday.

The film easily bested the opening-weekend performances of the Marvel Studios movies whose hero-stars were assembled for “The Avengers: Iron Man” ($99 million) and “Iron Man 2″ ($128 million); “Thor” ($66 million); and, “Captain America” ($65 million).

It blew away even the superhero-record $158.4 million posted by “The Dark Knight,” and raised the bar considerably for the Batman franchise’s upcoming adventure, “The Dark Knight Rises,” due out July 20.

“The Avengers” made money the old-fashioned way: Everybody bought tickets.

The opening-weekend audience was evenly split between the young (under age 25) and the older (over age 25), polling data showed. It was watched by women (40 percent) almost as much as men. It worked as a date-night movie (55 percent of ticket-buyers were part of couples), and a family movie (24 percent were part of a family group).

And then there was perhaps the most quaint thing of all: People went to see it in 3-D.

The once-promising, then presumed-dead format represented slightly more than half of all ticket sales.

In IMAX, the movie grossed about $15 million, roughly tying it for that format’s biggest-ever opening weekend.

“IMAX had one big issue,” IMAX exec Greg Foster said in an email. “We ran out of seats to sell!”

The people who saw the movie liked the movie, and, if possible, liked it more than critics. The Joss Whedon-directed film was graded an A-plus by audiences.

After just over a week in release worldwide, “The Avengers” has grossed $641.8 million overall.

Elsewhere, there was no elsewhere. “The Avengers” outgrossed the weekend’s second-place movie, “Think Like a Man,” which held well all things considered, by 2,500 percent, and the new Kate Hudson movie, “A Little Bit of Heaven,” which averaged $894 at 11 theaters, by $200.3 million.

Here’s an Avengers-revised rundown of the top 10 all-time opening weekends, as compiled per BoxOfficeMojo.com stats:

“The Avengers,” $200.3 million
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” $169.2 million
“The Dark Knight,” $158.4 million
“The Hunger Games,” $152.5 million
“Spider-Man 3,” $151.1 million
“The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” $142.8 million
“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn–Part 1,” $138.1 million
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” $135.6 million
“Iron Man 2,” $128.1 million
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” $125 million

Did you see ‘The Avengers’ this weekend? Tell us what you thought over on Facebook.?

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Anger, sighs as 9/11 families watch terror hearing

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After watching Guantanamo court proceedings, Jim Riches, Fire Department of New York Deputy Chief and father of Jimmy Riches, an FDNY firefighter who was killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center, talks to the media outside Fort Hamilton in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Saturday, May 5, 2012, as he and families who lost loved ones in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks were able to enter the base and watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants via a closed-circuit broadcast. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

After watching Guantanamo court proceedings, Jim Riches, Fire Department of New York Deputy Chief and father of Jimmy Riches, an FDNY firefighter who was killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center, talks to the media outside Fort Hamilton in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Saturday, May 5, 2012, as he and families who lost loved ones in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks were able to enter the base and watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants via a closed-circuit broadcast. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

After watching Guantanamo court proceedings, Jim Riches, Fire Department of New York Deputy Chief and father of Jimmy Riches, an FDNY firefighter who was killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center, talks to the media outside Fort Hamilton in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Saturday, May 5, 2012, as he and families who lost loved ones in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks were able to enter the base and watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants via a closed-circuit broadcast. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

After watching Guantanamo court proceedings, Jim Riches, Fire Department of New York Deputy Chief and father of Jimmy Riches, an FDNY firefighter who was killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center, talks to the media outside Fort Hamilton in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Saturday, May 5, 2012, as he and families who lost loved ones in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks were able to enter the base and watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants via a closed-circuit broadcast. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

After watching Guantanamo court proceedings, Jim Riches, Fire Department of New York Deputy Chief and father of Jimmy Riches, an FDNY firefighter who was killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center, talks to the media outside Fort Hamilton in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Saturday, May 5, 2012, as he and families who lost loved ones in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks were able to enter the base and watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants via a closed-circuit broadcast. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Guards at Fort Hamilton, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, check vehicles as they enter the base Saturday, May 5, 2012. Families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, will be able enter the base and watch the arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that will be broadcast on closed-circuit TV to Fort Hamilton, Fort Meade, Md., and Fort Dix, N.J. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Lee Hanson became deeply angry as the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and co-defendants tried to undermine their arraignment on 3,000 counts of murder at a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hanson’s son, daughter-in-law and 2-year-old granddaughter, the youngest 9/11 victim, were killed in the terror attacks over a decade ago. All were aboard United Flight 175, the second plane to crash into the twin towers.

“They praise Allah. I say, ‘Damn you!’” said the silver-haired retiree from Eaton, Connecticut.

When it comes to justice, “it seems like it’s an afterthought,” said his wife, Eunice Hanson.

Moans, sighs and exclamations erupted Saturday as Hanson and other relatives of Sept. 11 victims watched the closed-circuit TV feed of the court hearing from a movie theater at Fort Hamilton in New York City. It was one of four U.S. military bases where the arraignment was broadcast live for victims’ family members, survivors and emergency personnel who responded to the attacks.

“It’s actually a joke, it feels ridiculous,” said Jim Riches, whose firefighter son, Jimmy, died at the World Trade Center. “It looks like it’s going to be a very long trial.”

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other defendants were arraigned on charges that include terrorism and murder, the first time in more than three years that they appeared in public. During the hearing, they generally refused to cooperate. At one point, one detainee leafed through a copy of The Economist magazine, then passed it to another. At other times, the defendants knelt in prayer.

About 60 people representing 30 families were in the theater at Fort Hamilton, where the military provided chaplains and grief counselors, Riches said.

Several people who viewed the proceedings said they had little sympathy for the defendants’ complaints about their treatment, given the brutality of the deaths of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and subjected to other measures that some have called torture.

“My brother was murdered in the cockpit of his airplane, and we will have to stand up for him,” said Debra Burlingame, who attended the viewing on behalf of her brother, Charles Burlingame, who piloted the jet that hijackers crashed into the Pentagon.

“They’re engaging in jihad in a courtroom,” she added.

The other bases providing feeds were Fort Devens in Massachusetts, Joint Base McGuire Dix in New Jersey and Fort Meade in Maryland, the only one open to the public.

At Fort Meade, about 80 people watched the proceedings at a movie theater on the base, where “The Lorax” was being promoted on a sign outside. One section of the theater for victims’ families was sectioned off with screens, and signs asked that other spectators respect their privacy.

Once the proceedings began, the spectators in the public section laughed at times, including when a lawyer indicated Mohammed was likely not interested in using his headphones for a translator and again, briefly, when one of the defendants stood and the judge said that kind of behavior excited the guards. But the crowd was quiet when the man began to pray.

Only about half as many spectators returned after a midday recess. Very few people were planning to go to the viewing site in New Jersey, a base spokesman said, and a reporter was turned away at the gates to Fort Devens in Massachusetts.

Six victims’ families chosen by lottery traveled to Guantanamo to see the arraignment in person. Others ignored the viewing opportunity altogether. Alan Linton of Frederick, Maryland, who lost his son Alan Jr., an investment banker, at the World Trade Center, said he and his wife put their names in the lottery for the Cuba trip but weren’t interested in watching a video feed of the arraignment.

“That’s just not the same as being there to me,” Linton said. “Going to Fort Meade, it’s kind of like watching television.”

Whether they watched or not, relatives were frustrated that it’s taken so long to bring the Sept. 11 conspirators to justice.

The administration of President Barack Obama dropped earlier military-commission charges against them when it decided in 2009 to try them in federal court in New York. But Congress blocked the civilian trials amid opposition to bringing the defendants to U.S. soil, especially to a courthouse located blocks from the trade center site.

Mohammed and the others could get the death penalty if convicted in the attacks that sent hijacked airliners slamming into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The trial is probably at least a year away.

But New York police Detective Marc Nell said the viewing at Fort Hamilton more than a decade after 14 men in his unit were killed brought a sense of satisfaction, “a great feeling.”

“It was a feeling of pride, being proud knowing that those guys were (being) brought to justice,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Meghan Barr and Karen Matthews in New York, David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Maryland, and Jessica Gresko in Fort Meade, Maryland, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Mali Islamists attack UNESCO holy site in Timbuktu

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May.7,2012

BAMAKO (Reuters) – Malian fighters from the Ansar Dine Islamist group attacked and burned the tomb of one of the town’s saints, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, residents and a regional official said on Saturday.

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The militants broke off doors, windows and wooden gates from the grave and burned them, they said, in the first reported attack on a shrine in Mali.

El Hadj Baba Haidara, an elected member of parliament from Timbuktu told Reuters some young people were discussing how to react despite being unarmed.

“There is a risk the people may revolt because this is something that affects their dignity. This tomb is sacred, it is too difficult to bear,” Haidara said.

Ansar Dine, along with Tuareg rebels and other armed groups, swept through northern Mali in March and April, seizing the northern half of the country and its ancient towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal after the government collapsed in a March 22 coup.

While the rebel MNLA has declared an independent state in the north, al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine – led by veteran Tuareg leader Iyad Ag Ghaly – has rejected that idea and said the group’s objective was to impose Islamic law in Mali.

In 2001, the Taliban dynamited and destroyed two 6th century statues of Buddha measuring 55 and 37 meters (180 and 121 feet) high, carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.

Timbuktu Muslims on their way to Friday worship at the tomb of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar and those of other saints were stopped and threatened by armed men from Ansar Dine, one resident said.

“What you are doing is haram! (forbidden). Ask God directly rather than the dead,” one of the armed men told the residents, according to Ahmed Ibrahim, a resident who witnessed the scene.

Some Islamists view shrines as idolatry but traditional Muslims, especially Sufis, see shrines as part of accepted Islamic custom. Salafists have attacked several Sufi shrines in Egypt and Libya in the past year.

“After uttering those words, three of them (armed men) entered the mausoleum, ripped and burnt pieces of white clothing that surrounded the tomb of the saint in front of everyone,” Ibrahim said.

Haidara told Reuters the act by the Islamist group could spark a violent reaction from the population, and that he had urged the U.N. body to help protect Timbuktu’s heritage sites.

“They attacked the grave, broke doors, windows and wooden gates that protect it. They brought it outside and burn it, because to build a tomb is contrary to the principles of Islam,” he said. The men said they would return to destroy other tombs.

No one at UNESCO was immediately available to comment.

“We have learned with indignation of the desecration of tombs perpetrated by lawless individuals. The government condemns in the strongest terms this unspeakable act in the name of Islam, a religion of tolerance and respect for human dignity,” Mali’s government said in a statement read on national television.

Timbuktu has 333 tombs of holy saints among which 16 are classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites including that of Sidi Mahamoud Ben Amar, a learned scholar considered the most sacred in Timbuktu, Haidara said.

The town has been a World Heritage Site since 1988 and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova in April appealed to the rebels to spare its “outstanding earthen architectural wonders”.

These include the Sankore, Sidi Yahia and Djingarei-ber mosques – the latter Timbuktu’s oldest, built from mud bricks and wood in 1325 – the famous manuscript libraries and the 16 mausoleums of Timbuktu.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

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DJ Platform Dubset Becomes Thefuture.fm, Doubles User Base To 100K

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TF_Logo_Long_WhitebgNaming your company Thefuture.fm is kind of a bold move. Sure, it’s fun at first, but if things go badly, you’re setting yourself up for lots of bad puns (“No future for Thefuture.fm,” etc.). Luckily, the site seems to be off to a good start. Founder and CEO David Stein says the service first launched about eight months ago as Dubset, which he now describes as a beta test. After refining and iterating on that initial version, the site relaunched on April 25 under its current, awesomer name. In the first three days after the launch, Thefuture.fm claims to have doubled its user base to more than 100,000.

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